User Reviews (1 - 11 of 24)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

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!

busy busy busy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: September 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

this game is really cool. it will take up most of ur time. it took about 70 hours to beat the game but takes a longer time to complete the extra episodes so this game will keep you busy for a while

In my opinion, one of NIS's top games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

As a fan of Nippon-Ichi (or NIS America) since the first Disgaea, I bought this game hoping for more of their unique brand of humor and great, involving game play. I can say that I was NOT disappointed. There are so many facets to the game that if you try to "master" every part of the game, you could easily spend over 100 hours doing it. You could definitely make it through the game in less than that (40 hours or less, probably), but a game like this is designed for you to really take advantage of all the extra features. It is similar to Disgaea, while at the same time being very unique and original. Features such as confinement (for your summoned warriors), weapon/character combinations, and a free-movement setup (i.e. no "grid" like in traditional tactical RPGs), it takes the good things from Disgaea and adds some new twists. This makes the game fresh and interesting. The only reason I gave it 4 stars for "fun" is because you can really get bogged down in making "perfect" characters or weapons; some people LOVE this, and others HATE it. If you like Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea style games, Nippon-Ichi, or just intricate, involved games in general, this is definitely the game for you.

My favorite Nippon Ichi game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I own them all for Playstation 2: Disgaea 1&2, La Pucelle, Makai Kingdom, even the bad Atlier Iris games distrubted by NIS America but really produced by Gust.

This is my favorite, even if I have to drop a star for no new game+.

I like it because it is hard, like a true stragic role-playing game should be. Your characters evaporate after a set amount of turns, forcing you to form a balanced party. The free movement system is innovative, including levels where you slide on surface ice for truly long range.

You get one weapon; just one. Though your title doubles as armor. Anything can be a weapon (my best weapon is a live floppy fish) including trees, swords, model trains, and boxes. You can combine weapons together, giving you access to any ability on any item. Ultimate customization.

As for the story, I found a bit sappy yet heartwarming. Plus when you consider how the special character attacks are parody, it actually becomes funny. I liked the large amount of bright colors in the backgrounds and stage levels.

Finally I liked the game because by her actions, Marona shows what it means to be Brave.

Great strategy game - plus soundtrack audio cd

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 19
Date: September 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If any strat games have interested you before, this one you would love!.. No grids, witty comments, complexity, it's here.

Limited Edition includes audio-cd soundtrack also!

New kind of Strategy RPG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: June 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is a great new kind of srpg because there is no grid giving you alot of freedom. Mainly all srpg have grids and its boring seeing just squares everywhere but this game doesn't. That's a huge plus to this game. Also this game is a pretty serious game with some humor in it. The gameplay like most srpg is easy to get but this requires more strategy than anyother srpg I've seen. Your characters only have a certain number of turns to stay on the field, so playing all of your best guys in the beginning is bad. I haven't finished the game yet but so far its been VERY GOOD.

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.

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.

A helluva surprise

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Phantom Brave is a Japanese strategy-RPG from Nippon-Ichi, makers of Disagea (among others). Although I have been a long time fan of RPGs and various strategy games, I'd never tried my hand at an SRPG prior to Phantom Brave (despite owning FF Tactics for the better part of two years). When I saw PB for $20, I picked it up - and I was blown away.

The battle system is the heart of any RPG, and is especially important in an strategy-RPG. Phantom Brave's is fantastic, in my opinion, and is both unique and engaging. Essentially, you summon phantoms, which can be confined in real world objects placed around the map. Each phantom has a set number of turns before it is removed from the board. Phantoms can also be killed or thrown out of bounds by enemies. Before battle, you can equip your phantoms with a wide variety of weaponry - anything from swords to sunflowers to starfish - which effect attack, speed etc. stats. To make this weapons better, you can upgrade them using a blacksmith phantom, or fuse them with other items using a fusionist phantom. You can also get a titlist phantom to assign titles to weapons/characters that offer huge upgrades to their stats. The level of customization/character types is simply mind-blowing, and for anyone interested in delving into that, it's remarkably deep and rewarding. Some battles are cheap in the fashion in which the objects/terrain is laid out (i.e. spreading out the enemies across a giant map, so that your phantoms run out of turns before they can defeat all of them).

The story is pretty typical "kid saves the world while learning/teaching life lessons along the way" type stuff, but I found it engaging. The main characters, Ash and Marona, can be annoying at times, but they can also be quite heart-warming and funny. The final chapters are a bit over-wraught and rushed, but for the most part, the story is decent. The dialogue can be painful at times - the overuse of clichés is nearly sickening - but I managed to get through that. It is predicitable in parts, and it doesn't measure up to the likes of Final Fantasy VIII/IX/X et al. (insert game with good story here). It does its job, and it's quite funny in places - it definitely had me pressing on through the game, which is a plus.

Sound and graphics are rather blah. The voice acting gets grating; it's not absolutely god-awful, but it's not great either .The music is ok, but nothing spectacular as RPGs go. The graphics are absolutely crap - I'm sure even fans of 2D sprites will agree - with horrid animations, pixilated characters, terrible spell effects, and an amateurish appearance overall. This could have been done on the original Playstation, and it shows.

Overall, Phantom Brave really surprised me (in a pleasant sort of way). It is charming at many points, offers some great gameplay, and has a lot of replay value for those strategy-RPG nuts. After the "official game" is over and completed, then you can engage in a series of scenarios that require a huge amount of leveling, skill, and time to beat. Not to mention the fact that you can also upgrade your characters to level 9999, find rare items, upgrade titles, and go spelunking in the random dungeons the game creates. If you're looking to conquer all that Phantom Brave has to offer, prepare to fork over 200 hours of your life or more. Personally, my 35 hours got me through the main game and a few of the post-game events - a decent play-time as RPGs are concerned - and I was quite pleased with my experience. Regardless of how you wish to play Phantom Brave, the choice is there for you, and it should appeal to strategy buffs and newbies (such as myself) alike. Recommended.

Review Page: 1 2 3 Next 

Actions