Phantom Brave

"A sweet and 'haunting' tactical RPG"

Phantom Brave

Introduction

Phantom Brave was the second Nippon Ichi game to hit PAL Playstation 2 shores (La Pucelle only got here later). And after having spent over 100 hours with their hit Disgaea, I was eagerly awaiting their next masterpiece. And - I was not disappointed, Nippon Ichi introduced enough new elements (or changed them) that it felt new and different, but still managed to keep their flair and fascination for leveling. But now for the facts.

Story - 7.5/10

There's a nice story making you want to advance in the game. It's all about a little orphan girl, Marona, that most people dislike because she is 'haunted'. In fact she has the ability to see and summon phantoms, and that scares a lot of people. And she has her personal guardian phantom, Ash, who's also her closest friend. He had promised Marona's parents to look after her before they died. They live alone on a small island, earning their money by completing tasks sent via bottle mails for other people (people thus hired are called Chromas) - which mostly involves defeating monsters...

And the amount of monsters is increasing in the whole world. While getting more and more missions to help people on other islands, you get to know more and more about some events of many years ago involving an evil force, that is about to return. And although Marona's character doesn't evolve much, she influences strongly Ash and her whole surrounding. In general, although there are some episodes that are a bit superficial and many 'side characters' are quite stereotypical, it's a pretty story that doesn't hold many surprises or very drastic and unexpected turns of events... Comparing to Disgaea, it is much more serious. Though it has its funny moments and even though it wouldn't need as much comedy as Disgaea had, I still missed some more humor in it.

Gameplay - 9/10

This is of course a very important point of a tactical RPG. Phantom Brave has quite some differences to what you might be used to from Disgaea. While the game is still turn-based (with the turn order determined by the combatant's speed) and divided into chapters that consist of about three to six maps you have to complete, the most evident feature is that the maps are not divided in a chess board like squares grid. Instead, your characters have a circle around them that indicates their range of movement. Within this, they can move (almost) freely, except if an area is too high for them to reach. The terrain also has different properties, it's more or less slippery (you slide further than the point you chose to go to) and more or less bouncy (you rebound in the air after jumping off a ledge like a rubber ball and advance further). You can use this to your advantage, especially as you can always cancel your movement and try again, except if you fall off the edge of the map (OB = out of bounds). Then you're automatically placed to the nearest spot on the map and only have the rest of the movement (that wasn't used till where you fell off) left.

Now for your characters, your army. Marona is the only human (on your side), and she is the only one that will be on the field at the start of a battle (and she will remain). Her main 'feature' is that she can call phantoms to her aid. So your main battle force are all phantoms, that only have a limited amount of turns they can remain on the battlefield, after which they automatically disappear! So make sure Marona doesn't die, or you'll soon run out of characters to fight with... There's even one more twist behind calling your phantoms - they won't appear out of thin air, but they need to be confined to an object on the map, such as bushes, vases, bricks or weapons.

Speaking of weapons, this is one of the most fun parts of the game. You can buy weapons with your merchant 'normally'. But actually every item that you find laying around the maps can be obtained (phantoms have a certain probability to obtain them when their turns run out) and used as a weapon! Thus you can slap your enemies with a fish, break a crate on their head, beat them with a bush, harass them with a gramophone or roll over them with a trolley. :-) By the way, enemies can not only be beaten by reducing their HP to zero, they can can also be thrown out of bound and disappear (except for the last one) - but then all remaining enemies gain some levels and get stronger.

The management of your army and weapons happens on the small island Marona lives on. There all your phantoms and items/weapons are visible. (Well, if you get too many, they go to a stock.) Certain phantoms even have jobs, such as a cleric to heal you, a merchant that buys and sells weapons, a blacksmith that can improve your weapons, a fusionist that allows you to fuse items and characters, and more. This is very important to improve your and your items' levels - yes, also your weapons gain levels and Mana. Mana is not only needed to raise weapons' levels, but also to transfer skills. You can transfer skills from items or characters you deem expendable to your preferred and much more used phantoms and weapons, thus making them even stronger. Additionally, you can even give titles to your phantoms and items that offer even more bonuses and skills - and those titles can even be leveled up, too. So this whole system needs some time to get used to, but it offers a huge level of customizability, you can tune and beef up your weapons easily the way you like them by fusing the right things to it. The downside to this is that you can theoretically make everyone of your characters in a powerful magic caster or in a strong physical attacker and the characters themselves lose their individuality, but this also allows you to make anything out of your favorite character.

By defeating enemies, you also unlock new phantom and monster types (with different strengths, weaknesses and skills) that Marona will be able to create herself. One of them is the Dungeon Monk, who can create random dungeons with various amount of maps, size and terrain properties of maps, residing enemy types and levels. These are especially useful for training your forces and for item/mana farming, providing the fastest method for the Nippon Ichi typical uber-leveling or your team and items.

Graphics - 7/10

The whole game is generally very colorful. All characters are nicely, but relatively simply, designed sprites, and during dialogues you often get an animated picture of their heads. But as nice as they may look, and even though the maps are in 3D and rotatable, they're nothing outstanding and certainly do not push the Playstation 2 to its limits. Nevertheless, they generate a nice atmosphere, and some of the special attacks actually look impressive.

Sound - 8.5/10

The sound supports the game very nicely. I didn't find a single piece of music that I found annoying, which is already a very good thing. While some of the pieces are quite plain and unspectacular, the main tune got stick in my head quite quickly... And as my copy came with a soundtrack included (not sure if this is the case everywhere), this also gave me the opportunity to listen to the music while doing other stuff - and telling you that I did indeed put it in my stereo and used it as background music should tell you enough about it's quality.

The sound effects in the game are also quite well done. And some of the dialogues feature voice acting. While this VA isn't exceptionally well done, I still liked it and the chosen voices suit the characters well. Also, some of the story is told by a narrator (often at the end of an episode), who also does a very decent job.

Replayability - 10/10

While the main story already offers enough challenge and will take many hours to complete, there is even more to the game. Although there is no 'New Game +' option and you will probably not want to start from scratch again after you've beaten the story, there are bonus levels to beat (and secret character to be unlocked) afterwards that will require a lot of leveling. And you can easily spend hundreds of hours just going through random (failure) dungeons with the goal to build the ultimate party with the ultimate equipment. And this is even fun to do. So the 10/10 in this section is not actually for replayability in the sense of beating the game itself, but rather for its ability to make you want to play it again to create the best party and to induce the feeling of 'just one more floor, just one more dungeon' before I stop for now. And how many other games allow you to get to level 9999?! :-)

Overall - 8/10

I can only recommend this game, especially if you like tactical RPGs, even though I still prefer Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics over it. Phantom Braves offers new elements compared to these just mentioned titles such as the free movement and the limited amount of turns your phantoms can stay on the battlefield that add more strategy to the game. Not everyone might like that, but this makes Phantom Brave stick out somewhat. For those who are new to the genre I'd recommend renting before buying, or start with a game that has a game system which is more easy to get into. But for everyone else considering this game, I say: buy it (and get the version with the bonus soundtrack included)!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/27/06