Braving the Unknown, The Flexibility of Phantom Brave's Combat System

    Several months ago, NIS America announced a new title, a game which NO ONE had on their bucket lists. Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero. This is the sequel to the 20 year old game Phantom Brave where this time, Ash goes missing. In the original Phantom Brave, the game follows a young Chroma, Marona, who has the power to talk to and summon phantoms. The phantom Ash, hangs around her after Marona’s parents and Ash died on the The Island of Evil, which gives her the moniker of “The Possessed”. 

    I thought about picking up the new game and the original because the designs were so cute and at this point in my life NIS America has control over my spending power. Months after I picked up the original game for a mere $5 on steam, I am now addicted enough to write an article. As heart warming as the story is, what got me into the game was the unique combat that no other game has tried. 

    As Marona is a small child, she isn’t much of a fighter, but she can confine phantoms into objects that fight for her. To do this, you imbue objects on the battlefield with phantoms that you summon outside of battle. Those phantoms last for a certain amount of turns before they disappear. Each object increases and decreases certain stats on each character by a percentage, helping or hindering them. In addition, the elemental weaknesses on each of the items will transfer over to your phantoms. So a phantom confined into a fire weak box will also be weak to fire. This makes you think twice about what objects to confine your phantoms into. Do you imbue Ash into a closer object so they act sooner, but sacrifice some of their attack power, or do you imbue them into that rock halfway across the screen to give them more attack but less speed. 

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    In addition to buffs items give when phantoms are confined to them, different items on the field can buff and nerf other items on the field. If you confine into an item that has that buff or debuff, that will be applied to the character as well. Since objects can also be destroyed, instead of confining a phantom into an object giving debuffs, you may want to destroy them instead. 

    Phantom Brave also has a unique way of recruiting classes. While some phantoms can be created after defeating certain opponents in the story levels, other common enemies can become summonable phantoms if defeated enough times. Each character has their own set of skills, stats and proficiencies, and most of these types of skills need skill points of the corresponding type. What this means is that each unit has a “grade” on certain skills. For every skill type, the more you use that type of skill, the more skill points the character gains and the more of those said skills that character can use in a battle. If that skill is something the character has a higher proficiency in, they’ll gain those skill points faster. While certain characters inherently have certain skills, equipable items can give characters different skills as well, including ones that use 0 skill points. This can be used to level up a character’s skill without needing to spend points in battle per skill used. However this system enforces what I like to call, “Fire Emblem Three Houses Syndrome”. This means that any character CAN use ANY skill in the game if they are invested in it and can be built ANY WAY, it just takes time. So Fighting units will be more proficient in physical skills, but can be trained to use magic. 

    This diverse combat system of skills and confining makes Phantom Brave still hold up against the competition 20 years later. The fact that any character could do anything makes this game so interesting. I didn’t talk about it, but items can be fused together in this game, so you can give items, like swords or staves, healing and plant abilities that they do not normally have, or vice versa. This TRULY makes your creativity and imagination the only limit to your party, as anyone can be anything you want them to. That is what makes this game so special and why even though I’m not even halfway through it, I truly love the game with all my heart.

    A good handful of people remember when Phantom Brave came out and it’s great to see this game get a sequel, so fans old and new can experience the complex combat of the game. If you have $5 and spare time, I highly recommend getting this game on sale, as it is such an interesting game. If you enjoy it that much, make sure to pick up Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero on Switch, PS4 and PS5, as you won’t be disappointed.