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When reading the description for Magna Braban and its game play, it sounded bad. The battle system sounded like Chaos World, which I did not like. For those that don't know that game, it was a Famicon RPG in which you really have no control over the battles in the game. It's all AI, for the most part. Magna Braban is similar and at first would have been a turnoff, until I played it and it's actually really fun.

The storyline is somewhat childish. At least the way it starts. You name your character and you play a young man wanting to become a knight. You hear of a tournament at the castle in which if you win you get to serve the king as a knight. At the tournament you meet two others hoping for the same fate. Well, the three of them lose miserably. After the tournament, the three meet up and proceed to get drunk, after which they (in a drunken stupor) discover the castle has been attacked, leaving all the knights dead. You are taken to the King and are commended for being the only survivors (even though you were actually out getting sauced) and are rewarded with becoming knights and are sent out on a quest to defeat Demon King (I think that's the name).

The storyline is pretty silly and nothing groundbreaking, and I was almost falling asleep through the whole opening segment. But once the adventure starts it becomes pretty fun and the battle system, although simple, keeps the pace of the game solid and never dull.

Translation was OK and nothing really too special. But I can tell with the source material that the dialog was probably hard to really spice up. In the end, the translation did remind me of something that would have passed for a North American release back in the day. Just without all the Engrish and drinking references.

And about the graphics, they're not horrible but they are old school with all character sprites in constant motion. Really, the battle graphics was where the game shined.

Overall this is not a bad game and is quite fast paced because of its battle system. I suggest taking a look at it and you may be fairly surprised.

The game starts off with an interesting note. A boy sets off to participate in a tournament, so he can be a knight, but loses spectacularly in the first round.

While getting drunk in a bar with two of the other losers, the Colosseum is attacked and destroyed, and all the rest of the participants are killed. When they return to investigate, they are discovered by the king's men. Due to the fact that they were the only survivors of the attack, it is assumed they are incredibly skilled, when in truth it was dumb luck that they survived. Still, they don't admit to this, and thusly are knighted and sent on a quest to save the world.

Thus, the adventure begins.