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A cute RPG with interesting combo-ability

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 34 / 38
Date: September 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Phantom Brave is a story-driven RPG broken into 20 chapters. In it you play Marona, a 13 yr old girl who can talk with phantoms. She goes on quests with her phantom-pal Ash.

I have to say I was disappointed with the graphics in this game when it began, as you sit through the entry cut-scenes involving Marona's parents and Ash. Both parents die, leaving Marona an orphan at age 5. You then jump forward in time to her at 13, living alone on an island with phantom-pal Ash. The island is her home which she hopes to someday buy. In the meantime, she works with her phantom friends to solve problems for people. Unfortunately, while some people need her skills, most resent her for her strange powers.

The graphics are on the cute-anima-short-people side, much like Ragnarok. The backgrounds are a bit blocky. The sound is also on the cute side, with bouncy music humming along.

The RPG aspect of the game is actually quite interesting. In most RPGs you just get one or two friends to travel with you. Here you get a wide selection of phantoms to work with, each with his or her own skills. You can name the phantoms and really build a party that works well with your gaming style.

Not only do you have phantoms to work with, but you can "confine" objects on the battlefield and use them as weapons. Each item has its own special skills - and when you merge an item with a given phantom, the combination can range from so-so to truly incredible based on the match.

Strangely, while much of this game seems very much geared towards kids with its cute look and feel, there are also scenes of blood-dripping monsters, characters yelling out "what the hell is this?" and words like "blasphemous" being tossed arond.

The in-game help is reasonably good and while it can be confusing to get started, once you get the hang of things it's not hard to work with your party and move through the levels. On the other hand, the game starts throwing around characters, groups and political situations without much introduction. It's the type of game that may seem quite confusing the first time through - and only begins to make sense when you play it the second time around and know the players and factions.

The game is pretty heavy-handed with the "everyone picks on the 13 yr old" and "she is blithely happy no matter what happens around her" scenarios. There is also a sappy voice-over that comes from nowhere to fill in the details.

A fun RPG for anime fans and those who love playing with combinations and tweaking to see what works best - but be aware of the cuteness / sappy factor. Some people love that ... and some will be drive crazy.

And now for an ACTUAL review...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 29 / 31
Date: June 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Don't believe anything Steelman (mommarock?) said about Phantom Brave, as she was apparently too busy selling her body for crack to actually play the game. Ratchet and Clank? It's not even the same genre, it's like trying to compare a toaster to a refrigerator. Anyway, this is, by far, the best of the Nippon Ichi strategy rpg's, with a typically sacharine anime storyline and an insanely dense customization feature that allows anything and everything on the battlefield to be used as a weapon, leveled up and/or fused to other items and to characters. Literally everything, trees, rocks, shrubbery, fish, pots, lamps, even the bodies of slain enemies. I've spent far more time leveling up and fusing my characters to starfish than I have actually playing through the storyline, it's damn addictive.
And Mrs. Mommarock must be a puritan of the most vile degree, since there is virtually no gore in this game (and what there is happens to be excessively cartoonish) and the only swear word I have found after countless hours of playing is the word "crappy," which I'm not even certain counts as a swear word amongst most of us normal folk, and is probably the only reason the game didn't get a "G" rating (though I'm sure the distinction is probably too great for someone in a crack-induced haze). Anyway, if you're a fan of Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaia, La Pucelle, etc, this is a must have.

FAREWELL KI!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: January 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

In all my years of playing games, I've played a lot of different genres. Action, puzzle, rpg (which is becoming less role-playing and more adventure), shooters, fighters, simulation, rhythm, and a select few driving-type games. I don't consider myself an expert at any genre, but I do have a favorite amongst all the types out there. That genre is strategy/tactics. My first taste of the genre was Final Fantasy Tactics, the first game I ever put more than 100 hours into. To this day, I've only beat the game once, but that's only because I'm too into leveling up my characters and making them all perfect. You could spend months customizing your characters before you get that one perfect combination that'll have you taking out all the enemies faster than Anna Nicole clearing out drug samples at a pharmacy. Until recently, I hadn't played a game that was as addictive or as well put together as FFT. Phantom Brave is almost better than FFT in every way, and that's saying a lot.

