Phantom Brave

"Daaaaamn, Nippon Ichi dun it again."

Introduction: Phantom Brave is another Strategy RPG by the same company that made Disgaea/La Pucelle. It actually adds some new stuff to the genre (At least, I've never seen it before) and the game itself is just very, very deep.

Plot: We might as well start here. The game's plot is actually pretty interesting. There's this girl, Marona (Who has green hair) and she can basically communicate with Phantoms. Her parents died a long time ago, and their partner, Ash, is stuck between Life and Death--He's a Phantom. Ash wants to protect Marona, because he was her parents' friend and stuff. Anyway, so, Marona can communicate with Phantoms, so everyone hates her. People call her posessed and stuff, and thus Marona doesn't have many friends. However, she believes that one day everyone will like her, so she wants to help people using her awesome powers anyway.

Control: Overall, the controls in this game are good. Not really much to put here--everything responds, it's easy to control.

Sound/Audio: The soundtrack is good, but you may have to go into the Options and lower the Battle Voices and such to hear it better. Some of the sound effects have been taken from Disgaea (That's okay.), but overall the game has really nice sound effects. The voice acting rules, though I like the Japanese version better, the english isn't unbearable or anything. The game doesn't have a lot of humor, either, so don't come in expecting it.

Graphics: This game has anime Graphics, just like Disgaea and La Pucelle. There are small Cutscenes that have the character's moving around and stuff, but it's all 2-D. It just looks kind of cheesy, but it's all good. The art itself is great, all of the characters look cute, mean, funny, etc. But you kinda wish the graphics would get better. Not much has changed from Disgaea. A few things I didn't like about the graphics is that they made the In-Battle Sprites MUCH, MUCH smaller, and that when an enemy dies, his/her dead sprite just lays there on the field, unlike in Disgaea where it sort of exploded. This may not sound so bad, and it isn't that bad, but sometimes the corpses clog up the screen, and it's even hard to tell if something is dead or not. Of course, you can look at their HP, but it might get kind of complicated for a newbie.

Gameplay: Finally, the Gameplay. A suprisingly large amount of the battle system has changed from Disgaea. First of all, the whole battle system is based around Marona. Marona's special 'Confine' Ability lets her 'Summon' Phantoms using items lying on the ground. For example, a Rock, a Seed, a Tree, a Sword lying on the floor, can all be used to summon Phantoms, who will mainly fight for Marona, because she's not very good at it. Phantoms won't last forever. After a certain amount of turns they'll just disappear, and you can't use them till next battle. I personally didn't like that part, it really makes the game a lot harder, and you feel almost like there's a time limit for each battle, but it's still fine. Another thing that's changed from Disgaea is that rather than using a Grid (Which most strategy RPGs use) Phantom Brave basically makes a giant circle around the character, and you can move anywhere in that circle. Also, you can move multiple times in a turn, but you can only move so much. This adds some depth, as you can get close to your enemy, thwack them, then run away.
Just like in Disgaea, you don't really travel or anything, there's a main 'Base' where you buy items, heal, create new characters. In Disgaea, it was your castle, in this, it's the Phantom Isle. (You live there.) When you want to move on with the story, you'll pick where you want to go, battle, then problably come back to heal and stuff. The game's really deep, I mean really deep. There's just so many ways to customize your characters. You can fuse them with items, you can upgrade items using a blacksmith, you can even create random dungeons. This, of course, adds a ton of replay value, and it just makes the game funner.

BUY or RENT?

Well, you won't get anywhere if you rent it. You should buy it, it's worth 50 dollars. If you've played Disgaea and liked it, you WILL like this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/04