Released in November 1998, Brave Fencer Musashi follows a hero, Musashi, who is summoned by Allucaneet's princess, Fillet. The quest involves Musashi collecting the five scrolls to stop the evil Thirstquencher Empire, ruled by Flatski. This game teaches a valuable lesson: never starve your employees while making a game, or else they'll rebel by naming most of the characters and places after food and drinks.
Best time: 4:06 by Matt 'Deadstick' Johnson on 2007-08-24, done in 31 segments.
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Brave Fencer Musashi, a tale of a hero summoned to fight off the evil Square executives for starving their employees while creating this game. As a result, Musashi goes on a quest for the five scrolls, only finding out Square wanted to end the employee rebellion by making sure Dark Lumina is released from Lumina. However, at the end, Musashi defeats Dark Lumina and tells the Square executives how unethical it is to starve their employees. The Square executives learned their lesson, and even allowed the employees to name things in the game after food and drinks.
Instead of napping to decrease tiredness, I decide to buy mints that decrease Musashi's tiredness while in the middle of a segment. It saves having to wait till Musashi's tiredness is down to 20%. Also, getting the L-glove is better than L-quilt, since L-quilt is no longer needed once you go to Soda Fountain. Not that it matters, since you can decrease tiredness to 0% with mints instead of sleeping. At least with L-glove, you always increase your chances of getting a critical hit.
Now onto the segments:
Assimulate gunshot. It's required. Not only do you need it to shoot down the one logs and the one bell, but it makes faster work than fusion in destroying statues.
Steam Knight is pretty much self-explanitory.
Despite mainstream belief, you can skip Ribson's mindless blabbering about stuff you already know by just mashing start, X, and O.
Knock on the mayor's house, and rob him! Okay, you don't. But after his house, I decide to rescue a few people. Lumpwood is essential since you can't enter Twinpeak Mountain without him.
I gain all the money I need for the entire run in this segment. Poor Macho, he must be poor now. The thing is, I don't think this is entirely random, since everytime I loaded up this save for this segment, I would get the same card sequence. After memorizing it, it's easy money!
Poor Minku, it didn't have a chance to run away. But, after getting the berry, it's time to save Leno! I throw him to save time, since appearently, Leno weighs two tons.
Musashi should've mugged the mayor. But, have to ask John about the scrolls. However, he needs bread and water. Bread can be bought at Jam's, while water can be gotten by the well. However, you must get the water before the town gossips get there.
Now, it's time to go into the woods and get the key. Leno's path is always the same. The problem is you have to wait for him to sniff out the right path, or else you start from the beginning again.
Make sure you visit John after midnight. Don't know why, since Wid sees what's going on.
Back at Twinpeak Mnt., where you cut down trees with Lumina. Lumberjacks and their chainsaws and axes have nothing against Musashi and Lumina. Here, I also save a lot of other people.
I hate the rafting part. Jumping is very much needed. However, it lands the L-brace!
Question: how many of you are fans of the old Atari 2600 game Pressure Gauge? Like it? If so, you'll like this segment. If not, you'll hate it. If you're like me, I hated that game. So thus, I hated this segment. Steamwood Forest should blow up.
A race with Rootrick to get the Earth Scroll, doesn't really need to be explained.
Battle with the first evil Square executive Skullpion. Again, do I need to explain?
A short segment, I just find out that that brat Tim got bit by a Vambee (thank whatever is holy!) Now, I have to sleep until Wid is up.
You have to wait till 11:00 PM (or 23:00 in BFM) to knock on Wid's door. At least I got to the flower or Mysteria or whatever it's called on time, since you need to be there between 3AM to 7AM, as Wid says. On the way back, I save quite a few people.
Hotelo seems to not have came back. Good! Maybe Tim will turn into a Vambee! Oh wait, Musashi is cool, so as Hotelo failed, Musashi decided to go get the Aqualin. Of course, in appreciation for his help, all Musashi gets is an orange. So unappreciative.
To be able to access the basement of the resturant, you have to talk to Jam's dad, Wanda and Macho. After you talk to them, you can then access the basement.
The dreaded long segment. Just to note that the Vambees come out starting at midnight. If I remember correctly, after that, one comes out every 30 minutes in the game's time.
The first part of the dungeon, the correct teleports are right, left, and left. Nothing really much to say here except it's really hard to navigate in the dark.
For the second part, you have to assilimate Bowl, as their are some walls you have to break down to advance further. Also, behind some of those walls, you need to save more people as they're needed in an upcomming quest. As you can tell from this segment, I suck at bowling.
Before heading into the third part of the dungeon, I decide to get the L-cloth by bowling down the wall near the next two parts of this dungeon.
