So maybe the good old days weren’t always good. Particularly when days would last forever…
Even back at the beginning of the medium, videogames have continually utilized a timer system and/or day and night cycle. Many older gamers remember the first time they had to wait for a guard to leave his post at sunset, or when they were alerted that it would soon be a horrible night to have a curse. Brave Fencer Musashi utilizes a similar system once you get past the first “level”, and managing your time in this kingdom is an integral part of your adventure.
But sometimes things get a little too complicated.
Musashi’s first real challenge was scaling a mountain and fighting a skull-insect. The good news about outdoor activities is that, while they might be more annoying in the dark, a mountainside is always open. Our second significant challenge is a dungeon that has been excavated from beneath a restaurant. This makes things more complicated, as the restaurant is only open during certain hours. What’s more, these hours are strictly tied to the evening, and if you stumble out of that dungeon poisoned and in need of healing, you are going to have to wait for daylight until you can purchase an energy refill. After you’ve been topped off… welp, looks like you must wait for nightfall again, because that restaurant closed when the sun came up. And, I’m sorry, immediately after you complete the bulk of this dungeon, you have to go to church at exactly 2 AM? Brave Fencer Musashi, what kind of layabout do you take me for? If I wanted to spend all my time twiddling my thumbs waiting for the next big event to occur, I wouldn’t be burning my time playing a videogame!
In Brave Fencer Musashi’s defense, a lot is done to mitigate the timing issue. Sleeping is integral to the quest, and managing Musashi’s “tired meter” is a requirement that gives you ample reasons to fast forward the clock as a natural part of gameplay. Additionally, the majority of “timed events” seem to occur in the town area, and that is a perfectly safe place to spend some time at the inn, or sleep in the nearby fountain. Maybe you could occupy your time being productive, too. Go find some minku poop or a hidden bincho diamond while you have some downtime. After all, what is the point in having a whole, big world to explore if you can’t traverse it while you are waiting for the local eatery to open again?
But waiting for a door to open at an exact time does get old fast when you are trying to make progress…
This would not be the case for practically every game released on the opposite side of the 21st Century. Already by the time of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Link was employing music to speed the sun along. When we hit the much more time-based Majora’s Mask, the Hero of Time practically had a top ten list of time controlling ditties. Future games of all shapes and sizes would employ similar “spells” when time was a factor, or even forgo any illusion of gameplay, and add fast travel-esque options to switch day and night. Need to see this town under the cover of darkness right now? It is only a menu click away!
But we do lose a certain something when we don’t have to wait. When controlling the very concept of time is as easy as changing your hero’s equipment, you don’t experience the same weakness in the face of an uncaring universe. Musashi is just a little dude in an unfamiliar world, and he is subject to the whims and capriciousness of waiting for the vambees to come out and play. He has to wait, and you, player, have to wait with him. It is a bonding experience for you and your digital avatar.
But it is definitely a situation where this player enjoys modern conveniences.
Even Worse Streams presents Brave Fencer Musashi
Night 3
Original Stream Night: August 23, 2022
Random Notes on the Stream:
- Please enjoy the names and addresses of all our loved ones as we start night three with BEAT, fanboymaster, and Jeanie.
- Gaze in amazement at hot, sleeping action!
- Ample Vigour stops by and provides an excellent Soda Popinski impression.
- Oh! I relay the story about how I couldn’t pronounce “Cruz” when I was 12. Still sad about that!
- Continuing our Meatloaf discussion from a previous night, we’re back to talking about Jim Steinman.
- As I complete the first section of this enormous dungeon, we discuss the stupidest ways to be racist (which is already pretty stupid).
Ajvark shows up as we’re talking about Adult Swim getting new management. And now we have a jujitsu weather report.- Let’s discuss the handsomeness of Ernest P. Worrell.
- “Musashi, move your sad, poisoned ass.”
- Caliscrub joins as Musashi takes another nap in the fountain.
- Yay! Block pushing puzzles!
- As Musashi absorbs spirits, it is revealed that ham cubes are my favorite part of salad bars. I apologize for nothing.
- “Somehow this dungeon has lasted 800 million years.”
- Sidenote: Caliscrub is not in a church right now. Musashi will be later.
- Would Steve Urkel be into crypto? Would Stefan Urquelle? … Oh, hey, we earned the double jump.
- Brave Fencer Musashi is supposed to be a time loop for the legendary treasures and Musashi. That is just like Square likes it.
