Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Despite being a pretty big fan of the Disgaea franchise, I’ve never dabbled in the other strategy RPG releases that team has concocted over the years. Nippon Ichi Software has a massive catalogue of different titles to dig into, though, which also makes it so surprising that it took this long for the company to put out a sequel to something other than Disgaea. It’s been over twenty years since the original Phantom Brave came out, having been ported and remastered a few different times since that initial release. For a select group of dedicated fans, Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is the chance to finally experience a new adventure in this world. As someone who never played the original, though, I was equal parts excited and cautious to see how much this game would differentiate itself from that far-too-familiar Disgaea formula.

I was also definitely concerned that hopping into the sequel to a game I never played would leave me with more questions than answers, but Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero is incredibly easy to dig into as a newcomer. For one thing, the game’s intro does a good job of quickly introducing you to series protagonists Marona and Ash – a young girl who has the special ability to see and communicate with phantoms – and a phantom named Ash who has sworn to protect her at all costs. Very soon after introducing them to you, though, Marona and Ash are separated due to a mysterious attack, with Marona waking up on an unfamiliar island all alone. She soon meets a lonely Phantom girl named Apricot, whose father was the leader of a massive pirate crew before going missing. Tangled up with Apricot and searching for Ash, Marona ends up involved in a web of swashbuckling adventures as she sets out to help her new friend and find her old one.

I appreciated the way Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero balances the tone of it’s writing. I’ve come to expect zany, fourth-wall-breaking anime shenanigans from Nippon Ichi Software, but there’s a somewhat softer and more heartfelt