I've played through what I THINK is most of it, so for anyone on the fence, here's the rundown.
PLUS:
+Graphics WOW
+Fun Characters
+Good Localization
+Character and Monster Design. I do admit Tatsuya, Rei, and Yuno's designs are arguable but Meladee, Ropple, Sog, and all the bosses n monsters rock.
+Battles are fast/Mechanics are Solid but they should be cause they are very traditional.
+Leveling up is stupid fast.
MINUS:
-Main Quest IS kinda boring even if characters are not. Need more character driven stuff.
-Side Quests get really bad support, logistically speaking. Quest Book kinda useless.
-Where are my dungeon maps? Especially in larger dungeons, or dungeons with samey corridors I kinda wandered a bit.
-Games pretty easy. Yuno's paralyze spell and null status effect 3 round spells are overpowered and even the weakest healing spells heal too much lol.
-Battles are fast, but not fast enough to compensate for the frequency of encounters, especially when im lost.All that being said, this IS the best
ORIGINAL RPG on PSP, even if its not exactly what all RPG fans with a PSP were looking for. Contenders are mostly ports, with the latest Tales game being one of the other few original RPGs on the PSP. Even so Tales doesn't quite offer the same experience, and in my opinion feels like a bunch of fetch quests that exist in the skeleton of the next Tales game
But really there are a lot of little overlooked things that made the choice to explore the game beyond the main path. I mean the side-quest support just sucks. The quest book is lame and useless and I cant find a dungeon map to save my life. The only real support I get is the R button that tells me where the next stop of the MAIN quest is.
The characters are a lot of fun, and because this is an easy game its almost worth the time spent to hang around this group of adventurers for a while. The localization is great and that really goes a long way in supporting the fun conversations that take place and the stupid little moments the game seems to capitalize on more than its actual main story. I do think I have a kind of soft spot for a fun ensemble cast, which is why my personal tilt will shove this game into the B- range, but for most people I think they'll find the experience less than excellent and pretty predictable, even if its a 'solid' effort on a platform sorely lacking original RPGs.
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, I give Brave Story a
C+. If you factor in my personal taste i'd give it a
B-.