The third part is kind of tricky to time jumps. Not only that, but there's the exhaustion from doing a long segment of a speedrun. But, if you come away with some from this segment, just remember that if you fall in lava, you won't die, but will return to the last platform you were on, and only lose 27 HP. So go jump into a volcano already!
Again, the fourth part is hellish. I don't bother to assimulate the ghosts to get Sublime, as it'll take too much time to absorb the ghost, find out the path that I've forgotten due to speedrunning a long segment, return to the body and go on the correct path. The fastest way at the moment is to just guess on parts I'm unsure about. However, with the part where you can fall all the way down while in the dark is about timing. You see that I mistime moving while falling.
Now, we're finished with this part after taking the uglybelt.
We need to have to uglybelt appraised, so Conner is needed. Once it is appraised, looks like the town is in another peril that only Musashi can fix. However, in order to do that, he needs a rope. The problem is that Father White was locked outside his own church, and the rope is inside. To get in, talk to him at 2AM, and he'll let you climb up onto the church roof on his back. This is actually a good time to level fusion and lumina up some. However, the massive level-ups doesn't occur in the actual run, unlike they did in the practice runs.
After getting the rope, it's time to get the water scroll. With posession of the water scroll, we can now get White's bell. Again, like with Leno, throwing it will save time since the bell weighs a ton.
Now, it's time to fight the evil Square executive Relic Keeper. On the way there, though, I do decide to save one person. Also, no more having to pick up a Vambee and throw it to get over some spikes!
The fight with the Relic Keeper should be self-explainitory, but I'll explain it anyway. You have to use the water scroll in order to damage the fire he creates since he's too busy holding up the ceiling. After you extinguish the fire, his core shows. Hit it with Lumina. This fight has a total of 3 rounds, with each one comes some newer attacks for the flame to use.
Off to Twinpeak Mnt. for the last time. I decide to also go to Hell's valley to grab a Minku and its Longetivity Berry. After that, it's time to save Weaver Dinneretta. Why save her? She's the only one who can make the L-cloth into the legendary item L-glove. With the Water scroll, we can easily get to the other side of the river, so hardly any time is lossed.
Now, off to the mayor's house. It turns out he is sick! So what do we do about that? We take his job! And our first job is to restore the well's water level with the water scroll and to take yet another longetivity berry. But before we do, let's give Dinneretta the L-cloth, and save.
Here I just get a longetivity berry, the L-vest (which allows quicker charge time), and liberate the water crest.
Don't worry Minku rights activists, this is the last one I throw to get the longetivity berry. Also, it's time to get the L-goggles, which will allow us to save time by not having to go to Conner to get items appraised. This is especially important for the L-shoes, which are needed to fully complete the Ice Palace, since we wouldn't have to go back to Conner in the middle of the Palace just to get it appraised.
But before we go to get it appraised, we need to get our next assignment from the mayor's wife: get the gondola gizmo. In order to fully complete this assignment, we need to save all three carpenters. The good thing is that we've already saved all of them.
Get the items appraised, then talk to Ribson about the Gondola Gizmo. It's required that you talk to the carpenters in order for Musashi to know what the Gizmo looks like, or else Musashi will get their and complain what type of junk he needs to get.
Now, off to the cave to get the Gizmo. If you're wondering, it's the third one. Now head back, and save.
Another horrible segment. One good thing about the water scroll is that you can hold down triangle or square, and it will produce a rapid fire effect. However, it can only fire two at a time. You can circumvent this by getting up against a wall and fire water blasts towards the fire. However at times, the water scroll seems to just stop working. Also, many times, panicky town citizens will push you out of the way, so position is sometimes important. But after that's all and finished, we need to talk to Dinneretta to get the finished L-glove. Now, it's time to save.
Here, we need to talk to the mayor's wife again. She'll give you some rocksalt, which we'll need to get to the fire scroll. The Artisan needs to be saved, so that fusion can be powered up.
Sorry, this is the fastest way I can think of to beat Kojiro--use Norm. Unfortunately, there were no critical hits in this segment. Also, don't you think it's strange that the princess actually floated to get up those stone stairs (see around 5:25-5:32).
After bringing the princess back, we need to talk to the mercenaries, so we know the path to the ice palace. Now, it's time to save.
Before heading towards the Ice Palace, we need to stock up on items. After that, it's time to go on. The path to it in the woods is left, up, up, right, up, up, right, up, up, left, up, up, up, and up.
In each of the color eye rooms in the Ice Palace, there's a requirement needed to get the item needed to go on. In the redeye room, just destroy all the enemies there. In the blueeye room, you have to defeat all the clones without taking a hit (the fire scroll comes in handy here). The greeneye room, you have to defeat the one thing using a clone, which you assimulate from Clone.
