I never played the original Phantom Brave, but the Disgaea games were a big influence in my teenage years. Something about Nippon Ichi Software SRPGs is so endearing, with quirky game design, snappy game feel, and a satisfying grind. They’re not for everyone, but they have a valuable spot in the SPRG genre. It’s also worth noting that it feels like NIS is one of the only companies continuously putting out strategy games this often, and has been making some pretty good titles. Hearing that they brought back one of their more beloved PlayStation 2 SRPGs, Phantom Brave, in the form of a sequel with a worldwide release? They definitely had my attention.
While Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is a sequel to the original game, I don’t think you need to play it to really appreciate this one. Marona and Ash feel like legacy characters to kind of guide a new cast, which helps establish this new sea of islands and recap the original. After the events of the original Phantom Brave, Marona and Ash find themselves separated while taking a boat to a new land. She finds herself separated from him and washed up on a mysterious island, but is quick to help out and insert herself into all kinds of new conflicts as she tries to find her lost friend.
If you’ve ever played a NIS game, this has all of their hallmark humor balanced with endearing charm. Marona travels the seas, taking island arcs in batches of about five tactical missions each and building a community of well-meaning pirates on her island. All the while uplifting a young Phantom girl named Apricot, the shy captain of their crew. There’s something continuously compelling about a girl who can speak to spirits and help them feel like they have a place, solving their problems along the way.
But the real reason you’re here is the gameplay, and I have to say I became quite a fan. Every map is a little 3D space, with varieties of terrain and elevation. The unique gimmick is that every map being in its own little void ties into the gameplay, as attacks have blowback that can knock units off the stage to damage them. If items are thrown or knocked out of bounds (O.B.), they’ll disappear from the map. From here it’s up to you to find your own way to clear enemies off the map, and summon your arsenal of Phantoms to fight with you.
Marona can use her powers to confine Phantoms to objects on the map, where they’ll be there for a set amount of turns they can exist before having to leave the map. They each share experience for every kill, and even have the ability to possess or enter gadgets on the map to help you maneuver terrain. They can have a variety of effects in combat too, like industrial fans pushing foes out of bounds or into position, also hurting them. You can even develop new gadgets at your base, and summon them onto the field. These maps are long, but allow some pretty flexible play.
Marona also has some unique skills to her, like being able to add turns to a Phantom or allowing them to act immediately after her. Her most unique mechanic happens to be Confriend fusing with Phantoms if she builds up a meter for it, allowing her to get a unique form and combo multiple turns. It feels absolutely broken if used efficiently, but can be punishing if you get careless. To be able to fuse with a Phantom, you’ll need to get their affection up on Skullrock. Once this is done you can Confriend with anyone on the field or in your reserves, and once you finish that unit can’t be Confined onto the field. This is often your boss killer mechanic, and was fun to store or even use in a bind. The tide of battle can turn rather quickly if you aren’t careful. Having a meter that could really only be used once per battle taunting me as a get-out-of-bad-mistake-free card? That has me on edge in battle, and I really love that.
I’d say the combination of real-time physics and turn-based combat is a bit awkward, but it still comes together better than you’d expect. If you’re looking for a tightly designed game, this isn’t for you. If you’re looking for an SRPG that feels like more of a sandbox then you’ve come to the right place. During every turn, your character will have a circle in which they can move, and can freely move and jump in that circle. Characters have different jump heights and movement ranges, and the physics of positioning can be a bit wonky. I do think this works in its favor, as part of the fun came trying to maneuver around the physics to find clever solutions. I think the menu navigation is a bit unwieldy and feels intuitive at spots, but I did get used to it.
Every Phantom you recruit feels deeply customizable in that you can change their color scheme, name, and stat growths. The main story also feels pretty well balanced, mostly requiring less of your stats and more of your attentiveness. Every item on the map typically has some kind of effect on it, which will be shared with an enemy (or several) on the field. These can either be really effective buffs, or could even be invincible. They can also have effects on the environment around them, blocking off parts of the map if you don’t take care of them. Eliminating these objects, or throwing them out of the arena to O.B. is the only way to clear them. This way of turning the maps themselves into little puzzles to solve reminded me of Disgaea 4, which endeared me to the gameplay fast.
Outside of this map, you have your base of Skullrock Island, where you can summon Phantoms to make a tiny little community. Certain Phantoms have specific facilities applied to their class, and what you can find with them might even improve or change depending on their level. There are also some extra activities you can do here, like running extra dungeons based on item tiles and taking on quests. Everything you do on here is essentially a way to apply buffs or customize your units, so even if it is a bit sparse I’m glad it is focused on the gameplay loop of building up your characters. The content here is pretty substantial and I enjoyed taking breaks from the main story to spend time here, even if I do prefer how the Disgaea games have a more organized home base.
Where my criticisms really come into play is related to the Nintendo Switch port. The modern era of NIS 3D RPGs (Disgaea 6, Disgaea 7, and this game) have had a rocky experience on the system. While the performance and visuals have improved, Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is still far from stable. There are two visual settings to set the game to, Quality and Performance. Both set the frames-per-second (FPS) to a target of 30, but Performance often looks fine enough of a downgrade to not detract from the aesthetic. This is a pretty clean-looking game on the Switch, some aliasing aside. The frame rate feels like it almost halves on some maps where there are too many items or characters, even on Performance mode. While some maps will be fine, there are some that really tank the frame rate whenever you even consider turning the camera.
Being a turn-based RPG, you would think this would be fine to work with if you’re a bit tolerant to frame rate drops. It mostly is, but in specific instances, the unresponsive controls that come from a particularly bad performance dip would have a messy crossover with the real-time physics and my character would find themselves out of bounds and then damaged. I also came across a crash in my time playing, making me lose about an hour of progress on a map.
Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is a pretty in-depth and approachable SRPG, with more than enough customization to keep people falling into the beloved NIS grinding. These systems are solid, and pretty fun, even if there’s some awkward physics here and there. It’s held back by the Nintendo Switch version’s shortcomings however, but if you’ve already been playing their games on Switch for the past few years you’re probably used to this. I’m hoping further patches or Nintendo Switch 2 backward compatibility will clean it up down the road. I’m pretty excited for NIS to continue making these charming and complex RPGs, as they’ve hit their stride. Hopefully, with stronger hardware next time, it’ll be firing off all cylinders. There are some good hooks here, and I even want to circle back and see how much of what I liked is in the original’s DNA.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch
Review copy provided by NIS America
