Brave Fencer Musashi

1998, age 16


This game represented a growing-up moment for me in terms of how I perceived games.  I somehow developed this notion as a child that a game on one console always had an equivalent game on another console.  I do not know where I developed this logic, but it was a basic assumption I held for ages.

I was looking for something Zelda-ish on the Playstation, and picked this up as a rental thinking it might be a good bet.  Afterall, it had a sort of cartoony sword-wielding character in a fantasy setting.  The gameplay, of course, was entirely different - a tunnel-ish linear path with no deviation.  I was bummed, but this game taught me two things:

1. No, games aren't guaranteed parallels across consoles
2. When I thought I wanted something "zelda-ish," I immediately thought of setting, character, and aesthetic.  Playing this game taught me that what I really wanted was a sort of open-world gameplay with lots of side quests.  I think after this experience, I started thinking about games more in terms of how they played instead of how they looked.