by John G - September 10, 2004

The Strategy-RPG market in the United States was lacking, until a game called Disgaea was released a year ago. From the makers of Disgaea and La Pucelle (Nippon Ichi), comes another game, Phantom Brave. Those who have played one or both of the previous games will find Phantom Brave similar, but it also has some different tweaks in it to make it different. The games appeal is almost totally geared toward big fans of the genre, and fans of anime.

Deep, Turn based gameplay

Strategy-RPG's have a very specific feel to them, largely due to their unique and limited battle systems, where party members and enemies are put into restricted maps, and they must take turns moving, attacking, using items, and casting spells. In Phantom Brave, it may appear that the main focus is strategy, but strategy isn't really the biggest essence of the game, because your characters need to be at a sufficient skill level in order to continue, regardless of strategy. This makes Phantom Brave more like normal RPG's: fight a battle, gain experience, make your characters better, and repeat. The game relies almost too much on you leveling and gaining experience, to better your skills and characters. But this should not be unfamiliar territory for any RPG player, no matter what type of RPG. You are able to revisit places where you fought battles before, and eventually freely teleporting to randomly generated areas.

When you begin Phantom Brave, you find yourself in the position of a thirteen-year-old girl (Marona) on "Ghost Island", who has the strange ability to talk with ghosts and phantoms. Gamers who have played the previous games from Nippon Ichi might notice that this game is more serious than the last two, in relation to storyline. Things start out soft, and there are some humorous moments, but overall, more serious. You will find yourself taking jobs from others during the game, and Marona summons phantoms to fight for her in battle. Like many strategy-RPG's, this one has a strange gameplay tweak. It manifests in form of summoning your phantoms to objects that are on the map, so that they can materialize (A rock for example). Each phantom has only a limited amount of time before it disappears again. This adds to the strategy aspect of battles. You can "make" phantoms, and more will be available to you as you progress through the game. They have also introduced the initiative battle system, faster characters move quicker, and more frequently. Phantoms can be created, named, and then used.

Many objects and things on the map can be picked up, and used for different purposes. These things can be used for special moves, or magical assaults. Even better, players can pick up anything from obstacles, and items, to enemies. What makes Phantom Brave a solid strategy game is that the player can make decisions about items, phantoms, classes, summoning, and dungeons, among other things. One of the key positives for the game, is that you can pick your style from the start, and stick with it.

2D, with style

As you dig into Phantom Brave, you will see it has an old-style 2D appearance to it, but the game does have some style with it. The characters are created in anime-style, and are well drawn out. Overall the game isn't really bad looking, but the screen can become cluttered sometimes. Out of the three games they have made, this one is pretty much the best looking overall, with decent level design. Strategy RPG's are not well known for their graphics, but they usually get the point across, as does Phantom Brave. Which leads to the next point, people can�t look at the graphics in this game, and compare them to graphics of a FPS, or an adventure game, or a normal RPG, because that�s like comparing soccer to golf. Phantom Brave has good visuals for its genre, and that is really what counts, because chances are, the people who play games in this genre, don�t expect insanely stunning visuals.

Repeating Sounds

The story progresses through dialogue, monologue, and animated sequences with full english voice-overs, and there's an inclusion of the Japanese language track. The voice-overs seem catroonish, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Voicing is the best part of the games audio, many of its sound effects are very similar to previous games, Disgaea and La Pucelle: Tactics, but you�ll find a variety of sound effects. The music is decent, but sometimes it plays multiple times during battles, and it can be slightly bothersome here and there. Overall there are some solid songs for Phantom Brave.

Warning: Can be addicting

Obviously the games visuals and sounds don't blow you away. These types of games rely almost solely on story and solid gameplay, and it hasn't changed in Phantom Brave. Like the other games, it can be addicting, and allows for hours of gameplay, or it might not. It depends on the player. Like its predecessors, the game has a lot of leveling up, and character improvement. Impatient people who care mostly for the story might find Phantom Brave frustrating. Nippon Ichi�s target for Phantom Brave seems to be the genre�s veterans more than people who don�t play many games like this. If you are new to the genre, you might find it challenging, if you�re a veteran of these types of games, you will also find it challenging. Battles as the game progress, as you would expect, get harder. You get your moneys worth when you invest in Phantom Brave, it�s good customization options, its hours and hours of gameplay, and deep battle system.

What? No grid?

Phantom Brave has unique and complex aspects to its gameplay. But there are also problems with its gameplay. One interesting thing about it, is there is no grid on the map. Instead of being restricted to moving on squares on a grid, it is now more open, with the area you can move shown with a circle. This causes some problems though, you might lose track of things, and not know how to position your characters most effectively. This system can also cause chaos and confusion for some, many characters/phantoms running and, and becoming clumped together, and sometimes it's hard to tell if corpses are corpses, or living characters. When an ally or enemy gets too close to the edge of the map, they can be pushed off, which can be good, or irritating, depending on who is doing the pushing.

Final Thought

In truth, Phantom Brave is pretty much like any other strategy-RPG out there. It has creativity, and a complex class and battle system. But some of its new innovations don't really help the game, like the gridless maps. Sure it makes the environments look better, but it does little to help gameplay, and gives it less of a feel as a strategy game. The lack of a grid might seem like a great innovation, until you realize that it can be a pain for targeting enemies and moving around the environment. Those who take Phantom Brave for what it is, and go through the game thoroughly instead of rushing, should not be disappointed. Despite some of these negative things said about Phantom Brave, any anime or RPG fan should definitely look into Phantom Brave, you will get many hours of solid gameplay and story, that is, if you haven't been worn down by the previous two games.