There are many famous clichés in so-called jRPGs (Japanese role playing games), to the point where it seems you could automate the entire process of building one and come up with a passable game (indeed, the Legend of Heroes games, aside from having titles that sound like they were generated by the 'name-o-matic', feel on whole like they could have been made without any human assistance). Give a kid a tragic cause and a loud friend, then send him off to conquer the root of all evil, battling thousands of mice and delivering bread all along the way.

To be honest, that is exactly what I was expecting from Brave Story: New Traveler and even after actually starting to play the game, it all seemed very familiar. The slacker hero with the friend who gets in trouble - wait, didn't I just play this on my DS? But then something happened - I discovered an amazing story full of wonderfully drawn characters that will drag you all around the map right to the very end of the story. There are still more than a few clichés to contend with, but they won't seem so bad because you really want to make it through the next boss battle and on to the next town to see what plot twists and turns await. As you reach the end, you will realize that you have just finished the best RPG to hit the PSP so far!

You play as a young boy named Tatsuya who's a bit of a slacker - he's out with his friend Miki, supposedly walking her dog, but he is so busy playing his PSP that he can't be bothered with anything else. So when the dog takes off and Miki goes off after it, Tatsuya doesn't realize that anything is going on, until the dog returns and leads him to Miki, who is lying unconscious by the side of the road. Tatsuya rushes her to the hospital but no one can figure out what is wrong and she is deteriorating fast. Tatsuya is terribly distraught, but then a mysterious voice comes to him, telling him of a place and a way that he can get his deepest wish granted, opening up a gateway for Tatsuya to enter, and thus begins his journey! Tatsuya lands in a place called Vision and is soon identified as a Traveler; now he needs to make a long journey and prove his worthiness to get his wish granted by battling through trials in the land and helping others along the way.

This where the game fills up with some fairly typical stuff - you need to collect several gems by defeating bosses, the basic story unfolds town after town after town, and you will be inundated by thousands of random battles all along the way. The gems tie you back into the real world so you can glimpse Miki in her hospital bed and get little tidbits of the story in progress while you are away. If you have ever played a tradition Japanese RPG on any console then you know how to get started here - watch a few cut scenes, run around linearly until stuff happens, watch more scenes, run around a bit more and then get launched into a series of local maps that end up in a larger overworld map to take you to the next set of small local maps. It would be easy to dismiss this all as yet another game in the Final Fantasy mold - linear quest from town to town with random battles and level grinding and so on. But it Brave Story is so much more than just that…

Technically the game is solid throughout and truly excellent in places - the graphics have a wonderful style that mixes anime, modern Japanese RPG designs and Batman. Batman? Yep - when you hit things in battle you get an oversized "Blam!" or "Clang" on the screen, in full color! This accompanies character models that are extremely detailed and wonderfully realistic (within their own realm, of course) and environments and dungeons that are varied and nicely drawn. Battles show close ups on all of the characters - and they look every bit as good in battle as they do during cut scenes. The effects are also extremely well done; skills, extra and unity attacks each have nice special effects that look stunning on screen and none of it slows the system down - there is no noticeable lag or stuttering, nothing to pull you out of the experience. This includes the load times; it is reasonable to expect that such detailed and varied graphics would lead to prolonged load times, but this isn't the case. Loads for the various zones are perhaps ten to fifteen seconds and feel entirely acceptable. The soundtrack, sound effects and voices are all very well done and complement the visuals and story - but there is no getting past the fact that this is one of the best looking games on the PSP and that the load times don't suffer as a result.

The combat system is another enigma; if it was a recipe then it would read "start with the same ingredients every other cake uses, then 'add stuff' and come up with the best cake you've ever tasted." Okay, this isn't the best battle system you've ever experienced, but even if you have recently played other Final Fantasy inspired turn-based battle games (or even the Anniversary releases of the first two Final Fantasy games themselves) then you will still be very pleasantly surprised at how much fun you'll have in battles. The core is the very familiar system - initiative-based turns where you and your allies face off against enemies on a separate battle screen, getting options of what actions to take when it's your turn. A couple of really nice features hit you fairly early on - the battles move quickly and your character can level up mid-battle. The speed of battles is a big deal too; when you're going to face hundreds of random battles over the course of a game then waiting around forever for those battles to resolve is a major drag on your enthusiasm. Fortunately, there's a nicely tuned system that speeds things along while still having plenty of animations and great looking moves. The ability to level up mid-battle seems odd until you gain a new skill of Bravura attack or Unity attack that allows you to wipe out a tough foe.

However, variety is the spice of life and so it's not enough to have quick battles with pretty animations repeated over and over and over again. This is where all of the special moves come in - each character gains Bravura, special attacks or magic spells used for offense of defense. The most obvious are healing spells and power attacks, with increasing power in the Bravura skills costing more and more Brave Points, a rough equivalent to mana. One important difference between Brave Points and mana is that Brave Points are gained by dishing out damage to your foes in battle. Depending on the effectiveness of an attack, you gain back your points based on a multiplier. For example, if you have 25 remaining Brave Points out of 30 and use an attack that requires 5 points, which will obviously leave you with 20 points (I'll leave the proof of math concepts for the reader to do as an exercise!) However, if you hit effectively, perhaps even with a critical hit, you might get a 'BP Multiplier' of 2.0, meaning that you gain 10 Brave points back, completely refilling your meter back to its maximum of 30.