Starting the game as Ash, a skilled fighter, you and two others are attacked by a huge demon. It's more than a match for the group, and quickly disposes of them. But with one final prayer, Ash is revived as a phantom to protect Marona, the daughter of the two he was traveling with. Ash now lives with Marona and can become invisible to humans or visible whenever he wants. Since he and Marona are talk to each other in public, visible or not, many people think she's possessed, and stay away. Marona goes around with the help of Ash and other phantoms she summons, and takes on odd jobs in order to get enough money to buy the island that she's living on. Marona is a well-meaning girl: not greedy, can see the true motives behind some people, and gives everyone a chance. And that's basically the whole story- you go around taking on jobs, leveling up your characters while discovering that more is happening in the world than just demons attacking certain locations. I was surprised at how much plot there was: everything happened for a reason. What would normally be quick side-characters you'd never see again in your standard game come back later on and ask for your help. When mistreated by a client because Marona didn't technically do her job, the client begs for her help again seconds later, but she refuses. It's great to see a character mature over the course of a game like this- something very light hearted, but something anyone can enjoy regardless of their age.

Ok, into the real meat of the game: the gameplay. I haven't played the other Nippon Ichi tactical games yet, so I can't tell you how this one plays compared to the others. But I can tell what things are exclusive to this title. The most prominent of which is also a slight con. Marona is pretty much the main character aside from Ash, and she's always in the party. It's because she has the ability to summon phantoms to help her in combat...for a certain amount of time. Once you begin a fight, Marona can Confine enemies to objects. Let's say you're in a desert, and there's a cow skull, dead tree, and a rock in your area. Marona can confine any fighters to those objects. Usually, they'll have 3 or 4 turns in combat before turning back into what they were Confined to. This definitely pressures you into using all your characters so you don't just have one or two super-tough guys. Though some people can see this aspect as tactics, I see it as a cheap way of making fights tougher. Another thing is that the objects you can Confine to offer protection. Some objects will give you better defense, experience bonuses, teleportation, and even invincibility. But there are some fights that are ridiculous and all objects will have you Rooted. That means no movement for you. The only way to get around this is to have Marona throw her weapon and confine someone to it, destroy the other object that's causing Rooted, and pray to god that they destroy it in one turn, because you're screwed in these fights. Enemies will surround you very fast. And how about no grid on the battlefield? Yep, you're free to roam wherever you want within your movement bounds. This took a few fights for me to get used to, as I'm used to being within a certain distance of an enemy via squares before attacking. So all those moves that can hit more than one enemy isn't limited by squares. There'll be many times where enemies will be in small groups, just begging for you to hit them with Giga Flare. This can also be used at your disadvantage though. A lot of moves have a certain range- you have to be a certain distance from an enemy in order to use it. All characters have 3 elements which they can be weak against: fire, wind and ice. The standard for each weakness is 0%. Anything higher makes for a better resistance, but anything in the negatives is an extreme weakness. Heck, one of my most powerful characters still has a -90% weakness to ice. Another cool feature is the ability to fuse weapons and characters, making weaker things stronger. Likewise to the Titlist, who gives zany titles to people, upgrading their abilities. A dungeon maker can create random dungeons- something you'll be doing a lot to level up and gain titles. There are tons of character classes, and almost all of them are useful. I was overwhelmed when I could make over 20 classes, only to discover that there were more to find. Yes, Phantom Brave will keep you very, very busy for a long time. Though it's only 20 chapters long, it makes sure you work hard to beat the game. There's no MP to recover some of your moves and spells, so you're forced to ration what moves you use and which ones you save for later.

