Samurai Legend Musashi (Sequal to "Brave Fencer Musashi?) announced.

[Zer0Soul]

"Square Enix announced a new PS2 action RPG called Samurai Legend Musashi, which will exhibited at E3. The game features toon-shaded graphics and a young samurai named Musashi as the main character. It is currently uncertain whether this is a sequel to Square's PSone action RPG Brave Fencer Musashi from 1998 or not." - The magic box

"Square Enix's Musashi Samurai Legend for PlayStation 2 -- not Samurai Legend Musashi as we originally believed, although the official logo reads that way from top to bottom -- is a pretty interesting mix of creative styles.

On the one hand, you have traditionalists from Square heading the development staff, producer Takashi Tokita and director Yoichi Yoshimoto. The former has bossed Square projects dating back to the company's earliest days, while the latter directed the original Brave Fencer Musashi on the PlayStation.

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On the other hand, you have the distinctive stamp of Tetsuya Nomura handling the character design, as he continues to top himself with ever more outlandish creations in each new game, the oddballs at Studio Gainax creating the animated cutscenes, and a theme song by an American rock band called the Surf Coasters. Their contribution, a tune called "Samurai Struck" that accompanied the trailer at Square Enix's pre-E3 press conference this evening, can only be described as exactly what you'd expect from a band called the Surf Coasters.

In short, this is not the Musashi of the Book of Five Rings, the "sword saint" revered as a Japanese cultural icon. He's a smirking youth in a tank top and a giant pair of cargo pants (modern fashion trends having somehow made their way into this fanciful rendition of the 16th century), with a massive hairstyle governed by no known laws of physics.

His game looks like a good time, though. Unlike the original Musashi, Samurai Legend switches to a lower, behind-the-back perspective on the character, following him more than the environment. The new camera system helps show off much bigger and more impressive environments, reminiscent as mentioned before of Jak II.

Yoshimoto calls the game's graphical style "manga-shading," to set its softer, smoother, heavily outlined look apart from the flashier, more reflective cel-shading of other games. Whatever it's called, it suits Nomura's designs very well -- in 3D, they're much more faithful to his original artwork than the simple Gouraud-shaded 3D models in the PlayStation game. The added detail made possible by the PS2 graphics engine naturally suits his fondness for excessively accessorizing his characters, too.

Samurai Legend's combat system evidently builds on its hero's two-sword style, with more complex attack combos using each sword independently and concluding with keen tate scenes, a la Shinobi. The new-school Musashi can also steal his opponent's attack maneuvers, learning new fighting tactics as the game progresses, and carry some friendly NPCs piggyback to clear critical puzzles and deal with other objectives. Combat isn't the only challenge in the game -- bits of the trailer also featured some forward-scrolling platform chases and a 360-degree bumper-car race down an enclosed tunnel.

We'll be able to play Samurai Legend on the E3 show floor later this week, so expect a full report once we get our hands on it. The finished version is on its way to North American store shelves this winter. " - 1up

[DarknessTear]

Yeah I've been talking about this on Magic Box forums, apparently Brave Fencer Musashi has a lot of haters. Mainly people who can't play a game that isn't slow paced. They said it was kiddy but the fact is that it was more grown up than any Zelda game, I can tell you that much. Also, this news makes me a very happy person. I hope they make this game as fun as Brave Fencer Musashi and also make things better, like better voice acting.

[Zer0Soul]

The ironic part is the same people who hate BFM, are the ones who praise Thread of Fate. BFM is the spiritual successor to ToF. I thought ToF had a much more child like story to it.

While, I admit BFM's gameplay was not as refined. I found it to be a very enjoyable game and tale. Many people knocked on it's graphical style, I found it to be very neat and original. I think I am personally, going to play through it again now, especially if this is a sequal.

[Frostmourne]

i like the anime style of the the game. i really enjoyed brave fencer musashi on my PS one. though i really doubt if its better than Zelda OoT. games like this and Legend of Mana were a refreshing change from the overload of FF styled RPGs. lets see how it does when it comes out.

[MaZa]

Nice looking Game.

Little Off topic post, but i have always wondered, why its called 'FENCER' Musashi...? Isnt Fencer a RAPIER user? Im 100% you dont call Katana or Long Sword user a fencer, but swordsman or kendoka or anything depending on sword he uses...

[Zer0Soul]

They're a few interpreation's on why it was called Fencer.

1. The original preview movies for the game as well as inital idea was for Musashi to use a more fencing style of fighting. In the end this was of course changed. They wanted him to be more like the other popular samurai at the time. Kenshin.

2. The original story or idea of Musashi in culture has something to do with it. (can't remember full details)

3. The naming comittee was high and watching pbs.

[MaZa]

I doubt the the second one since i believe the name Musashi is taken from master swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, (who used katana and wakizashi same time two handedly) so theres no way he could be called fencer...