Unity Attacks are learned through an affinity gained between two or more characters by battling together. These also require Brave Points to execute from all characters involved in the attack, but only the character that initiates the attack gains back any points as a result. Another unique feature of unity attacks is that they only count as an action for one of the characters, so if you have all three characters involved in the attack, you can still use separate attacks for the other two and the unity attack for the third, resulting in a potentially devastating round. Bravura skills tend to consist of fairly standard attacks and defense spells, but some of the Unity attacks are things like Bug Stomper that devastates all critter-like enemies on the field. I'm not exaggerating when I say that a single unity attack can turn the tide of some particularly tough battles, nor is it an exaggeration to say that a poorly timed unity attack can seriously deplete your Brave Points and leave you extremely vulnerable.

You might be confused at this point, wondering why I've spent so long gushing about the combat system after saying that what really distinguishes this game is its charming story and characters. Don't worry though - I'm getting there! The story itself starts slow and highly clichéd as I mentioned before, but it forms a nice foundation and builds quickly and consistently into something much more engaging and enjoyable as it progresses. This is not some grand-scale tale of subterfuge and intrigue, although there are twists and turns throughout the tale. Nor is it the most gut-wrenchingly emotional epic ever told, although the gradual catharsis is thoroughly satisfying. Perhaps it is the loose and whimsical feel to much of the story, or the laugh-out-loud moments (of which there are many), or even the minor insights that play off of some of that humor that make them even more poignant. There are so many little things that just feel right in the story that you can forgive all the things done wrong.

There is a striking example early in the game - you have to rescue a son who has wandered off and you encounter the father, who is beside himself with grief and fury over his son. But as soon as the rescue is complete, there is about a thirty-second discussion about the boy needing more independence and then the father joins your party to travel the world forever. An even more egregious one happens later when one character says he cannot leave, but then pretty much immediately joins up with you and leaves everything behind! Everything is explained away in terms of the impact that Travelers have in Vision, how joining up to help can help everyone else as well and that it's important to all that the Traveler sees their quest through successfully. This is fine, but it still feels like a cheap way to explain some plot inconsistencies.

Most role-playing games have a few memorable characters who captivate you and make you yearn to follow the story, and are then filled out with generic characters who could just as soon be called 'NPC114' for all you care about their existence. Once again, Brave Story distinguishes itself here - early on you meet a few characters who are very well drawn and described, making for truly intriguing characters, yet they are actually minor characters who are only present for a few minutes of play. For a while you'll likely think "I'm sure they'll be back, otherwise why would they have been so interesting?" Then you will realize that every character is interesting, and every character motivates you to learn more about them, to either like or dislike them through their actions and dialog. The main characters are truly wonderful and really suck you into the adventure; while at first the silent protagonist and loudmouthed but goodhearted sidekick might seem trite, but there is such a warmth and strength of personality given to these characters that you will shrug off any cliché behavior and embrace their quirks and clever remarks alike.

It's more than just the story and characters that make Brave Story so charming though; I've gushed about the characters, the visuals, the battle system and the dialog and sounds already, but it's how it all comes together that makes the difference. You don't feel like you are meandering the world map looking aimlessly for stuff that was poorly described in order to force you into random encounters, but rather these random encounters and world events seem to fold naturally into the overall experience. It is part of how the game is expertly paced - I know I've harped on about the speed of battles, but I cannot stand when 90% of a battle is the intro and concluding animations (I'm looking at you, Final Fantasy III on DS!) Brave Story has a long tale to tell, but it doesn't seem intent on wasting your time - quick load times, battles that last just the right amount of time, travel in and out of town that's quick enough to avoid feeling tiresome and an interface that invites you to constantly try new things without ever penalizing you for your exploration. There is even a fun optional mini-game: Bird Battles. You can go to certain locations and capture birds, then when you meet others so inclined you can engage in lighthearted battles - don't worry though, these aren't pit-bull fights and none of the birds actually get hurt! It's a fun diversion but you can skip it altogether if you want.

But nothing is perfect, right? Unfortunately that is true here as well - but the good thing is that all I have are quibbles, not complaints. I have talked about some of the storytelling inconsistencies already, but the general need to fit everything into the confines of a generic Final Fantasy style RPG definitely make you feel boxed in occasionally, particularly with regard to characters. While the characters are charming and well conceived, their motivation to join you, stop you, challenge you, give you quests and so on often feel extremely contrived. Once you get past that introduction everything is fine, but it does get annoying at times. Also, the very fact that this is a generic jRPG creates limits - if you have failed to level up enough in one area then you will hit random encounters a lot until you are deemed ready for things to slow down a bit. Finally, for a game that takes its time doing most things, your visits back to the real world feel extremely short and you are only given hints as to what has been happening. I would have loved to spend more time there with each visit and seen more things, but perhaps that is more an indicator of how much more I wanted to engage the story rather than a flow in the presentation.

Brave Story: New Traveler is the best RPG so far on the PSP. Feeling fresh and familiar while hitting all the right notes in terms of technical details and storytelling, it's a memorable experience that has dozens of hours of fun ready for any Traveler ready to take on the challenge. If you have a PSP then it would be a shame to miss this one - apparently it hasn't sold well in Japan and has had little publicity in the rest of the world, so it's up to PSP owners to grab this one up and spread the word! Oh, and one last thing - amongst the items in the game is The Legendary Rod of a Forgotten Idol, which is called ... the Sanjaya Staff!

Reviewed by Michael Anderson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).