The graphics aren't the most impressive out there, but they're still charming. Character sprites are chibi-ized for the most part, but have a good amount of animations. The story portions of the game don't hold up as well- they're sprites with little animation, and are zoomed in on to the point where you can count each pixel on the sprites. When I first started playing, this bugged me, since it seemed like lazy programming, but I quickly got over it. Though I'm still sick of people looking excited when Ash appears before the locals. Ok, we get it- he's a phantom. It's still cute to see Marona looking puzzled. Spell effects look good- a hell of a lot better than those in FFT, and environments look perfect. As for the sound, I could only take so much of the English voice actors before switching the language over to Japanese, which, as usual, is great. All the actors put full effort into making the characters come to life. The translation's a little off though. "Tomodachi" on its own does not translate into "Ash is my friend!". Then again, I don't remember ever seeing any game or animated series with a perfect translation. The soundtrack's great too. There are varied tracks for each location, all of which fit them well. I'm still partial to the ice ones.

The only reason I'm docking a star from Phantom Brave's overall score is because of the Confine system. It's not that I don't like it, it's just that it could've been worked out better. Sure, it's simple in that you Confine who you want to an object, and get some stat bonuses, but I still feel you shouldn't be limited to just having Phantoms to help you fight. There are points in the game where Marona befriends "regular" people. Why they never join or help her is beyond me. Despite that one minor flaw though, I'm glad I bought this. It provided many hours of gameplay even after the main game was over. I don't see myself getting 100% any time soon. Then again, I might not. Because with Tactic games, to me, getting 100% is being happy with your characters. Not getting some crappy rare item that's strong against one enemy.

An upgraded disgaea

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 16
Date: November 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I loved Disgaea. I haven't played La Pucelle Tactics yet, but I picked this game up.

I love it! It's just like Disgaea (some people might think that's bad), but you know, upgraded! Interesting new features are the ability to confine your phantoms into objects on the battle map. It's extremely customizable that way, and if you confine wrong...well...you are probably going to lose.

Otherwise, the ability to combine items with characters to give different abilities is really cool.

THe storyline is a bit linear so far (I haven't completed the game yet), and Marona can be a bit aggravating because of how she acts, but oh well.

If you like Disgaea or La Pucelle, pick this game up. It's not as hilarious as Disgaea, but it's still a great game! It's a bit more serious.

Very Unique and Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: December 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have seen a lot of divergent reviews for this game, so I feel the need to set the record straight. This game is similar to a tactical simulation, however it uses an active movement and attack system somewhat similar to games like Vagrant Story or Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, however this game is mostly two-dimensional with sprites being used instead of 3d character models, on a 3d background. It plays a lot like its other Nippon Ichi predecessors, it is a turn-based strategy game, however without tile based movement and attacks. Because of that, you can end up spending a good deal of time lining up attacks carefully to ensure maximum coverage.

This game is quite diverse and gives your characters a very wide range of abilities to learn and use, so many that it may prove too much for most people to give every attribute and skill to even one character. This lends itself well to people who can invent and use unconventional tactics and open themselves up to creative thinking when playing the game. The art is cutesy and nice, which is expected of a Nippon Ichi game. The music while not great is easily acceptable. In typically Japanese fashion, most of this game lacks the kind of censorship Americans expect, seeing as there is no such thing as verbal censorship as a part of morality in Japan; Japanese explicatives are only considered rude when used as insults, and are not considered immoral. Therefore, while the art and music seem childlike, and the game genre and some of the dialog seem mature, the truth is that the game itself was originally intended for all video game playing audiences.

One complaint heard a lot is about the confinement system. Instead of having your party with you at all times, battles always start with just Marona (the main character), and you must confine the phantoms who compose your party inside of material objects (such as rocks, trees, flowers, and items) scattered around the battlefield. Party members remain so confined and able to act and do battle until their confinement period ends, usually five turns or less, at which time they will disappear and the objects will revert back into their previous state. The complaint is that not enough turns are given to complete the battle, this is a straw man argument against the game. The purpose of the confinement system is to make you recruit and train enough phantoms to last through a battle instead of making the game easy to defeat with just two or three characters like Disgaea.

Overall, the game is very good and unique. Some parts like the music could use a little polish, however nothing in the game really detracts from the overall experience. The biggest complaint I have really is that the game can be slightly repetative, especially if you've played other strategy games for long stretches of time. As with all things, strategy games require moderation!

I purchased this game a while back...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: July 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

...but just NOW got to playng it. When I originally bought it, I was put off by the Confine system (more on that later), and it seemed just too difficult to level characters enough to move smoothly through the game.

