yesterday i ran out to madison, not only to get my driving fix, but to go to various places in search of comics, anime, and games. among some very special finds, i also found good 'ol phantom brave used for $35. cha-ching.
i had been slightly interested in this game when Donesh recommended that i would like it much better than disgaea. disgaea is one of those games that i don't really like, but get some enjoyment from playing it. metriod prime falls into this category as well. some of the big things i don't like about disgaea is how disconnected the story is from the gameplay, how retarded the story is most of the time, and how aggoraphobic movement throughout the world is. all of these phantom brave fixes. there are other things that annoy me about disgaea that i'll address eventually.
i think the bulk of this first post is going to be a lot of comparing disgaea to phantom brave. if you've heard and have an interest in phantom brave, chances are you've played or know enough about disgaea to see what i mean.. hopefully ^_^
phantom brave's story is pretty simply and follows the same simplistic approach nippon ichi took with disgaea, except phantom brave lays on emotion connections. one of the co-main characters of phantom brave is Ash. Ash and two of his colleagues fight against these evil phantoms. They are completely overwhelmed when the source of the phantoms kills them. However, Ash is saved from death, in a matter of speaking. He now roams the earth as a phantom himself, and watched over he colleague's daughter, Marona, the other main character.
8 years after this incident, when Marona is 13 years old. She has become a Chroma, sort of like an adventurer he takes on missions giving to them by anyone for a set fee. Though, everyone in Iviore ridecules and persecutes her because she has a connection with Phantoms, ie Ash.
already, the story carries more emotional weight than disgaea. you can simpathize with the characters in their situations. unlike a bratty demon who kills and tortures people. though, disgaea is more a comedy than a drama.
phantom brave also rises over disgaea's story telling style. instead of character images with text underneath, the characters have a separate set of sprites different from regular gameplay, that interact with each other during story points in the game. they have complete animations for emotions and movements.
phantom brave is pretty interesting. the gameplay system is pretty different from disgaea, and also makes a whole lot more sense. in disgaea, you commanded legions of the netherworld that had almost no connection to the overall story or atmosphere of the game, and they entered the field through a tiny square in the ground.
phantom brave ties it's battle field more closely with the situation Ash is in. throughout the battlefield various objects are scattered. like trees, bricks, rocks, etc. When you begin battle, marona is the only one in the field, and because of her connection with phantoms, she can confine phantoms to these objects in the field. that is how you bring your characters out to fight. plus, depending on the objects, confining a phantom can increase and decrease aspects of their stats.
though objects in the field serve more than just that purpose, and even besides objects, weapons and people/animals, alive or dead can be used the same way. Everything has a level and hp. objects in the field can easily be destroyed, as well as objects being held onto. you can use people/animals, alive or dead, the same way as objects. you can pick them up and use them as a weapon, in a different way though.
Weapons and field objects have their own set attacks. once a character wields one of the two, they use these attacks rather than their own, plus they also might get a unique attack to be used with it. a character may only be able to weird one object/weapon/person/animal at once. if you're holding onto something living, they can't attack, but when it's their turn, they damage the wielder.
anything a character holds can be thrown. something new added to phantom brave v. disgaea is the idea of OB, out of bounds. you can thrown or knock things off the map, and they then are no longer in the battle. this is very annoying on those slippery maps. marona can never be knocked off the map, nor can the last enemy left to kill. many attacks can knock enemies back, or even have a throw effect to them. these effects don't work on dead characters, nor objects, you have to specificially throw them out of the field.
one thing Donesh mentioned earlier that caught my attention was the avoidance of the grid patterned field. when you move in the field, you aren't confined to a squared out grid pattern. each character has a specific amount of paces they can take for each turn, they can use this anytime during their turn. so they could walk up to an enemy, attack, and then walk away again. whenever you use up your paces, the number of decreased for that turn. quite a different take. it gives you alot more freedom of movement but has a clear disadvantage beyond the bugs.
the battlefield gets very very crowded on small maps with lots of enemies. in a regular grid square, you could fit at most, i'd say 3 or 4 characters. your lesser characters can easily get teamed up upon, and beaten quite quickly. and then it makes things difficult specifying which enemy you want to attack, though that can be solved by paying close attention to who is selected. on the plus side, you can nail alot of enemies with area effects easily when they crowd you. also, you walk on top of objects/animals/people/weapons so you can run away if you're in the middle of things.
one other thing changed from disgaea is the final fantasy tactics approach to realtime turns. in disgaea, your whole team took their turn, then neutrals, then enemies, then repeat. in phantom brave, it cycles through all the characters at once: higher 'speed' characters are at the top of the charts, and have more frequent turns.
