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    Phantom Brave

    Originally posted by Quantum Leap
    Oh Boy
    It's complex, but damn is it clever. The story is you play a young girl who can call on phantoms to fight in battles. You move about the PB world taking on jobs from people who need problems solving. All well and good, but it's when you get to battles that things really do start to get (almost) overwhelming.

    If you've played Disgaea and La Pucelle, well, frankly you can chuck any tactics you used for those games out the window, as the battle engine works in a completely different way. Gone are the moving your troops give them orders to execute in a sequence and apply.

    Character turns are based on their speed - it's similar to the way character turns are done in Final Fantasy, but without the timer. A list of the characters is show on the right side of the screen in the order that they will be able to move. Characters perform actions one at a time in accordance to the order of that list, so now we have to plan actions with that in mind.

    Also gone is any idea of grid based movement. It's a free move map with the limits of your characters ranged displayed via a circle. It really does take some getting use to. Direction and height doesn't seem to have much baring on attack effectiveness, though this is difficult to judge with such low level characters at the moment.

    Right, now we have your team. This doesn't work in the same way as Disgaea or La Pucelle (you might be noticing a pattern here). At least so far, all team members are phantoms, i.e., they're not physical entities, so you must confine them to objects on the map be they rocks, flowers etc. Only then can your phantoms attack things. But: phantoms can only stay confined to items for so many combat turns, run out and that phantom cannot be assigned again for the duration of the battle.

    The items you confine your characters to affect their stats. Rocks mean slower, shorter movement, but higher defence. Flowers higher magic ability. Did I mention this is complex?

    Sometimes equipment appears on the map that you can pick up and use - the items you pick up affect the sort of attacks you can do against the enemy. You can buy equipment and use it, this part of the game seems a little fuzzy so far.

    One last game concept before I get back to it, that of protection. If you've played the previous games you'll know that there are status effects that can be a boon or not to your character. Here protection is assigned via map objects to enemies, to remove the protection you have to destroy the obects. Protection has a source and target object, if you confine a phantom to the the target object of protection, it'll yield the benefits.

    So then, it's complex. The question you may be asking is: Is it good? Well first impressions are very possitive, although the story so far seems a little bland (fair dues it's only an hour in and may well pick up). It's not a game for those new to TRPGs though.

    I'll post more as I progress further into the game.
    Last edited by MartyG; 03-09-2004, 00:06.

    #2
    That sounds very interesting.
    Thanks for the excellent impressions.

    Comment


      #3
      About 7 hours in now, and more stuff is becoming available. Defeating creatures in maps makes new classes become available. It's worth going back to maps to as sometimes neutral characters turn up, who if you kill them, then make their class available. The classes of characters allow for different game features.

      I'm not particularly keen on one aspect confining system, specifically that your phantoms are only available for so many turns on a map. It makes things difficult, as at times, your best fighters will disappear at the worst moment. It means you have to double everything up and save confining throughout the round. I'm warming to it as it's actually a clever system, it makes you think stategically; you know your characters will disappear, so when do you deploy them?

      When you confine phantoms to an object, if they do disappear it's possible that the item they were confined to will be stolen. You see a percentage of keeping when you confine to an object, the higher that is the more likely it is you'll take it back to the island you live on. These objects can then be sold, combined or equiped as required.

      It isn't a level fest like Disgaea, it actually looks like max levels are quite restrictive. Once you open up a certain class it's possible to combine, as mentioned above, these objects with one another or a character, you can even combine characters themselves. You chose two entities (be they characters or items) and you're able to see the benefits of combining. This is actually quite similar to how getting better weapons was done in La Pucelle. The second thing you combine with the first item gets destroyed, so you need to be careful when doing this.

      There is a random dungeon aspect to the game, but you need to open up a certain class first before you can get to it. It's a good way of leveling characters and gaining money. Mentioning money, it's a struggle at the begining. You have to pay for new characters, healing, items ... and you don't ever have enough.

      One thing is certain, you have to have patience. With Disgaea you could munch through, but here you need to get your head around how the game mechanics work. It takes a while as there's so much to it.

      It doesn't have the immediacy as Disgaea, as the story has progressed it's not really become much more interesting. It lacks the humour of both La Pucelle and Disgaea, it's actually quite a sad story.

      I am enjoying playing it though, I'm sure the intricacies are going to take ages to figure out. Perfect.
      Last edited by MartyG; 04-09-2004, 08:20.

      Comment


        #4
        Some more quick impressions ...

        The whole confining aspect is the biggest thing you have to wrap your head around. What you confine to affects stats, then you can also equip items that you can confine too, and equiping affects stats. Then the protection stuff that some objects have affect stats.

        I'm got about nine hour on the clock, but a lot of that has been levelling so I can beat end of chapter bosses, with no area affect spells yet, it makes the game hard work. You have to earn mana to level weapons, and each weapon has to earn it's own mana, done so by equiping and killing monsters or leaving it on the island you live on to earn it magically whilst you're on a dungeon map.

