138. Light Bringer (Taito, Arcade (PS2), 1994)

Light Bringer (released as Dungeon Magic in North America) is an isometric fantasy-themed RPG beat 'em up. You can select between 4 characters: a martial artist, a swordsman, a wizard, and an elven archer lady. The objective is to progress through levels that are mapped out kind of like a Zelda dungeon, with a series of interlocking rooms on a grid that are revealed as you enter them, with the boss room always visible so you know which direction you should generally be headed. Sometimes there are light puzzles that involve stacking objects or small jumping puzzles, but it is mostly an action affair.

Regrettably, the action is just not there. Your attacks and combos are very slow to come out and feel pretty clunky. You can hold the attack button to charge and perform a more powerful / ranged attack that is character-dependent, which would be cool if it wasn't so slow to come out, usually enemies would attack me before i could complete a charge attack, and it's very easy to get overwhelmed and stun-locked by crowds of enemies. I was very disappointed with the action in Light Bringer after having had a great time with other early 90s beat-'em-ups from Taito like Warrior Blade and Runark, which had pretty snappy action.

On the RPG side of things, you can break open environmental elements or defeat enemies to earn various treasures that give you experience points. Earning enough levels you up, which I assume boosts some stats, but I did not feel any significant differences upon leveling. There are different pieces of equipment that you can find that do effect gameplay, but none of them made it fun. The graphics are at least pretty good, and I like the exploration aspect in an arcade game. There's also a narrator who sounds kind of bored but I love it when he says "you have powered up".

3/5, a decent beat-'em-up RPG hybrid, I just wish the combat felt better.