I was a big fan of "Disgaea," however, and always was sad that I never got into "Phantom Brave" (hereby dubbed "PB"). Yet, FINALLY (this week, in fact!), I took the game off my shelf and gave it one last go. And FINALLY, the appeal was there.

First, the good. "Phantom Brave" is a nice tactics game, where you control Marona (a Chroma), who has the ability to summon phantoms to the material realm. These phantoms fight for her in battle. There are many types of phantoms to choose from (at the beginning, I think there are 5 or 6, but that number increases to about 40 later on), each with their own unique skills. From fighters and valkyries (who are pretty much what you expect) to dungeonmonks and titlists (who really can't be explained here), Marona and her guardian phantom Ash will travel with all of them as she tries to help the world of Ivoire, most of which wished she didn't exist.

The second good thing about the game is the incredible number of weapons and skills which can be used. Of course, you have your standard swords, spears, and staves, but included also are...potted plants? Fish? Weeds? And EVERY type of item has its own unique skills to be mastered (over 400 in total). Moreover, items level up, have hit points, gain mana (a type of currency used to improve items and characters), etc. The variations are almost overwhelming.

And that is the problem. It IS overwhelming. If you're like me, you want to gain every skill in the game. But with such an incredible number of skills, it is hopeless (I haven't even mentioned that some skills can only be obtained by getting certain "titles" and bestowing them on your character, titles which ALSO can be levelled up). Were the game itself a bit more expansive (as one reviewer mentioned, there are only about 40 different battlesites in the game), it might be feasible. But it gets boring gathering enough mana by fighting the same enemies OVER and OVER again.

To make matters worse in the "confine" system. I imagine that Nipponichi, the developers of the game, realized how easy it was to create one uber-character in "Disgaea" and use him/her to slaughter everything before you. To combat that, phantoms must be confined to items on the level, and can only stay active for about 4-6 turns, after which they vanish and cannot be summoned again that battle. This makes for a LOT of levelling. And of course, with the sparse number of dungeons, well, see last paragraph.

All in all, "PB" is a fun game, but the flaws are there. It is enjoyable to run through the scenes, and the story is pretty good (I actually like a heartwarming tale), but in order to make it to the end, you need to level a lot (or cheat by powerlevelling near the beginning - scrabbits anyone?). It's strange - I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who doesn't like tactics-type strategy, but I have a hard time recommending it to many of those people as well. Basically, if you played and liked "Disgaea", you'll like this, but probably not as much...

Awful...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 22
Date: July 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I'm personally amazed at how high of ratings this game gets, considering what the actual game contains. As a huge Disgaea fan and someone who enjoyed La Pucelle tactics, I expected more of the same from Nippon Ichi Software...

... boy was I disappointed.

Some things you should know before buying this game:

ALL of your decent characters, in game, have a very VERY finite amount of turns that you can use them for. What this means is that say you've got a nice super powered knight character... on average, assuming you 'confine' him to a decent object, he'll be around for 5 or so turns. After that? No more character for the rest of the battle. This is MURDER on levels that are big, because if your enemies are halfway across the screen then you either waste half of your turns getting them, or get the 'main' character (who happens to have awful stats) close enough to the enemies that she runs the risk of being ganged up on and horribly whooped. And, joy of joys, only the characters doing the attacking get experience, so those low level characters take an awfully annoying amount of time to level up.

Also, aside from a weapon, you've got no equipment. A single weapon can raise up all of your stats, but your weapons can be pilfered and tossed out of the arena (which means you can't use them.)

They murdered the lovely 'item world' that you could play in Disgaea, and instead replaced it with 'Dungeons'. Dungeons have types, and titles. (note that every enemy in this dungeon will have this title.) that means if you're heading into a dungeon with a super powered title, you can expect that ALL of the enemies in that particular dungeon will be likewise overpowered and horrible.

There's also, no new game plus...

