Death to the different one!
Nippon Ichi this time around has created a colorful world, with bright (And very interesting) inhabitants such as Marona. A Chroma, a person who takes jobs such as fighting monsters, who has the power to summon phantoms to her aid. With this ability of her, she has been outcasted and the locals fear her... however nice Marona actually is. Her only friend is Ash, one of the spirits who she summons, who watches over Marona for parents who died several years ago... and this starts the very dramatic tale of Marona and Ash. The story isn't so happy as previous games, but it doesn't mean it isn't good. Many NIS fans didn't like this serious turn, which is a sad fact since it really is an amazing tale.
Instead of a neatly placed grid as a battlefield, Phantom Brave allows characters to move freely within a certain range around them. It's a new take, which actually works out nicely... however sometimes areas can become cluttered and you don't know what you're doing exactly. The battles begin with only Marona on the field, and she must summon her spirits (Which you create, besides Ash) and send them out to fight. But in order to fight, your units must first be placed into objects such as plants, rocks or phonographs (yeah, they're in there). Depending on which object you choose, the stats are altered. Rocks give more attack and defense, while a plant gives more speed and intelligence.
Once you place out a unit, they only have a certain amount of turns to act before they vanish again (with the chance of the possessed item going into your own inventory.). This is probably the biggest factor when placing characters, what will they do within the duration of their turns? How much damage can they do? So probably having just one unit to fight isn't the best idea in this game, since you're going to need several units... and then back-up units in case the first line of defense fails...
After defeating an opponent, your character is awarded experience and mana. Experience helps your character gains levels, and mana helps your character learn new techniques and level up their weapons. And strong weapons, are something you're going to need. You can't always rely on just your phantoms... creating strong weapons is a must. Which means there's future hours of leveling ahead of you if you want to reach the highest level you can, but just scraping by is possible, but frustrating at times.
The graphics in this game are Nippon Ichi's usual style. 2D sprites on 3D maps, but that doesn't mean it doesn't look good. The sprites are very well drawn, and the backgrounds are beautiful and the level layouts aren't randomly placed. The game shows that it has a certain style, and it lives up to it. The entire game is colorful and full of life.
The characters only have one face portrait when they speak, so no matter what they're saying, they'll always have the same look on their faces. But this time around, there are not different colored classes as you level up characters. There's only the "title" option, which does alter stats, but changes the colors of your characters. Low titles provide a dull and muddy look, while the better titles give brighter colors. Each class you can use for your phantoms are all distinct looking, and try to differ at times from the previous games... such as the healer, who looks nothing like older designs.
So all in all , Phantom Brave tries to change their look from previous games to feel and act different. Which it does, and it certainly makes a great impression.
Another great feature to Phantom Brave has to be it's soundtrack. Again, trying to breakfree of the old Nippon Ichi ways, is a soundtrack made from violins and "ocean-like" tones. It's always soft dramatic music, which always fits scenes and battles perfectly. Thankfully, the game comes with a bonus soundtrack CD which has most of the music featured on it.
Also, the voices used within the game range from Marona's youthful voice to the narrator's omnious , yet friendly, voice. All of the actors again fit their roles well within the Phantom Brave universe, which leads me to believe that Nippon Ichi know how to cast actors of their games because they have not let me down yet.
The only negative points to the sounds, is that most sounds repeat all to much during battle sequences, which can lead to some players getting annoyed after hearing the same taunts and explosions over and over again.
But Phantom Brave isn't for everyone, and it IS a hard game to play at times (and even mastering it becomes an even harder task). There are so many customizing options availiable for your characters and weapons, that you probably won't even find them all within the first half of the game. I had a savefile of 20 hours, only at chapter 8, and chose to restart the game after finding I was missing out on several options (which turned out to be a great help) and when I restarted, I made it back to chapter 8 with only 8 hour playtime and my characters are about as strong (or stronger) from where I previously left off.
Most players will be turned off by the serious story this game has, and probably its lack of similarities to Disgaea. But for players who are willing to try some new and different in the world of SRPGs, Phantom Brave is a very unique surprise and just waiting to be explored. MAybe even other players who aren't fond of SRPGs might find something they like with Phantom Brave at the same time.