Brandish (SNES)

Brandish

Developer: Nihon Falcom
Publisher: Koei
Platform: SNES
Released in JP: June 25, 1994
Released in US: February 1995

This game has unused areas.
This game has unused graphics.
This game has regional differences.

To do:
More regional differences. (e.g. Censorship and certain glitches being fixed in the US version)

Brandish is an odd action RPG, originally developed by Falcom for the PC-98 and FM-Towns, then later ported to the SNES, Turbo CD, and PC (in Korea and Taiwan). A remake was later released for the PSP in 2009 in Japan and 2015 worldwide. This is the only title in the series to be released outside Japan. With bland graphics and a confusing interface, it's not particularly well-liked and thought to have sold extremely poorly. Nevertheless, fans of the series appreciate it as a unique if cumbersome take on traditional dungeon crawlers. It also has a typically excellent Falcom Sound Team JDK soundtrack.

Sound Test

In the first area (Ruins 1), head to the bottom-right of the map until you find the Master Key. Now, step on the spot where the keys were, then face north and hold the jump button and you'll fall through a hidden hole. Normally, if you fall through the hole, you'll land in a little room in the basement floor. However, if you hold the jump button as you fall, you'll land in an alternative area of the basement where you'll find a free Warp Magic, and also a room where you can listen to the music and sound effects.

Unused Graphics

Ruins

Like everything else in Brandish, the Dragon Statue in the fourth area of the Ruins has four different designs, one for each rotation. However, the north-facing design is never fully seen in-game, as it's almost completely obscured by a wall. Furthermore, it can't even be seen by disabling graphic layers in an emulator, as all the background tiles are on a single layer. It is, however, part of the Ruins tileset, and is always loaded into VRAM while in the Ruins.

Dark Zone

As stated above, everything in Brandish has four different graphics for different rotations. It's commonplace to be able to see the sides of chests, and on occasion, it's also possible to find chests sitting in the middle of a room, as opposed to against a wall, allowing the back to be seen. However, the Dark Zone is an exception. Being that this is a very tiny area, there is never a point in which you can fully see these frames; even the side views of the Dark Zone chests are obscured by walls. Moreover, only the upper two 8x8 tiles of the upward-facing chests still seem to be in the ROM, the lower tiles seemingly having been erased when the developers realized they weren't going to be used.

Inaccessible Item Bags

There are two places in the second area, the Tower, in which items are stashed between pits and solid walls. It's possible to jump to the platforms they're sitting on, but as you must be facing, but not on top of, item bags in order to collect them, there isn't any way to do so. Nevertheless, these do contain items, and can be collected with the use of a walk-through-walls Game Genie code: DD3E-3DD3. They're not very interesting, however.

(Source: nensondubois (code))

Tower 7F

The first inaccessible item bag is on the seventh floor, and contains a suit of Leather Armor, which should be quite useless at this point in the game.

Tower Top Floor

The second (and last) inaccessible item bag is on the Tower's top floor. It contains a two-use Invisibility Potion, a common item no more worthy of being made unobtainable than the Leather Armor above.

Unused/Inaccessible Areas

There are a handful of places that cannot be reached by any means other than using the walk-through-walls code mentioned above. Most appear to simply be filler, but are interesting nevertheless.

Ruins BF

The first of several instances of tiny inaccessible rooms behind shops containing "back doors" can be found in the "basement" floor of the Ruins. This one in particular is hidden behind, and leads to, the sound room.

Ruins Area 7

Only half of the seventh Ruins area is actually explored. The other half can be reached with said walk-through-walls code, and is glitch-free, but is entirely empty.

Foot of Tower

More empty space. Only the central part of the final section of the Ruins is normally accessible, with the north and south areas being devoid of content entirely, yet still existing in a fashion.

Tower 5F

At one point during the ending montage, Varik is shown traversing a long, narrow hallway, jumping over pits, before finally landing in a hole right in front of a treasure chest. Unlike most of the areas shown in the ending, however, this hallway is completely inaccessible during normal gameplay. Nevertheless, it does exist, in the upper left corner of the Tower's fifth floor. There are no doors, breakable walls, illusion walls, or warp panels, and you can't fall into it from above, so the only way in is through a walk-through-walls code.

Strangely, despite being seemingly just for a cutscene, this room is partially active: the treasure chest (which is itself unobtainable without more wall-walking) contains a whopping ten Gold Bars, and the second pit from the top drops you down to the fourth floor.

Cave B10

Another instance of a tiny room behind a shop, this time in basement 10 of the Cave. Oddly, this one is not right behind the door, although the door is visible nearby.

Dark Zone Area 2

The last of the "back doors", this one is behind the sound room near the very end of the second part of the Dark Zone.

Fortress Backbone

The Fortress Backbone, a tiny optional area where you can fight the Bezalhydra and claim the game's best weapon, has two long, narrow hallways running parallel to the boss room. They're both completely empty, and their purpose is unknown.

Berimya

Another instance of an ending cutscene area existing out of bounds on another map. The long, dark hallway Varik walks down after beating the final boss can be found on the left side of Berimya, site of the final battle. The hallway itself actually uses the Dark Zone tileset during the ending scene rather than the Berimya tileset, resulting in a rather glitchy look if visited via cheats. Interestingly, the door at the very end is actually depicted on the minimap.

Regional Differences

Title Screen

Japan	US

Opening Music

The opening theme was completely changed for the North American release. The Japanese version is that used in other versions of Brandish, where it is known as "Opening", "Prologue", or "Tradition" depending upon the release. The North American version appears to be a brand new composition never used before or after. This new theme sounds more heroic, is a bit shorter, and loops, while the Japanese version is a bit longer, but doesn't loop, and sounds rather "mysterious". Read the talk page for more info about why this change might have happened.