Brave Prove [ブレイヴ・プローヴ] Game Sample - Playstation

Channel:

Vysethedetermined2

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Published on June 29, 2019 8:00:19 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmHfUmH4ScU

Game:

Brave Prove (1998)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 1:22:38

3,230 views

43

Whelp, it's been fun... here's this run's last Japanese Playstation title for now: Brave Prove! It was the last title ever released from the somewhat prolific development team over at "Data West" in 1998 (who are not affiliated with Data East), and has telltale signs of a company that was giving their last desperate plea for help: 6800 yen price tag, monochrome (read: not colorized) manual, limited quantities, a troubled development history (first appearing on a D6 demo without finalized assets and a two and a half year window of development hell), no voice acting, and a finished product which some would consider top-tier on the SNES/SFC, but not the Playstation... it wouldn't be a stretch to think that the game started development on a simpler platform (it wouldn't be the first PS title... here's looking at you, Punky Skunk). For what it's worth, the game is a respectable looking and sounding game, especially from a company almost exclusively known for their Visual Novels and Adventure titles, but with low aggregate scores and GameFAQs' notorious "Unforgiving" difficulty rating, I had to grab this one out of storage and give it a closer look. For those curious, the full title of the game is "Brave Prove: Ars Traveled On An Adventure to Regain the Light of Shina's Heart..."

Eons ago, the goddess Ortia saved the world from the spiraling torrent of chaos by utilizing the four mighty elements of nature: Fire, Water, Wind and Earth, to provide balance to the two cardinal forces; hope and despair. Ortia derived a crystal of light and dark from these forces and bound them to a shrine in the land of Melfara where it remained undisturbed for many years. However, fate has other plans in store, as this tale is about a band of thieves known as the "Wild Fangs", with their boss, Fang, who has been searching for the legendary crystals for years to get rid of the imbalance of chaos in the world created by human desires with the power of light, but they hit a roadblock without any leads... until they finally find it, and his daughter, Shina, is the key to unearthing it. Doing so sets a series of events in motion that is comparable to pandora's box... and renders Shina all but incapacitated. As Ars, the 15-year-old fledgling bandit hero (and love interest to 16-year-old Shina), you will take over the mantle as the Wild Fangs representative and search the land high and low to uncover the mysteries of Melfara and save her. It's overall a rather simple plot, and the game doesn't have much in the way of dialogue.

It draws many parallels to Sega's "Legend/Beyond Oasis" (or "The Story of Thor") including elemental acquisition and the various beat-em-up combos and move executions, which is always a good thing, though the controls are a bit unresponsive. There are simple puzzles to solve as well with a few tools (a "Power Glove" to push rocks, "Hook" to grapple across gaps and "Catapult/Crossbow" to shoot arrows and launch bombs), an over abundance of treasure to find with most enemies having item drops (nothing too diverse, but they can replenish your restorative items and tools), and an experience / leveling system. Additionally, as you gain the elements' favor, you can level up their abilities a bit and use their powers to solve puzzles too, and you'll eventually find a Blacksmith who can upgrade your sword's strength with ore.

Looking at this video, you'd think it's anything but unforgiving in the difficulty department; with few exceptions, combat is easy (in a few segments, I get hurt on purpose), but that's not why this game is hard... it's hard because it has some of the most convoluted dungeon designs ever put into a video game; identifying your objectives is fairly straightforward, but there are so many twists and turns along the way that it's very common to wind up in areas that look exactly the same only for them to be different screens, and while the game world gives the illusion of many "optional" areas to explore, the reality is that they're basically mandatory, unless you want to handicap your stats and hit an enemy fifty times when it should take five or six hits to kill. The reason is due to the weapon upgrade system -- in the very beginning, you can purchase weapons, but once Shina is out, you take her sword which requires regular upgrades just to stay competitive. It also doesn't help that as you level, enemies give less experience, so you can't stay in one area for too long. Still, if you actually "look" at the maps, they ARE logically connected, which is kind of a feat in and of itself, so I'll just chock it up as a way to artificially extend an otherwise short game (seven hours or so for everything). Overall, it's an interesting conversation piece and perhaps the closest you'll get to the Oasis/Thor games on Playstation. The most interesting aspect of this game is perhaps that there are VERY little load times.

This is a video through the first area as well as some elemental action. Enjoy.