Phantom Brave

"SRPG Envelope: Pushed, Bent, Shattered"

Nippon Ichi (NI), creator of Rhapsody, La Pucelle, and Disgaea has released yet another strategy RPG that does everything right. But while NI's previous endeavors innovated the genre, Phantom Brave instead attempts to make drastic changes to many aspects of the SRPG. Does it succeed? Spectacularly.

Graphics
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"Sprites" says it all. Phantom Brave is graphically merely some decent character sprites on a jaggy-covered polygonal map. The sprites are drawn very nicely though, and the maps look nice enough. Some of the attacks produce some fancy lights, but it's nothing that hasn't been done many times before. Though most games would get a thumbs down for using such a dated visual system, it works for Phantom Brave by keeping the battle field's objects and characters easy to see and reducing clutter. It's not eye-candy, but it's not ugly either.

Overall: 9/10

Sound
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I've loved the soundtracks and voices for Nippon Ichi's previous titles, but Phantom Brave feels very lacking in comparison. English voices are simply atrocious, and the Japanese voices are mostly dull and/or annoying. Hearing Ash yell the same "I will not fail," line in every chapter will an undeniably lame voice is simply intolerable. Sound effects are very plain, consisting of the same thwacks and sproings we've all heard a million times before. The music is a bit of a redeemer though, as the songs actually sound very good. The themes from chapter to chapter share a general feeling, but are different enough as to not get particularly dull.

Overall: 7/10

Story
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Phantom Brave deals with two protagonists: Ash, a cookie cutter bodyguard type who is protecting Marona, an unbelievably naive girl who can talk to phantoms. Ash, and all the other characters on your team are phantoms actually. Throughout the story, Marona is trying to help people out in the hope that they will see her as a good person, and not as a "possessed." Unfortunately, the story takes itself way too seriously for its own good.

Game Play
Phantom Brave, even with it's bad music and not particularly unique plot, still manages to shine in a way most games can't come close to touching. The game play has a near infinite amount of depth, hence the tag line: "Imagination knows no limit." On the surface, the game play seems to consist of simply battling enemies over and over in little arenas, but just below that is more depth than can be expected. Even Disgaea vets will be surprised by simply how much can be done here.

First, the combat system has replaced the isometric grid system with full movement. When your character is ready to move, you get a big circle and choose a spot within it to move. This results in much more battle freedom. In battle, you can climb on enemies, steal their weapons on the fly, throw or smash them over the edge of the battlefield, or simply beat the crap out of them with over 400 abilities. NI also added another clever twist to the system: possession. Since your characters are all phantoms other than Marona, you must have Marona confine them to various battlefield objects, including trees, rocks, crates, crystals, or even the weapons of the fallen. When you confine a spirit, its statistics will be altered depending on what you put it it. For example, confining to a rock will grant a high defense boost, while a bush might result in an intelligence boost. Also, Marona eventually becomes unable to sustain phantoms, so they'll phase out after so many turns. This forces you to save your big guns until you reach enemies further down the battle field. Altogether, this results in a very fun, clever, and often strategic battle experience.

Outside of battle, the fun continues. On your island, you can create phantoms, strengthen weapons, power up characters by assigning them new titles, and plenty more. You can fuse weapons or characters, allowing weapons to gain new abilities. If you have strong enough weapons and enough mana, you could conceivably add ten skills to a weapon by mixing an older weapon with it. You can do this with characters as well, allowing for anyone and anything to have many many skills. And don't forget random dungeons, which were staples of Disgaea and, to a lesser extent, La Pucelle. By creating a phantom that can make dungeons, you can access random dungeons to help level up more.

Also, to anyone who avoided Disgaea because of its paper thin strategy, don't dismiss Phantom Brave. If you don't level your characters intentionally, then you'll be able to play through many of the chapters before needing to level up at all, and even then you'll only need to spend an hour or so before you're back on track.

Overall: 10/10

Length/Replay
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Phantom Brave has 20 chapters. Each takes at least 1 hour, and probably a lot more if you get stuck on a battle. Add to that the need to level up probably two or three times during the game, and you're left with at least 30 hours for the main game. In addition to that, there are the random dungeons, special EX stages that yield hidden characters, and levels that can rise into the thousands. In short, you'll spend at least 30 hours to complete this, and most likely many many more to see all the game has to offer.

Overall: Long

Final Rundown
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Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 7/10
Length: Over 30 hours, Long
Game Play: 10/10

Final Score: 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/04