Brave Fencer Musashi 2: Toys!

You just can’t buy ‘em like this anymore.

Like many videogames, Brave Fencer Musashi has a currency system, and shops that sell valuable items. Fight monsters, get hit, defeat monsters, earn cash, buy stuff to heal from getting hit. It’s an RPG tradition that goes back to Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and earlier, and it has propped up in a number of action games with “RPG Elements”. Sometimes it is more disguised (Zelda 2’s experience system was secretly a currency system), sometimes it is more prominent (see Dragon Quest 4 sticking a merchant in your party) but the basic concept is always the same: risk your life to earn gold, and then use that gold to improve your life.

Or you could use it to buy action figures.

Grillin’ Village has well-considered shops. The Fluffy Puffy Breadshop works like a traditional bakery, and sells old bread at a discount at the end of the day. Hilda’s Grocery has sales on Skydays, but mostly just hawks tasty treats. Mannick’s Restaurant is open later than many of the shops, and offers a treat or two up until 2 am. At their core, all of these places are “potion shops”, or whatever you want to call the place you go to heal your status or HP. There is variety here, but they all serve the same function, just with different ways to save money or time. Additionally, there is Conner’s Pawn Shop, which is a thinly disguised “equipment shop” where your upgrades are acquired through bringing legendary items to the counter. Other than that, you can earn a couple of bucks selling dungeon finds. Not much to it.

And the only other shop is Toys! Toys! Toys! That one requires a little examination.

Toys! Toys! Toys! Sells models of all the characters and monsters in Brave Fencer Musashi. If you want every last toy(s!), you have to return many times over many chapters to see the new unlocks and grab some of those all-important rarities off the shelves. If you want to “catch ‘em all”, you will likely have to plan your shopping expenditures over the course of the entire game. Your rewards for shopping at Toys! Toys! Toys! are action figures of every last model, and you can sell these figures for big bucks if you are a good little collector and do not remove any of these toys from their pristine packages. Or you can roleplay as the kid Musashi clearly is and play with ‘em in your bedroom. They’ll drop dramatically in value, but they are probably still going to fetch a buck or two on the Grillin’ version of eBay.

But the kicker for this whole sidequest? You never have to interact with it at all.

There is not a trophy or achievement for collecting action figures. There is not a secret door in the last area that opens only if you have a Kojiro figure still in its box. There is not a super boss that only appears after selling all your figures at maximum cost. There is never an incident or event wherein you need to visit Toys! Toys! Toys!, nor are you ever rewarded for having a figure in your inventory at a significant time. There isn’t even a detailed model viewer on the options menu! Toys! Toys! Toys! is just there for a basic little bit of worldbuilding, and maybe the opportunity to make some extra money that you will never, ever need.

It’s a shop that exists just for fun, and absolutely nothing more.

You just don’t see that kind of thing anymore.

Even Worse Streams Presents Brave Fencer Musashi
Night 2

Random Stream Notes

• Brave Fencer Musasho! Welcome back with Jeanie, fanboymaster, and BEAT (who may at one point leave to get tacos).
• We’re learning about steam and climbing cliffs tonight! I will learn to hate steam…
• This is fanboymaster’s most played “long” childhood game. Mine was Secret of Mana.
• I get pretty mad at steam…
• I completely flub into what is best described as a “screaming death”.
• I’m going to stick to my complaint about wireless controllers and TV lag and claim that is the reason I can’t finish this “easy” section.
• And I finally conquer Steamwood as we are talking about Yoshi games. Hooray for only having to do this once more!
• “You never have to visit the action figure store.” This is why this game is fiction.
• Brady Games still exists! Sorta! Looks like they got eaten by Prima Games…
• We beat some Mario Party-esque mini game, then the sword started talking, and now we’re going to face our first big boss.
• When I was ten, I thought Meatloaf was amazing because he could say “Hell”.
• “Perhaps you were thinking of some other loud skeleton?”
• Okay! Skullpion! This is so much easier than managing steam!
• We beat the boss! And we have an opportunity to discuss how overtly charming this game can be.
• Thus begins the Vambee saga! It might take a while.
• Ample Vigour arrives for a napping, sleepy samurai. And then Caliscrub immediately after!
• “Modern TV can never allow their audience to bust. It has to edge them.”
• Maximum cursed phrase: Highlander: The Animated Series: The Videogame for the Atari Jaguar CD.
• Let me blame my controller for why Musashi dies so, so many times.
• Let us talk about Minku, Whacka, Wobble Bell, and the many animals you can menace in videogames
• Ample Vigour provides the perfect joke. We must never hear it.
• We all attempt Rapper’s Delight to varying degrees of terrible. Please enjoy the only rap we know that comes with its own tutorial.
• Tim dies and becomes a Vambee (offscreen). I blame poor hit detection.
• Take two! Who has the best Shadow the Hedgehog voice?
• Oh boy. As a thrilling finale, saving a child nets us an orange.

Next time on Brave Fencer Musashi: Always get a good night’s sleep.