NIS America invited me to a preview event for Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero. For those who don’t know, the original Phantom Brave game was made over twenty years ago, and we’re just now getting a full-on sequel to the game, despite receiving a few remasters and remakes for the first game.
What You Need To Know About Phantom Brave
The main duo of Phantom Brave are Marona and Ash. Marona is a young girl who has the power to speak to phantoms. They are spirits that have passed on from the mortal realm. They are essentially ghosts. Ash is a phantom with whom she becomes friends in the first game. Phantom Brave had to deal with dark themes due to using the spirits of the dead as allies. It had complaints about being dark for too long. This sequel will deal with some heavy themes and heartfelt stories, but it will have lighter moments to balance the dark.
The Lost Hero
This sequel starts with Marona and Ash getting separated by a mysterious ghost fleet. As Marona looks into this ghost fleet she comes across a person named Apricot. Apricot has lost her father to the fleet. Marona and Apricot join together to investigate this ghost fleet and hope to find Ash and Apricot’s father.
The flow of the gameplay loop is simple. You will begin a story sequence that will be told in Visual Novel type cinematics. Then combat will start and a battle will commence. After you complete the battle you will be placed on Skullrock Island. Skullrock Island will be your hub to create characters, and dungeons, use the juice bar, and start the next mission plus much much more. When describing this game, NIS has called it a Play-It-Your-Way Strategy RPG. You can speed through this game or take it slow and methodical. You can also change difficulties to what you want the experience to be like. A difficult system or more of a stroll to experience the story.
When you are in combat you have free movement. While other SRPGs or Strategy RPGs will have you on a grid. This one has no grid you can have your units move any way as long as it is within their movement. You will need to learn how best to use the confine system. You can summon your phantom allies by confining their soul into an item on the battlefield. Their stats can be enhanced based on the item you confine them to.
A brand new mechanic introduced in this sequel is called Confriend. You can confine phantoms with Marona to transform her appearance and access special attacks. If Marona defeats an enemy while under the confriend status, she can get another turn called Again. Marona can chain up to five Agains.
Creating Your Phantom Party
When you are in Skullrock Island in Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero you can create phantoms to join you in the game. There are several new classes including Musician, Chef, Explorer, and an Angler. Each class has elemental affinities and resistances to Flame, Wind, and Ice. You can use points to reduce or increase the resistance to each element. Using Spirit Points on their stats also uses funds so be sure to not overdo it.
To best utilize the confriend system you need to increase your bonds with the characters you create. You increase bonds by having them in your party and by talking to them and giving gifts. Interacting with your allies is the best way to increase your bond with them. The bond is signified by the filled hearts next to their name when you talk to them or in combat.
The Fleet
Since you need to find a ghost fleet in Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero, you need to create your own to find them. You can obtain ships and upgrade them on Skullrock Island. You are also able to place your characters on the ship to be its crew. You can also enhance and upgrade the ships by using a bunch of required materials. Each ship has a different Pirate Style. Pirate Style changes the amount of members can crew the ship.
New To The Series
Even though this game serves as a sequel, Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero will be friendly to newcomers to the series. It will be more impactful to players who came from the first game, but enough of it will be explained that you won’t be confused going into the game as an entry point to the series. With the dungeon creation and phantom creation, this game offers a ton of replayability to those who love having a long time to spend in the world of this series.
If you are familiar with the Disgaea series, it could be beneficial to start up the Phantom Brave series. One thing to note is that Kento Jobana, the Scenario Director of both Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless as well as the one for this game is “Disgaea needs momentum and needs to keep moving forward with constant humor and jokes. Phantom Brave requires a delicate touch. It needs to be heartfelt. Phantom Brave also does not have parody aspects or dirty jokes” The art style looks similar to Disgaea 7 but the story is going to be more aligned with the Phantom Brave series themes.
I am certainly looking forward to playing this game once it releases on January 30th, 2025. However, Steam users will have to wait til Spring 2025 before they can get their hands on it.
Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero comes out January 30th, 2025 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5, followed by a PC (Steam) release in Spring 2025.
