Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero Review

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Last June during a Nintendo Direct presentation, NIS unveiled an unexpected follow-up to the 2004 Phantom Brave game. Titled Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero, this sequel brings back Marona and Ash, the Chroma-Phantom duo who perform tasks for the citizens of Ivoire. Since it’s been quite a while since I last played the original game, but from what I recall, the first game concluded with a definite ending that made a follow-up seem unlikely at the time. It will be interesting to see what NIS has come up with after all these years.

A few months following the conclusion of their initial adventure, Ash and Marona embark on a journey by sea to a fresh territory, where Marona continues her Chroma responsibilities. During their voyage, they are unexpectedly attacked by a bandit pirate group known as the Shipwreck Fleet. In a desperate move, Ash tosses Marona into the water for her safety. Eventually, Marona finds herself stranded on shore and encounters a young Phantom named Apricot. Apricot has a mission: to locate her missing father and rebuild the honor of his pirate crew, the Argento Pirate Crew. Joining forces with Marona, Apricot seeks out her father and aims to track down the Shipwreck Fleet to rescue Ash.

As a gamer diving back into The Lost Hero, while you don’t strictly need to know the ins and outs of the previous game, it certainly adds depth with some nods scattered throughout. Truth be told, my memory of the original plot is hazy at best. It’s not exactly an edge-of-your-seat narrative, but that doesn’t make it bad. Far from it, really. It’s more of a familiar adventure tale: we gather allies on our journey and have our fair share of fun amidst the combat.

In Phantom Brave, the game is primarily divided into numerous battle zones spread across a defined region, with a central location serving as a base for returning between fights. The combat unfolds on a compact battlefield where resources are strewn about the landscape. These items serve as spawn points for your units once a fight begins. Marona possesses the power to “Confine” Phantoms (spirits from this realm) into these items, giving them tangible form. There’s a wide array of classes and creatures to enlist in Marona’s forces, and strategically employing these diverse classes will be crucial for success in battles.

In a typical Strategy Role-Playing Game (SRPG), the key to victory lies in arranging your units taking into account their strengths and weaknesses. What sets Phantom Brave apart is that only Marona begins battles on the field, while you get to decide which phantoms to summon based on your tactical needs or the benefits an item confined within a phantom provides. These phantoms can be summoned from any item found on the battlefield, including dropped weapons or items from other phantoms. By placing items strategically around the field, you can position Marona for ideal phantom summons during her next turn. Every battlefield scenario offers several approaches to success.

In this central location of the game, known as the hub world, you can perform numerous tasks. This includes hiring Phantoms, acquiring new abilities, and dispatching your Phantoms for adventures. As you advance in the game and acquire certain types of Phantom classes, additional facilities become accessible and existing ones can be improved further. This cycle provides a good balance that prevents the time between battles from feeling monotonous, as there’s always room for growth and exciting prospects to come.

During normal gameplay, I encountered an issue with enemies moving erratically due to obstacles or complex terrain. They seemed to stumble and halt abruptly, giving the impression they had reached their destination, only to continue this pattern. At times, enemies would become stuck completely, allowing me to ignore them and concentrate on immediate threats. This unexpected ease in certain game sections could be attributed to this issue. Additionally, some weapons could trap Phantoms within them, eliminating multiple enemies simultaneously. The overall difficulty can lean towards the easier side, but it’s adjustable according to preference.

In general, I tend to be fairly tolerant when it comes to game performance issues. For instance, I enjoyed playing cooperative Dynasty Warriors on PS2 despite the fact that only five enemies could appear on screen and the entire map was shrouded in distance fog. However, Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero really tested my patience, particularly on the Nintendo Switch.

Action or real-time games can often get a pass for frame rate issues due to the sheer amount of activity happening simultaneously. But when it comes to turn-based games with such problems, it becomes harder to accept. In Performance mode, the game starts to lag a few chapters in, and the number of enemies per map only increases from there. Forget about Graphics mode entirely; even the initial levels start to run slowly.

It’s hard to find a more obvious indication of why the Switch 2 might be necessary than this game. The Nintendo Switch is straining under the load of running a cel-shaded, turn-based RPG. Given more development time, these flaws might have been addressed. However, as it currently stands, this version of the game doesn’t measure up to expectations for a quality port.

Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is a great game overall, but the performance on Switch can diminish the enjoyment. If possible, try getting this game on another platform. Despite its flaws, such as being too easy due to poor enemy movement patterns, it’s still a fun game with a good deal of depth in the strategy role-playing genre. If you’re a fan of SRPGs and have some spare time, it’s worth checking out.

7

Versions tested: Nintendo Switch

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2025-03-02 17:56