Phantom Brave soundly innovates a mostly staid genre and comes out a pleasing, if flawed, strategy RPG. *Unfinished*
User Rating: 7.9 | Phantom Brave (Limited Edition) PS2
Phantom Brave is the third entry in Nippon Ichi's series of offbeat strategy role playing games for the Playstation 2. The company's previous titles have taken their time traveling to the West, making Phantom Brave the first title published and translated by them for a stateside release. Coming out a few months after La Pucelle tactics, the last Nippon Ichi game let loose on North America, Phantom Brave foregoes many traits of its ancestors to create an innovative, new, and fun to play strategy title. Fans of the series craving more strategy action are sure to be delighted with Phantom Brave's new take on the inveterate genre. Phantom Brave follows the story of a young phantom named Ash and Marona, a possessed chroma. During his life, Ash had befriended Marona's parents. One day on a perilous quest, Ash and Marona's parents were confronted by a powerful phantom. Marona's father, foreseeing the trio's certain death, protected Ash with his and his wife's lives. This left Ash alone, not human or phantom, just stuck somewhere in-between. In this new "life", Ash and Marona bond and become the best of friends. But as Ash is a phantom, Marona is hated and thought to be possessed by a demon when she is heard talking to no one. Being such an upbeat young girl, Marona ignores the insults and keeps telling herself "someday, they will all be thankful." The girl works as a chroma with Ash trying earn a nice house, putting up with rejection, and setting off on an adventurous quest to lend others a helping hand. The most noticeable change in Phantom Brave is the all new battling system. Phantoms can be created by Marona while on Phantom Island and called out onto the battlefield for a set amount of time by confining them to an object such as a tree or rock. Each object has realistic properties that are transferred over to the confined phantom to strengthen or weaken them for the match. An example being a rock will have a large strength boost, but slows down the character making turns less frequent. To use the confinement system to its fullest, knowledge of how these properties affect different phantom classes is required. Confinement also gives the chance to capture items from the battlefield. Each phantom has a capture percentage which, when their time on the field is up, gives a certain rate of keeping the item they are confined to for later use. Characters are no longer moved on a grid-like field. Instead, movement takes a free-roaming form, with characters able to travel any place within the range of their varied distance circles. This style is less restricting than the previous form but can cause a few problems. When many phantoms are in a tight spot movement can become a problem as characters will jump upon one another causing confusion. Turns are also taken differently. Instead of commanding the entire squad at once as in Disgaea and La Pucelle, characters take turns in order of their speed. This makes a lot of sense, adding another layer of strategy to the already thought ridden game. Attacking is also executed in this freeform fashion. Weapon-based attacks have a short small hit radius (only able to damage one enemy) while most magic strikes utilize a range effect that is very useful for damaging more than one enemy at a time. Attacking can be flukey when trying to judge the exact position needed to hit the optimal amount of enemies. Luckily, there is a feature that allows the player to simply select an enemy to assault with a weapon and the ordered character will swiftly move to attack. Still, this is flawed-characters will sometimes move in a strange path making them fail at hitting- but can be rectified by undoing the movement and manually issuing commands. Magic spells are difficult to judge, as well. Much frustration can arise from trying and trying to place the spell correctly. Both magical conjures and weapons come in large varieties with the massive prospect of upgrade-ability. Everything from plants to people can be wielded as a weapon, each with its own attributes and special attacks. Spell books are used for magic, but most wizards have a few moves built in. All of this equipment can be upgraded, combined, or given special attributes through the use of the games many helpful characters or simply by incessant use. Phantom Brave, like Disgaea, introduces a unique concept of a central hub for all activity. This is a place named Phantom Isle inhabited by Ash, Marona, and their many phantom friends. Between battles, the player can stop by this island to access any items needed and interact with party members. Marona can be called upon to create new phantoms, summon phantoms, name phantoms, among other things. There are diverse acquirable party members that can greatly aid the player while on Phantom Island. These include a healer, merchant, dungeon monk, black smith, fusionist, and titlist. The healer and merchant substitute the basic hospital and market. These two helpful characters, in the party from the beginning, are vital for staying alive and becoming stronger. Also, when their services are used, they receive level points to strengthen them for battles and the merchant will even gain funds when not in use. The ingenious dungeon monk can be consulted to form random dungeons for a small fee. Stats such as enemy level number, amount of enemies, and effects are given for each dungeon, helping the player pick one that matches his or her level. The dungeon monk is an integral part of leveling up to pass battle stages. Mana points for a weapon are gained by simply using a weapon. The brawny black smith, for varying amounts of mana points, will upgrade weapons with new levels or special attacks. It is important to improve weapons for the most advanced use. The cunning fusionist can combine phantoms and weapons together. Doing so will result in one item or character with changed stats. This feature can help boost the party to give the player an advantage in battles. Lastly is the titlist. This old man takes titles received from banishing items or conquering dungeons and adds them to a character or weapon. A sometimes significant stat change comes from swapping titles. The hand-drawn sprite graphics are exactly what one expects in a Nippon Ichi game.
