Review: Brave a Warrior's Tale

Brave a Warrior's Tale is a third person action-adventure game aimed for kids and teens. Part of Microsoft’s “Xbox 360 Family Games” category, Brave allows players to jump into the shoes of a native Indian Warrior with the objective to rescue his village from evil invaders. There are a variety of gameplay moments replete with puzzle-solving and animal-riding fun, but the graphics look quite outdated as compared to other Xbox360 family games.

click to enlarge

While these are some good aspects, there are serious control issues that may spoil the evening. You will have a difficult time jumping through colorful landscapes, particularly when you have to jump through moving platforms. The environmental textures and poor camera angles also make it difficult for you to judge which is the safest area to land. Combat is fairly easy. Trashing enemies with axe and tomahawk is fun. There are some RPG elements infused as well, including XP and skills. The more skills you acquire, the more interesting the combat gets.

Kids new to the console gaming platform will find Brave a Warriors Tale interesting, but for those who have played other great Xbox 360 Family Games won’t find it a bit bland.

One of the not-so-good parts of Brave a Warrior's Tale is the outdated graphics. The textures and animations in the PS2 version were better than the current Xbox 360 version. The environment sports low resolution textures without any lighting effects. You will also feel helpless fighting in the dark as there are no in-game adjustments to tweak the brightness level. The poor camera angles will spoil your gameplay, particularly during those boss fights. Developers Collision Studios tried to give a Native American feel to the overall game, but failed miserably.

The background score, complete with drum and flute sounds, is barely audible. The developers tried to make it as Native as possible, but failed to execute in properly. The chirpy background score’s transition into solemn music during Boss fights seems completely out of place in this family-oriented game. The character voices sound like any average cartoon movie, hence there’s nothing so unique about it. Conversations between Brave and other characters are okay and sound very casual and uninteresting.