Phantom Brave

by NIS America

Product Details

• ASIN: B0002CNUMQ
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 1 x 1 inches ; 6.1 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,841 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars And now for an ACTUAL review..., June 6, 2005

By 

Patient Zero (Iowa City, The Moon) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Phantom Brave (Video Game)

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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I purchased this game a while back..., July 9, 2006

By 

M. A Jenkins "southerndudeman" (Manhattan, KS) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Phantom Brave (Video Game)

...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...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it, December 13, 2005

By 

Ukato "Kisho" - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Phantom Brave (Video Game)

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!