With seven Disgaea games under their belt, Nippon Ichi Software will kick off 2025 with the return of the Phantom Brave series in Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero. It’s been 20 years since the first Phantom Brave game released, and NIS has taken a lot of feedback over the years to develop what could become one of the best RPGs releasing next year. Thanks to NIS America, I was able to get a closer look at what Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is all about at a preview event.
Development of Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is led by scenario writer Kento Jobana, who was involved with the game from its inception and contributed greatly to past Disgaea games. As a sequel to a game released 20 years ago, Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero aims to be a new starting point for the series while remaining familiar to returning Phantom Brave fans and making key improvements. Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero also benefits from a graphical jump over its predecessor, along with gameplay features and elements from Disgaea 7.
Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is a Fresh New Start
Set in the oceanic world of Ivoire, the story of Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero focuses on Marona and her Phantom companion Ash, returning characters from the first Phantom Brave game. While returning home from a contracted job, Marona and Ash’s ship is attacked by a group of ghostly pirates known as the Shipwrecked Fleet. A masked man intervenes and steals Marona’s powers, and both Marona and Ash are separated. After escaping, Marona meets Apricot, a Phantom that will accompany her on a new adventure while looking for her father—the lost captain of the Argento Pirate Crew.
The preview event didn’t delve deep into the story, but it’s clear that players do not need to play Phantom Brave first to dive into Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero. Newcomers won’t have to worry about missing out on anything story related here as Marona sets out on a completely new journey to get Ash back. After all, it’s been 20 years and a lot has changed for NIS over the years, including the transition to 3D models with Disgaea 6. Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero builds on the core gameplay system of the original while implementing feedback from development on Disgaea 7, which Jobana was also involved in.
A notable piece of feedback that Jobana discussed was a positive change in tone for the story and its characters. The premise of the Phantom Brave series does involve people who have died, but Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is more lighthearted and whimsical compared to its predecessor. According to Jobana, this change was made after Phantom Brave players felt like the beginning of the original game was too dark and dreary, leading some to just drop the game altogether.
A One-of-a-Kind Battle System
Phantom Brave is a very unique series of turn-based strategy RPGs since items play such a great role in how units perform. In Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero, it’s no different for Marona and her allies. Phantoms can be brought onto the field with Marona’s Confine ability, which channels them into items to deploy them as playable characters on the field. The Phantom’s stats will change based on the item they possess. For example, confining a Phantom to a weapon on the ground will increase their attack power.
Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero features a free movement system, allowing you to move characters anywhere you want within a radius during their turn, with a few exceptions. This means that Confined allies have a good range to work with right when they’re deployed, unlike strategy RPGs that use grid-based movement. However, you need to keep in mind that Phantoms will only be Confined for a few turns, meaning that they will be removed from the field.
Just like in Disgaea, your units can attack enemies on the field with a variety of skills and attacks. Along with the aforementioned Confine ability, Marona may use Confriend to allow an allied Phantom to possess her, gain stat boosts, use special skills, and act “Again” on turns. Confriend is mostly used well into a battle, since certain conditions must be met to activate it. Jobana also noted that the Confriend ability can be restricted by enemies as well, requiring their defeat in order to use it. There’s also Confire, the ability to use gadgets like cannons on the field.
Out of Bounds?
Lifting and throwing items on the field can be useful for both positioning and offense, and you can even equip enemies themselves or use allies as shields. This makes Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero really stand out against other strategy RPGs, but there’s one mechanic that brings a really interesting twist to combat: O.B., or out of bounds.
If an enemy is thrown out of bounds, they’ll sustain major damage. If they survive, they will return to the map with some distance away from your units. Items can also be thrown out of bounds, ensuring enemies also don’t gain an advantage for reaching the item and using it against you. Speaking further on the mechanic, Jobana noted that you can strategize around the O.B. mechanic itself to claim victory against really tough enemies.
Creating Bonds
Bonds and the Create a Phantom system play important roles for combat. Firstly, players can raise bonds between Marona and her Phantom companions by talking to them on Skull Rock Island, the crew’s base of operations. Bonds are also improved by regularly using those Phantoms in battle and giving them gifts. The deeper the bond, the more powerful the Confriend ability will be, which also results in higher stat boosts and more Agains. Bonds can be so strong that it’s possible to wipe out a maps enemies by chaining Agains, since the player will have so many turns in succession.
The Create a Phantom system is the vital piece that makes Bonds work in Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero, as these units are the ones on the frontlines for the playthrough. Just like in Disgaea, you can create your character and select its class. Many of the classes from Disgaea return in Create a Phantom, along with brand new ones like Angler, Explorer, and Musician. Angler appears to be a very clutch class since it can save allies from being thrown off the map.
Create a Phantom appears to be more specialized than previous iterations of the character creator, however. Elemental resistances for fire, water, and wind can be changed to your liking, as long as the total resistance value reaches 0%. Spirit points can be used to adjust status parameters manually as well, including HP, ATK, and DEF. Of course, you must also consider the specific base stats that each class brings.
Have It Your Way With EXP
One of the most intriguing features of Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero involves the new facilities you can unlock for simply making a character in a specific class. The example shown during the preview is the Chef class, which unlocks the Juice Bar. The Juice Bar is one of the most profound features in the game since it allows you to create EXP juice to redistribute EXP to your other units.
An EXP ratio feature is also accessible once the Juice Bar is unlocked and as the NISA team demonstrated, you can adjust the ratio to siphon EXP earned in battle to the bar. This is great for players who have a team setup that’s already at a high enough level for certain maps. You can tune the EXP ratio regularly as well, so you can adjust it to your liking along with the difficulty setting you’re playing with.
EXP is not restricted to just characters, as items can gain better stats and more skills by leveling up as well. Instead of the Juice Bar, a Fusion system is available to improve these items. Since items will greatly affect Phantoms, you will definitely want to take advantage of Fusion when battles get more tough.
Setting Sail
You’ll be setting sails on the high sea of Ivoire on a 2D world map of sorts, which I saw briefly at the preview event. Levels are found on islands of all shapes and sizes, scattered across the deep blue sea. Story quests and side quests will take you to these islands to face a variety of challenges to earn money, EXP, and special items.
As Marona, you’re the head of your own pirate crew, so you’ll naturally be in charge of ships. You can improve and obtain ships as you progress the game, along with giving them crew members and a pirate style. This pirate style can determine the outcome of the missions you send that crew on and the amount of resources gained. I didn’t see the pirate crew put to action, so comparing each pirate style will have to wait.
As you progress, you will also earn maps that can be used to create randomized dungeons, which can be named. Clearing the dungeon rewards the player with a title with the dungeon’s name. That specific title grants stat bonuses and deficits to the character it’s equipped with.
Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero Brings Some Refreshing Ideas to the Strategy RPG Space
I’m definitely sold on what Jobana and the team at NIS have developed in terms of combat and features in Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero thus far. For Disgaea fans, Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is looking like a really great RPG that will satisfy that itch you’ve felt after beating Disgaea 7.
There’s a lot of potential with the many ideas brought to the table, but I definitely will need hands-on time to experience what the gameplay loop is like. Overall, I’m very interested in the gameplay systems here. It remains to be seen what the story entails for Marona, Apricot, and the rest of the characters on their adventure.
Lastly, Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero launches on January 30, 2025 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. The Steam version is coming in spring 2025.