        One more thing, you can throw enemies and items off maps and this kills them for being out of bounds. You can also be chucked off, so you need to think about positioning to prevent this from happening. If items are chucked off the map that you own, the disappear for good (I think, it might be a little random I'll have to keep checking this, the definitely sometimes disappear). Also, weapons have HP so that might actually be related, but it means you have to heal weapons/items as well as characters. Phew.

        Comment


          #5
          Sounds interesting, allthough I'm worried that a bit like La Pucelle as soon as the disc leaves the drive for the first time, It will never return.

          Hopefully get it this weekend but with Burnout3 and Psi Ops also due I fear it could have some strong competition.

          How does the gridless map play? is it difficult to make hits and or determine if yo are going to hit an ally? I assume you still get the range guides.

          Comment


            #6
            It's a bit hit and miss really, some attacks you can highlight over enemies at it'll move your character into range to execute it. Other attacks you have to move your character yourself, and then execute the attack. This can entail moving, cancelling, moving again until you get the distance right. It's a bit annoying and I really can't see why the game won't move you to the right position for all attacks.

            Edit - Just discovered that you can fine tune your characters position whilst the ranges are displayed. This is done by holding the [] button, which avoids the move/reset lark. That one was hidden away.

            The map can get quite cluttered too as dead things remain on the map unless you hit them again to banish them. So it's a nice idea, just hasn't had the problems completely ironed out.
            Last edited by MartyG; 06-09-2004, 20:58.

            Comment


              #7
              Edit - Just discovered that you can fine tune your characters position whilst the ranges are displayed. This is done by holding the [] button, which avoids the move/reset lark. That one was hidden away.
              You're a star.

              Not played much of Phantom Brave yet, but it definitely seems an interesting one. One guy in the game asked if I'd played Disgaea.

              The soundtrack's good though

              Comment


                #8
                Well this game is becoming a frustrating experience - I've spent three hours trying to complete a level and not being able to do so. The problem is the difficulty level just isn't well judge. I've got several lvl 24-28 chars, Ash is lvl 36, the enemy on the map are max of 22, so it's not even that they're weak.

                Second map of chapter 8. The floor is slippy, there are four mage enemies that can heal themselves more than you can inflict damage (even with chacters of the same or higher level), there's an area that's blocked off with a creature behind it with only two objects to confine into, as because of the very silly out of bounds rule, the creature there just punts you out of bounds. You can punt him out as he's OB protected, the protection is over the overside of the map and there are two lion type enemies projecting that. It's OTT, if you're new to TRPGs don't even consider getting this game, you'll be put off the genre for life.
                Last edited by MartyG; 06-09-2004, 23:23.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Hmmm that doesn't sound so good Marty...although whay you've posted so far is getting me very excited all the same.

                  Anyway I'm sulking because my copy still hasn't made it over from vgplus despite shipping on the same day as Star Ocean which was waiting for me yesterday when I got back from hols...

                  Better be here soon or there will be hell to pay!

                  Comment


                    #10
                    It'll just be a matter of hammering the dungeons and levelling up some more - which I don't mind especially, I just think that particular level hasn't had its design thought through very well. I was determined to crack it without doing so.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Finally managed to beat that level, with levelling up and retrying it over and over, I think it's taken about 4 hours to beat. I only just managed to crack it as the beast hidden behind the no go markers failed to attack twice, and the attacks he did hit didn't knock me OB. Even when his OB protection was removed he wouldn't OB (normally this is the case when there's only one chacter on the map, but I purposely left another there). Ah well, it's done now. Good luck when you reach it

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Mine came yesterday from VG+. Spent 80 minutes with it and have just about got to grips with movement, confining and attacking. As you say, it is complex. That Square button sounds useful as I was forever standing on top of friends and foes trying to position myself for attacking. Also were friends and foes were close I had to be careful to highlight the enemy for an attack. By the sound of things I shouldn't have spent so much on items, though I do have some money left over.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Hurrah my copy was waiting on the matt for me tonight...now the only question do i finish of ToS or plough straight in and lose my life for the next few weeks....

                          Comment


                            #14
                            I spent an extremely frustrating half hour with this trying to get used to the movement. Exasperating to say the least.

                            I then spent an extremely enjoyable further 3 hours with the game, everything learnt so far seemed to click. I repeated the last two maps from the first Chapter to gain some levels. I really ought to return to then so that I can boost my lower level characters (blacksmith, fusionist and witch).

                            Money hasn't really been a problem so far.

                            I read somewhere than Marona is maybe not that good, but I have no complaints as long as she has an item. Both her and Ash are my strongest characters at Lvl 6 (I'm only on Chapter 3). Biggest surprise was the Healer after I gave her a staff. In the early maps she was easily my most powerful character and could kill in one hit. Bizarrely, Marona has done more healing than her! Needless to say Ash is now the most powerful.

                            I am just about used to the limited map time of some of the characters. I usually leave Ash and the Healer off the map until I get close to the main eneimies.

                            Apparently the manual that shipped with the game (16 pages) is not as complete as intended. There is a download of the complete manual (26 pages) which I admittedly got via the Doublejump Books forum.

                            I am thoroughly enjoying the game so far.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              /sulks

                              my copy still isnt here

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