Brandish: The Dark Revenant
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About Brandish: The Dark Revenant
Nihon Falcom released Brandish: The Dark Revenant on March 19, 2009, as a port of their classic dungeon crawler for the PlayStation Portable. You play as Ares Toraernos, a swordsman trapped in an underground labyrinth filled with monsters and puzzles. Your goal is simple yet daunting. You must ascend over forty floors to escape this forgotten place while fending off waves of enemies. The game features real-time combat where you swing your blade without turn-based pauses. XSEED Games handled the publishing duties for this title. It stands as a direct sequel that brings the original experience to handheld screens with refined mechanics and new challenges for fans of old-school RPGs.
Gameplay
Sessions involve navigating grid-like maps while facing constant threats from real-time combat encounters. You move Ares through corridors, triggering traps or solving puzzles to unlock progress on each floor. Battles happen instantly without a menu system slowing you down. You must time your attacks carefully against groups of foes or rely on defensive maneuvers when overwhelmed. Every level contains hidden treasures and ancient mysteries that require observation to find. The interface lets you manage inventory and spells on the fly during these intense fights. Encounters with the sorceress Dela Delon interrupt your ascent as she hunts you for a bounty. The difficulty ramps up significantly as you climb higher, forcing you to adapt your strategy floor by floor.
What Players Think
Critics gave Brandish: The Dark Revenant a solid Metacritic score of 78 out of 100. PlayPile data shows an average completion rate of 64 percent among our users who started the game. Players spend roughly thirty hours on a full run through all forty floors. The community mood leans heavily toward "challenging" and "nostalgic." Review snippets often mention the punishing difficulty of the later stages as both frustrating and rewarding. Many users note that the real-time combat system feels much smoother on the PSP than on original platforms. Some players dropped off after hitting floor twenty due to repetitive monster types, but those who finished reported high satisfaction with the puzzle design.
PlayPile's Take
This title works best for people who enjoy grinding through difficult dungeons without hand-holding. The price is reasonable given the thirty-hour runtime and lack of multiplayer bloat. You will unlock a modest set of achievements that track your progress through specific floors. Do not expect a modern quality-of-life update, as the controls retain their retro feel. If you have played Falcom games before, this offers a familiar experience with fresh challenges. It is worth buying if you like high-stakes combat and don't mind dying often. Skip this if you need constant story exposition or slow-paced turns to think.
Game Modes
Single player
IGDB Rating
84.7
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