- And we finally get the water scroll as we discuss Tekken and rollback.
“Don’t fuck with me, Square. Between this and the Spirits Within, that’s why you’re Enix now.” I hate carrying bells, and I don’t care who knows it.- Relic Keeper, our boss of the night, is a geek according to Musashi.
- We close with Pooch making an excellent joke at the expense of whooping and there it being.
Next time on Brave Fencer Musashi: The Battle at the Beach
Back in the day, videogame stories were only available through their attendant instruction manuals. The manual for Donkey Kong Land opens with this plot excuse:
“So you’re saying that an adventure like your last one would be a success even on an 8-bit system, like… Game Boy, for example…” Cranky said slyly.
Against all odds, 
If you think you are going to make progress as a barreling ape in Donkey Kong Land, you are sorely mistaken. The pre-rendered, pea-green sprites of Donkey Kong Land are delightfully large and chunky, but that means there isn’t much screen real estate to actually maneuver. And, given your average Kremling exists exclusively to bonk into our heroic apes, this translates to a whole lot of damage incurred by lizards, vultures, and the occasional flying pig that will spawn right on top of our protagonists. And this limited space doesn’t only lead to reptile-inflicted injuries: Donkey Kong Land has a bevy of pits and moving platforms that would be passable on a larger screen, but are now all but unavoidable due to a complete inability to see what is below your monkey’s toes. Any way you slice it, unless you’ve been preserving your clairvoyance skills for 90’s Gameboy games, you absolutely cannot play Donkey Kong Land with any kind of speed.
And this is all such a tremendous shame because Donkey Kong Land did go the extra mile and create a new, separate experience from Donkey Kong Country in every other way that mattered. Donkey Kong Country was already a game loaded with ideas (your main hero could run, jump, and even swim!), but Donkey Kong Land added some interesting concepts that seemed to only exist within the confines of the Gameboy. Sunken ruins! Bosses that feature “counter” gimmicks! Nemo the whorly thingy! An entire level featuring some kind of weird “turn your K-O-N-G letters into platforms” dealy bopper! And some of the locales and features of Donkey Kong Land were later adapted to future Donkey Kong Country concepts. Gangplank Galleon and whole areas devoted to climbing around rigging got 
The Swirlwind is an excellent example of the issue here. This mobile, miniature tornado initially appears as a typical kongponent, but leaping on it will reveal that it is practically a mobile trampoline (or tire, as is proper to the gorillas). This can lead to some interesting level design, as the added height from a shifting (and potentially dangerous) object means a lot in a world where your playable character has jumps that are best described as “hefty”. And this is the kind of object/enemy/tornado that would appear in future Donkey Kong Country adventures to great success. But here? The screen is so limited, every time you get a perfect “high jump” off the whirlwind, you don’t know if you are going to be landing on solid ground ever again. And when they combine this moving object with its best friend, the moving platform, you are all but guaranteed to watch ape-death again and again. You can probably guess where it would be best to land, but odds are good that a Krusha or bottomless pit is waiting for you. And the end result here is that every time you see the Swirlwind, something that should guarantee a new and interesting challenge, you just sigh, because you know you are going to have a pile of gorilla corpses in front of you by the level’s end.
System: Gameboy initially, with full Super Gameboy support. It also saw rerelease on the Nintendo 3DS, which theoretically ups the odds it will appear to menace us again on the Nintendo Switch Online service.
Did you know? According to interviews, Paul Machacek of Rare advocated for Donkey Kong Land to be its own game (and not a simple port) due to the success of the original-to-Gameboy Battletoads game. This is the first I’m hearing about Gameboy 
You just can’t buy ‘em like this anymore.
Toys! Toys! Toys! Sells models of all the characters and monsters in Brave Fencer Musashi. If you want every last toy(s!), you have to return many times over many chapters to see the new unlocks and grab some of those all-important rarities off the shelves. If you want to “catch ‘em all”, you will likely have to plan your shopping expenditures over the course of the entire game. Your rewards for shopping at Toys! Toys! Toys! are action figures of every last model, and you can sell these figures for big bucks if you are a good little collector and do not remove any of these toys from their pristine packages. Or you can roleplay as the kid Musashi clearly is and play with ‘em in your bedroom. They’ll drop dramatically in value, but they are probably still going to fetch a buck or two on the Grillin’ version of eBay.
I completely flub into what is best described as a “screaming death”.
Let me blame my controller for why Musashi dies so, so many times.
Zelda, I’m really sorry you missed this one.