Brigida

Brigida is a fantasy side scrolling side-scrolling platformer made in RPG Maker 2003 by PianoTm using the 4EVER system created by Ashes of Emerald. The game was made for the three weeks Theme Roulette 4 event.
But let's not delay this review and let's start this fantastic adventure with the story.


These ninjas are your basic enemy, not too hard to defeat, but damn, those dancers distracted me and Brigida was hit!

Like in the typical old fantasy arcade games of the 80-90's the story starts with a peaceful realm, here called Mystria, under the menace of a powerful warlord (not unlike Death Adder, the WarDuke or others "big armored evil guys"), the evil Samurai Lord. This bad guy makes the bad move of attacking the village of Brigida and kidnap her daughter. Too bad for him that Brigida is a sort of Red Sonja (or Tyris Flare if you played Golden Axe), a fiery battle maiden with a sharp sword and a great skill with it.

The game is, as mentioned before, a fantasy platformer, so expect to move around, jump obstacles (end ememies) and swing the sword to kill ninjas and other opponents and servants of the Samurai Lord. Brigida has a life bar that can be replenished collecting the potions scattered around, failing to heal and getting to much damage
Brigida will die, but luckily she has more than one life and after killing enemies and completing levels she will earn more. I admit due to this I found the game to be rather easy, and it can be also completed in a single sitting, even if there is the welcomed option to save without restrictions.


Not even the depths of Hell will stop Brigida! But mind that the bosses (that I will not show you!)aren't exactly wimps as their goons!

Well to tell the truth there are some parts that proved quite challenging: the obligatory boss fights, since a couple of them required some strategy and quick timing, just slashing with the sword is not enough, while it works efficiently against the more common enemies. The boss enemies are three as the levels, that are quite linear (you go from left to right jumping to avoid the occasional gap), except maybe for the last one, a bit more complex (it has different levels, changes of directions and so on).

To tell the truth the game isn't exactly linear because of the world map: levels can be revisited and at a certain point to progress and unlock the final parts you have to find a particular artifact. But I won't say anything else or I'll finish with telling you the whole story!

Graphically the game uses scenarios created using the good old White Screw resources pack, but it's noteworthy the fact that instead the character sprites (and faces) are custom and they merge pretty well with the rest (come on, look at those pictures! They look good don't they?), giving a distinct style to the game. The music is also all original, made by the developer like the other custom assets, and hey, they are both very good! The music has a particolar "sword and sorcery" feel that I appreciated particularly!


Ok Brigida, this is the end of the review, get ready to face me, the author, in the...

... Final Verdict!
Ok, for here we are for the final round: Brigida is a perfect game? No. Is it enjoyable? Yes! Since it's explained that this was both an entry for a contest developed in a short time AND a test demo, I will rate it like that. It's surely a short but complete game that may become a prototype or a base for a longer and more complex game, because despite the use of an engine not particularly made for action games, it's a good final result.

Clearly some parts are a bit rough: the ninja movements are stiff, and I also experienced a glitch on the main map where the indicator of postion became invisible (after speaking to the priest in the temple). But probably the greatest flaw of the game is the difficulty, terribly easy, and I am not a good player at all! But clearly most of these problems are due to the few time available and to the limitation of the engine (that I also mentioned during the review of other action games).

This game was a bold move, and the result was pretty good especially in some particular aspects, it's also a throwback to the old (barbarian) fantasy games series of the past, from Golden Axe to Rastan, Torvak the Warrior, Unreal (NOT the pc one!) and so on. So maybe this is the reason why I enjoyed it so much despite its status of unrefiniment. It's good!Farewell!