Which in a way is a blessing, because the storyline is just plain awful. I imagine most children over the age of 10 could come up with a more convincing plotline than the one they try to pull off, and whereas Disgaea's weak moments were at least highlighted by humor... the attempt at seriousness leaves the player kind of staring at the screen.

Given that I've given it one star, I know most people will probably not bother to read this review, thinking I just had some horrible bias against the game, but in all honesty I really think that's the rating this game deserves. While I like strategy rpg's for their level building and making powerful characters, I also like the satisfaction of getting to see those characters raze maps with their might, instead of going 'only 3 turns left... only 3 turns left!'. The only possible value I can see in this game is if you just enjoy senseless, difficult level building that doesn't really amount to alot in the end anyway.

It's not Disgaea

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: September 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

But if Disgaea didn't exist this game would get five stars. The 3d point of view is excelent and adds a fresh new look to the strategy RPG cannon.

I love the variety of spells and skills and there is so much to explore that this game will give easily over 100 hours of entertainment.

The story is weak but it's really only about 10% of the game. Most of the game is really played in the random dungeons so you don't have to suffer through the predictable story adventures over and over.

All in all it's a great game but if you don't have a strategy RPG for PS2 pick up Disgaea first. Also get the strategy guide for this one it's completely worth it.

Loved it

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Some people just can't understand the complexity of grapics such as these. Yes the characters are almost "pixel" in form, but the attention to detail, and three-sixty views give every character a three-D feel. And as for "Gore", yes there is minor gore, minor. Yet not enough to scrammble the brain of the average "kid gamer", who shouldn't be playing a teen marked game in the first place. I say, in my modest, and badly written way, that this is a great game...not amazing, but very very good!

In the vein of Disgaea and La Pucelle: Tactics

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

If you like Disgaea: Hour Of Darkness and the characters, you will love this game. I bought PBrave quite some time ago to play and was like kinda dissapointed with it as it's not as good as Disgaea.. So i stopped playing until one day. I felt uneasy because i always love to complete a game before throwing it into the shelf and never touch it again. So I continued to play Phantom Brave and was surprised. Very surprised. The storyline gets more & more cool, as well as the game becomimg more and more challenging. Example: when you reached a boss stage where you can't defeat the boss. There's only 1 solution...Train more! Everyone would be thinking:"Aww...training the characters again...HOW BORING and waste of time!" But hey! Training is FUN! Yes...You can access the random dungeon and train your characters as well as your weapons. You might be able to charge right through the game (but then again just use a cheat device and complete a game in 2 hours, right? Heheh) There was once, i took a risk in the game..most of my characters were like lvl 30+ only..but i entered a lvl 70+ random dungeon just to steal their lvl 70+ weapons lying on the floor. Hah..it was great. Once I managed to get at least 1 high lvl weapon,I'm out of there before i get my butt kicked. That's the beauty of Phantom Brave.
It's worth it, and kind of feels like other stealthy games when you make a raid on high level monsters. The whole game was not only about training your character's lvl and proceed. The Titles and weapons also affect your characters alot. And Yes..when i got the lvl 70+ weapon, i managed to kick 1 or 2 bosses behinds as I proceed with the story. And a great story it is. Until the final boss stage...I was like sooo shocked. He could finish me off with like 1 or 2 attacks! LOL..Once again..Risk my characters lives to those extremely high lvl random dungeon to steal some high lvl weapons and good titles.
This game really needs alot of strategy in defeating different bosses and stages..Argh..about the strategy thingy..it's kinda hard to explain..You hard to try it yourself..Seriously =) I never get any frustration from this game even when i got thrashed by some bosses, i would laugh and say to myself:"Train more =)" This game by itself is already cool..But whats more COOL is the bonus stuffs u can get in the ending!!!! I was SO DAMN HAPPY when i saw Laharl and party in the game!! Yup!! The Characters from Disgaea!. It was kind of funny when your main character met up with the main characters from the game you played before. You even get them to join you after you defeated them!!(well..it's not easy..i had a hard time defeating them..but it's worth it.

In conclusion: Phantom Brave is a Strategy RPG (SRPG) gamers can love if he/she can get used to the gameplay and storyline. And Of course...the reward of this game is a good feeling in the heart.

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