Phantom Brave

"One of the better RPG's out there."

When I first heard about Phantom Brave in a magazine, I was at first skeptical. It read that it was indeed a tactical anime style RPG and was supposedly "insanely difficult", so it kinda turned me off. However, my brother bought it when it first came out. I was bored one day n' just said to myself, "Meh, what the hell, I'll try it out." Little did I know that I was about to enter a deep, dark abyss of addiction where I would spend hours of my time in my room with my dialated eyes against my T.V screen...

Lets see, where to start ^_^

Story: I was actually pretty disappointed with this game's story. It really doesn't go into much depth. Don't expect something compelling and original, for this story was just....bland. It's about an 18 year old guy named Ash who is a phantom. Phantoms aren't dead....but they aren't alive. During a battle with 2 allies, Ash and his teammates were killed. One of his ally's resurrected him with whatever strength he had left...which wasn't enough to grant Ash life. So now he lives as a phantom, never aging and always wandering around the world. He guards his 2 ally's daughter, Marona, who can see the phantoms with the human eye. The townspeople harass the poor girl and call her the "possessed". She lives on an island with her phantom allies and makes a living as a Chroma. Chroma's are strong warriors who are pretty much mercenaries for hire (yes, this small girl does that very thing). I'm about halfway through the game, and there really hasn't been much story depth. It's all been about her trying to survive in her cruel world. It will change soon enough, but I'm not expecting anything too miraculous.

Graphics: The graphics in this game are of the old 2d style anime. The battlefield is 3d, while the character and weapon sprites are 2d. They are pretty good, and the artwork in the strategy guide is nice, too. However, some of the facial expressions made by characters (especially Marona) are down right disgusting. Other than that, they are pretty nice =p. The ability and magic animations are cool, too. Think of an upgraded version of Final Fantasy Tactics for the PS1 ^_^.

Sound: Wow....just WOW. The sound for this game (mainly the music) is SPECTACULAR!!!! The battle music and intro theme are especially my favorites. This game has wonderful vocal pieces and violin songs that just give the battles that extra...I-don't-know-what... This game comes (I still believe it comes with it) with it's Offical Sound Track, too. This contains every awesomley awesome song in the game, and you won't be able to stop listening to it! The actual game sound is alright, nothing compared to the music, but still ok. Realistic enough for me ^_^

However...there is the VOICE ACTING! bum bum bummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm The voice acting in this game is EVIL. ABSOLUTLEY HORRIFYINGLY EEEVVVIIILLLLL!!! You must stay away from the american voice acting...stay awaaayyyy....so just change it to japanese ^_^ It allows you to change it at the main menu. w00t w00t! Good thinking guys!!

Gameplay: This is the heart of the game, in my opinion. The battle system is very unique and pretty challenging. The battle system focuses around Marona, the most important character. Although she may be weak, she has the ability to confine her allies from objects in the field! I bet your a lil confused right now =p. Let's say there is a lil tree on the field. The tree has certain stats (yes stats), because you can pick it up and use it as a weapon. When you pick it up, you gain/lose those stat bonuses. A tree might have something like HP+50, STR.+10, SPD. -12. So when you pick it up, your HP and Strength increases, but your speed decreases. You can also throw it and drop it wherever and whenever you please ^^. What about "confining" you ask? Marona has the ability to not only see the phantoms, but summon them as well. What you do is select the tree (previously mentioned) with the curser during a battle, and go to confine. The tree has stats that are seperate stats; weapon stats and confining stats. The confing stats are shown in %. So lets say the tree has HP+20%, STR+10%, SPD-10%. Now that you have selected the tree, you select any ally you wish to make from it. Lets say you select Ash. Suddenly, Ash appears in place of the tree to aid you in battle! And since you confined him from the tree, he gets the % bonuses to his stats that were mentioned above. Nifty, huh? However, Ash (and any other characters, except Marona), don't last forever. You have 5 turns that you are able to use them, and then they disappear and you wont be able to summon them for that battle T_T. This forces you to work with many other characters, even though you might not use them. Because what if you used all of your uber strong characters during a boss fight? Marona will be all by herself...*sobs*. Another evil thing is that you and your enemies can throw eachother offscreen. If your enemies do it to your, your character instantly dies, and if you do it to your enemy, your enemy will die but his allies will each gain a level -_-. However, you cannot do it to your enemy if s/he is the only one left. This gets really annoying, since some enemies focus solely on throwing your arse off the stage -_-. Your characters will come back after the fight though =)

One of the easier things about the battle system is that you level pretty easily. And if your over leveled, your fights will be cake ^_^. I'm in an area where in level 25+, and the guide says to try to be at level 15-20. A lot of that contributes to an very addicting battle system -_- and the fact that you can redo any level you want, as many times as you want ^^.

One of the things I really like about the gameplay is the weapon leveling. Yes, your weapons gain levels. They do so by your characters getting "mana" points. Mana points are given to your characters weapon after you kill enemies with it. Also, your character itself gains mana. I'll explain that later. Anyway, what you do with weapon mana pts. is that you can use them for either 3 things; Leveling up so they get stronger, getting newer and stronger abilities, or combing. You can combine any 2 weapons that you want to, but you must sacrifice one weapon in return. It's like equal trade (for those of you FMA fans). Their stats, max level, and abilities (which cost mana) can be fused together. So you can have a tree weapon with sword slash attacks, or a axe that is very fast. This allows you to greatly expand your weapon collection, and it gives them unlimited variety.

I said in the previous paragraph that your characters gain mana points. This is because not only can you fuse weapons, but you can fuse characters together as well. This also raises their max level, gives them new abilities (with the cost of mana), and raises their stats. However, you must also sacrifice a character in order to fuse them together (of course, you can't sacrifice Marona or Ash, but you can still combine them w/other characters). This allows your characters to become very strong and it also gives them variety as well ^_^.

Alright! THIS IS THE LAST THING ABOUT THE GAMEPLAY!!! I SWEAR!!!! ;-)
This is about character creation and dungeons. First off, on your island (which is sortof like a home base), you can use Marona to creat more phantoms to add to your lil collection XD. When you create them, you are given "exp points" to add to their stats. It's sortof like bonus points. You can add them to strenght, speed, wind/fire/water resistance, etc. When you create them, they appear on your island and you can talk to them. Some characters server a purpose; like blacksmiths can improve your weapons, the merchant can trade, the healer can...heal >_>, and the dungeon master can create dungeons, which leads to my next topic ^_^ Dungeons are like consecutive battle challenges. What you do is spend a lil cash to create a dungeon (you see it before you spend your hard-earned money, of course ^_^). The dungeon has a difficulty, the type/amt. of monsters that are present, and the title you get if you beat it (titles are assigned to your characters. They raise stats, give abilities, etc.). Anyway, you can go to the dungeon any time you want. But when you do, you can't leave unless you have someone with an ability that lets you leave (the dungeon master character has it ^_^). You must fight however many battles in a row in order to complete the dungeon. These battles are pretty hard...even if the monsters are at a low level. The rewards are great though ^_^ you can get bonuses and tons of extra exp while doing dungeons. It's just a lil something extra to add to the addictiveness to this game.

Replay Value: None that I know of, but since there are so many characters you can level (the max level is like 1000+ I believe ^_^) you can keep playing for HOURS and not get enough.

Buy or Rent: Well, if your not sure, I'd rent/borrow. But I highly suggest you at least try this game out.

Aaaanyway, thats it for my review ^_^ I hope you enjoyed it. Don't hesitate to email me your feedback or for questions =)

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