Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Brave: A Warrior's Tale is a platforming adventure geared toward children. You take up the role as Brave as he recounts his heroic tales to the youngest tribe members. The flashbacks are the basis for the gameplay as you discover a Native American influenced world and story. There comes a point when Courage, a youngster listening to Brave's tales, has to follow in his elder's footsteps and save his people.

What's Hot
In terms of exploring ideas and concepts for stories, there is a lot of focus on Western mythologies. There are countless games based in Greek or Roman myths and Norse mythology is starting to be the backdrop du jour for many recent games. Few game concepts explore lesser known mythologies like that of the many Native American tribes. Their stories of origin and how the universe works are extremely fascinating and it seems ripe to design a game around a lot of the action. Brave delves into those stories and brings them alive on the 360.



What's Not
There backdrop for the game is unique and fresh but nearly every other aspect of Brave is rough, to say the least. The graphics don't look updated one ounce since the PS2 title Brave: Search for the Spirit Dancer that was released in 2007. It's like not a single character model made the conversion to the 360 from the last generation. Textures were honestly look like placeholders that were never given the final high-resolution treatment. Brave attempts to show off some picturesque moments but they are more cringe inducing. The only positive thing that can be said about the state of the visuals is that since they don't even make the 360 break a sweat, you don't notice any problems in the framerate.

Platforming and gameplay also feel unfinished. Jumping feels so loose and imprecise that makes the simplest double jump a chore. Besides the sub-standard platforming sections, there are moments where some variety is introduced into the game through some special moments that don't last nearly as long as they should. That isn't to say that the moments change the game for the better, they just offer a tiny diversion from the regular gameplay that it is like eating a rotten fruit – it might might smell sweet but it tastes awful. In fact, that sums up just about everything about the game.

Final Word
The last thing that should be mentioned about Brave is that it is scary and that isn't just an adjective for the overall gameplay. For a game that bills itself as a family game, there are creepy monsters and killing animals is something you have to do to progress. Other than that, Brave is basically a PS2 game with the ability to play on a 360 with no effort to upgrade or enhance the experience to even to average standards.