a character can only attack once per turn, but before they attack you can lift and throw once each, and then attack. so if you don't like your weapon, you can throw it away, pick up something else, and then attack with that all in one turn.
in agreement with Don, the absolute most annoying thing i've found with phantom brave is the 'return' attribute. all of your phantoms have one, and it is the amount of turns before your character reverts back into the object is it confined in. once a character is introduced to the field, and then reaches their return limit, you cannot re-confine that phantom for the rest of the battle. so the question of where and when you confine a phantom in the field is crucial to your success. after they 'return' there is a chance that you'll keep the object you've confined them in. easy money.
Ivoire is an ocean world, and the places you travel to are islands. when choosing where to go throughout the world, phantom brave has a similar approach like disgaea, except instead of list, there's a map! you actually know where you are going, rather than just a name. no longer does it seem like you live in absolutely no enviroment. three chears!
plus, when you finish a battle, you have to travel back to your home, rather than just magically appear there.
your home island is not only your home, but all your character's and weapon's home as well. in order to do your simple tasks, like buy stuff, heal your party, etc. you must enlist a phantom to do this. these phantoms also aid you in battle. the game gives you your first three phantoms, a worthless fighter, a merchant, and a healer. the fighter is worthless, but the merchant and healer are your main contacts when you return. hell your party, and sell your booty.
when you're on your home island you control Ash. to create new phantoms you talk with marona. creating phantoms cost money, increasing the amount of money you spend creating a phantom gives you more ability points to distribute amongst the characters attributes.
to attain more class to create phantoms from, you must kill a certain amount of them in the field. for humans, most of the time its just one kill, but regular enemies are alot more. human phantoms can have unique jobs on your island. a titlist can change weapon and character titles. a mage can organize weapons and character skills. a blacksmith can level up and unlock skills of weapons depending on mana earned. a fusionist can join together charcters and weapons. a dungeon-monk can create random dungeons for your party to conquer (much like the itemworld in disgaea, though different). so forth and so on.
also on your home island you can pick up your friends and weapons and throw them around the island, so you can organize everyone the way you want and are confortable with.
as said before, all weapons have their set of experience, hitpoints, and mana. mana is gained by killing enemies with the weapon. this mana is used with the blacksmith to unlock more skills, and reach the next level in conjunction with experience. weapons have pretty low max levels, but can be increased by fusing other objects together with it. also, when fusing items you can increase stats depending on mana levels.
in phantom brave, there is no other equipment besides weapons. you don't have accessories, or armor, or etc. and even by equiping a weapon, you're basically giving the weapon a chance to fit along with the character, rather than the other way around. Don's assumptions of character's basically being 'vehicles' for the weapon is pretty true. however, using a weak character for a strong weapon won't help you at all.
character's are still very important to building a strong party. you could basically show up to battle with no weapons equiped and just use the enviroment objects or enemies as weapons instead of your own. rocks are extremely useful and powerful.
even if you go into battle and some slime steals your weapon, it's not gone for good, just in someone else's hand. your weapons are treated just like your characters. you have to heal them after battle, just as you would your characters.
something that i initially loved about phantom brave over disgaea was the music, but more and more into the game i realized that it wasn't any better, just different. The same type of music is used in the same situations that would occur in disgaea. The overall feel is much more consistant though. plus, when you buy the game is comes with a cd of selected tracks from the game ^_^.
the sound is typical nippon ichi. not all that good, but not bad. plus there's a lot of reused sounds from disgaea. sadness.
phantom brave also offers the option to have the vocals in japanese rather than english. it doesn't matter though, since the english track is much better than the japanese one, in my opinion. i think the english voices have more character behind them. one downfall is that marona's voice actor is flonne from disgaea.
well, the first 2 or 3 hours were a little rough because missions hardly gave you any money and healing characters and buying weapons wasn't cheap. but after going through a random dungeon i'm sitting on top of things.
the game is still somewhat ackward, and it will be for anyone that's really really used to disgaea. your characters are restricted by the amount of time they are in the battle, and it's real easy to hit something else by accident when things are piled up pretty high. the importance of weapons can also sidetrack you from leveling the character itself, producing difficult battles if your weapons is destoryed or thrown out.
the battle and equipment system is quite interesting, but i probably would have liked it alot better if they kept the weapons and equipment more traditional. i'm only 5 1/2 hrs. into the game though, so there could be something i'm missing.
....plenty more to come ^_^