Brigadine is one such game.
While essentially a fairly solid hexagonal turned based Strategy-RPG with leveling and class promotion systems, Brigadine manages to surpass its trappings and elevate itself above other competing SRPGs by providing what few could at the time an Epic tale of a continent at war told through an open world format closer to sandbox style gameplay than anything else I've yet to see. Sandbox style gameplay in a SRPG? Yes, indeed it is true.
While I do not have the room to truly delve into every aspect of the game, I will highlight the main points below:
Pros
+ Can select from quite a few different Kingdoms to play at the beginning of the game each with own unique plotline, style, and beginning characters.
+ Sandbox style game means you have a different game every time!
+ Each unique, named character in the game comes with their own anime portrait and backstory. This helps a lot towards making you care about them and their growth in battle.
+ Questing system for named characters allows you to assign characters on a journey. The results of which can lead to plot points, powerful new items, new allies (named characters), or stat upgrades. There are lots of other results, I was just naming a few common ones.
+ Questing system makes for strategic decision making. Do I send a powerful hero or specific plot trigger hero out on a quest, or use them to fight another battle?
+ Great item system, lots of different equipment
+ Multiple tier class promotion system. I hate SRPGs that only allow a class to upgrade into ONE other class, regardless. Makes it feel like a cop out.
+ 3d animation is available for fight cutscenes. I turn them off usually for faster battles, but they are offered.
+ Magic is not all powerful, and is balanced right to be strategic but not necessary.
+ Great load times!
Cons
Limited AI. This is the PSX era. While good, it does fall pray to more straight forward tactics.
Multiplayer offerings are limited... this is PSX, so no internet play. This game would have further trasncended if they did offer it.
Wish there was a cooler intro movie.
Certain units are fairly useless or have narrow usefulness. While some may argue, this is my opinion.
Love the music, wish there was more though.
Sound effects are sometimes a bit... rudimentary. When I 1-shot kill something, a limp sounding hit will ruin my enjoyment. Sometimes it ends up being just funny though.
Misc
= Japanese version exists that allows you additional scenario and "final boss" of sorts. While normally I wouldn't mention this, there exists some plot resolution issues for those that do not know of or have access to this version.
= Hard to find game. Very expensive.
All in all, this is one I was very glad I picked up when I was younger. Every time I feel like going and playing out my own epic fantasy war (like after reading certain George RR Martin books, for example), this is the title I choose.
Not too hard to get in to and understand yet with enough RPG depth and Strategic depth to satisfy cravings of both, this game is a true overlooked Gem for any RPG or SRPG lover.
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This game is hands down the best strategy RPG ever made.The classes for humans and monsters are the most balanced you will ever find.
After a while you will get too good at winning this, and you can play a harder mode in which you let the computer control every battle. It's very enjoyable to see the decisions you make in building an army reflected in almost every way possible when you let the computer take over the battles.
Truly a masterpiece in strategy, with a few setbacks that don't hurt the game too much.
I have literally spent 500+ hours playing this.
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This is an old game, had it before and played it so much I gave it away. Now I have it again and I'm playing it too much.Honest reviews on Brigandine: Legend of Forsena
Not hard to beat at all if you are into it, even on hard mode. There are limited classes and units. The gameplay gets redundant after awhile. The music is good though. The learning curve is short. There is little tactics involved if you can build a good army. There are many underhanded way to kill and defend. For example, you should keep the hydra on water so it can heal itself to infinity. The graphic is terrible in 3D but awesome in 2D because it is hand-drawn.Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Brigandine: Legend of Forsena
Strategy games by their very definition usually mean that you're in for an in-depth experience that will challenge your brain cells. Not so with Brigandine. It doesn't have enough options to attract hardcore strategists, and it's too dull to draw neophytes to the genre. You select one of five kingdoms, differing only in geographical location and in initial Rune Knights (human characters with classes such as Witch, Druid, Berserker, etc.). The world map is divided into battlegrounds connected by roads, and you're given a certain amount of game time to take 'em all by force (except for those two kingdoms on the west coast that are all buddy-buddy). Each Rune Knight controls a squadron of monsters (which can be created and, occasionally, swiped from defeated enemies) which can increase in size as their experience level goes up. To conquer new territory, you can send 1 to 3 Rune Knights (one is suicide, two isn't much better) to a neighboring location in enemy hands and do battle. The fighting is done on large maps divided into hexigons and it's about as simple as can be. There aren't many spells to cast and the cardinal rule here is that whoever has the biggest, baddest monsters wins. When one unit attacks another, the game cuts to a battle scene where you see the attack and, sometimes, the counterattack in duller-than-a-bowling-ball 3-D. Mercifully, you can turn this option off to expedite the fighting. The "story" (such as it is) is told through dialogue boxes superimposed over the world map. At the end of the day, this game just doesn't try hard enough to draw the player in. It's a time-killer, nothing more. Fans of "grid" style strategy/RPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics (which happens to be my favorite video game EVER in spite of its occasional if-you-don't-have-the-right-skill-equipped-for-this-fight-you-are-utterly-screwed unfairness) may be drawn to it since this genre is not the most populist, but it's a limp-wristed production. Without the superfluous 3-D scenes, it could have easily been done on the Super NES rather than the PlayStation. Not a terrible game, but not worth the time required to finish it.
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