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Musashi no Bouken Review
There were some NES RPGs Nintendo of America refused to touch, and with good reason. There are just some "Too-Japanese" games that never would fare well here under any circumstances, even when pop culture deems it as "hip"(which they've yet to do, and probably never will). Then again, we somehow managed to get "Destiny of an Emperor" to reach U.S. shelves, but who are we kidding? Demons, Tanukis, and sex-starved Samurais in training make up yet another of these offbeat titles, forming something called Musashi no Bouken.
Basically, Musashi is some Japanese video game company's attempt at cashing in on the dawn of popular RPGs that was 15 years ago. It's Dragon Quest, with Samurais and Cones. And it's painfully obvious.
Graphics. While not exactly... impressive, by most standards these days, at all, I don't have any complaints. I've always been a huge fan of the graphics style of yester-year, where characters are super-deformed, pixelated sprites and maps are basic. But, everybody knows that. I ramble about it enough. The towns have an Oriental feel to them instead of the typical Medevil hoopity-hoo. But that's because this game isn't set in Medevil times. Right, I'll shut up now. 9/10.
 Gameplay. You walk around, kill things, get stronger, and proceed to new places you couldn't go to before when you weren't stronger. Nearly idenical to Dragon Quest's style, except there seems to be a bit less of a challenge and a smidgen more emphasis on plot-related nonsense and adventuring, which makes me wonder why NOA never bothered porting it when at the time that's why alot of whiny gamers weren't touching Role-Playing Games: too boring. Come on, Americans couldn't have been that scared of a horny Samurai kid and his pet Mystical Tanuki, could they? 8.5/10.
Plot. Kojiro, a Super Villain Musashi's father apparently did battle with and said "you won't get away with this!" many a time to, comes back from the dead in ghost form with some nice Demons to wreck havoc on the countryside. So Musashi has to set out and defeat the guy, of course, and in the meantime moderately try to get himself some, even though he has a girlfriend back at his village that he's supposed to marry when he kills Kojiro. Boy is she gonna be happy. I have to admit, it's a bit more lively then the standard "GUY IS HERE PLEASE SAVE US AND THE PRINCESS" deal that was passed around more than Britney Spears backstage at a concert at the time. 8/10.
 Sound. A bit of an improvement over the original DQ's music, with slightly-improved sound effects. Hey, it's almost a direct copy of the thing-- what else could it possibly be compared to? Besides, there's nothing more to say about it anyway, as I hardly pay attention to the tunes in an RPG such as this, even though it blares through your ears a million times. 7/10.
Replay Value. I see no reason to play entirely through this once again, ever. Just like... Dragon Quest. Yeah, sorry. 3/10.
Final Thought/Overall Rating
Although it's essentially an intended cashcrop during a time when the new Japanese RPGs were extremely trendy in(guess where?) Japan, it's a good game. Maybe that's just because I play RPGs like a Japanese Gamer now, and enjoy sitting around for hours leveling up a character for no good reason. Perhaps. 8.5/10.
-Grand Master Dragon
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