Assimulating D-kick is an excellent thing. Not only is it a strong attack, it takes hardly any BP, and it gives you a speed advantage over walking. Thoughout several parts of this run, I use D-kick for a speed advantage. However, caution must be taken, since the lower Musashi's BP is, his condition changes, which can make him slow.
The evil Square Executive Frost Dragon is usually very easy, as his patterns are the same. So, he is taken down quite easily.
After the battle, we head on back to the village, only to find out that it has yet another problem. Damn, this town has more problems than any one person has in their lifetime. Anyways, need to talk to two of the shops. Then save.
Damnit, someone at Square really loves Pressure Gauge. And this time, they decided to make it even harder. Luckily, we have D-kick still assimulated, and you see the big speed advantage it shows in this segment.
Time to get the Wind Scroll. Musashi here gets a big max BP increase thanks to Bubbles. Also, need to kill the gigantic ant before saving. That way, if the next segment fails due to a death, we won't have to keep killing this ant over and over like it's an immortal being that keeps being reincarnated in the same body.
This segment is usually the one I have to redo over and over due to that one part before you get to Queen Ant, but this time, it only took two tries.
I think going to save Rumparoni is actually required (well, it's not required, but might as well since he's there), since you have to hit the one switch to give other places power. Anyways, I save him, since his technique is powerful, and saves quite a bit of time in two future battles.
The one ride towards the Queen Ant is definitely the hardest part in the entire game (and the part I hate the most, since if you die on it, you have to start the segment all over again if you're speedrunning--also, you'll lose Antidote if you die here.) After that, Queen Ant takes a lot of hits to take down. Since I was at a much lower level than in my practice runs, I decide to play it safe and not level up fusion in the fight. Thus, here, I use Lumina against the slugs.
Well, it's time to sleep until Sky day. But until then, we need to stock up on items. Now, we don't need mints, so I buy 3 biscuits and the rest ex-drinks. The biscuits are needed before the Death Tower fight to replenish Musashi's BP so he isn't exhausted and slow against it.
This is an accidental segment, since I forgot to go learn Rumparoni-SP in the last segment.
To get the last scroll, we have to wait until sky day. When it is sky day, we have to wait till it's raining. When it starts raining, we can use the Wind Scroll on the Wind Crest to get to where the Sky Scroll is.
After getting the scroll, I decide to take it slow on this part, since it's very easy to mess up if you're going to fast.
In the fight against Ben, I developed a new strategy that allows me to take him down in two rounds (usually low-level, it takes around five.) After he comes down, use Rumparoni-SP on him from a distance to get two hits in, then charge up. When Musashi blocks one of Ben's attacks, use his one counter attack. This takes a lot of HP out of Ben with just one hit. Until he flies off again, just hit him with Rumparoni-SP and Norm. Repeat until dead.
And just if you're wondering, the Gingerelle rumor is false.
Lots of scroll switching in this segment. I won't bother to say the door combination you need to get to Ed--just watch or read the calendar the Mayor gave you.
Ed is a tough one to figure out how to defeat quickly. He isn't hard, but it takes a lot of rounds to get him down. Usually, this fight is the reason why I level fusion up. However, there are points here where I use fusion on him, and take almost as much damage on him than using Norm.
The first thing anyone needs to do in this segment is assimulate grenade. It's the strongest ability in the entire game. The only major problem with it is that it takes a lot of BP to use. Usually, you can recover all the BP after using it since enemies in this segment drop a bunch of BP-healing drops.
Sorry, Musashi doesn't hit girls. So instead, he shows who's really the master at DDR. Of course, Topo decides to be dramatic, and dies...yes, she dies because she lost at a dancing contest.
The final segment! I couldn't believe how lucky I was at this segment, and this is the only attempt at it! I didn't even have to reset at all, due to luck.
Here comes the final evil Square Executive Tower of Death. Somehow, this one became stupid by opening the eye with the core in it right near where I was at.
The Dark Lumina 2 battle is where Rumparoni-SP is the greatest. Notice how easily Dark Lumina 2 is taken out. With Rumparoni-SP, Dark Lumina 2 is most likely the easiest boss in the game.
Dark Lumina Finale is somewhat harder. In order to damage him, you have to assimulate him after he does his turn. After you assimulate him, hit him with Lumina. There's only one instance where I missed assimulating him, and that's when he did his shockwave ability. But, he is also taken down easily.
I found out in my second test run that if you decide not to skip the ending, the timer keeps going.
Other than that, enjoy the drama that goes on in the ending.
Well, that was a lot of commenting, probably most unnecessary. But enjoy the run.