A sequel to Phantom Brave over twenty years after the original's debut, as well as the first Nippon Ichi title in a long title that caught my eye. But does it prove to be a worthy successor to a small cult favorite, or does it not confine interest?
Phantom Brave, while not as well-regarded as Nippon Ichi's Disgaea titles, is nevertheless a small cult classic for the company - enough to get several rereleases with added content over the years. I do consider it one of my favorite NIS titles, though I also admit its gameplay is pretty basic and has quite a few prominent flaws. Confining phantoms into objects on the battlefield doesn't add as much strategy as they clearly hoped it would, and the overall slow, grindy and somewhat buggy nature of its design keeps it from being fun beyond a point. Still, its charming characters and having a more serious, often sad tone than NIS's usual irreverence made it something that appealed to me quite a bit. So when a sequel to Phantom Brave was announced, I was quickly intrigued. Would it improve upon its predecessor's shortcomings to deliver a more enjoyable experience and add to the strong character building and storytelling of the original?
Well, I can say right away that the gameplay has much more depth and nuance now, with numerous new mechanics to factor in and basically all the old mechanics given substantial improvement. One aspect of this is in character building, which is given much more depth. Every unit (both story-related and generic) gain new skills as they level up, giving them all distinct roles to play in a team; a sharp contrast to the original where speed was pretty much the god-stat that dominated the entire game. The usual suspects appear (melee fighters, mages healers, etc) but many more appear too - Thieves to steal items and disrupt your enemies with status effects, Merchants fight and earn more money while doing it, and there are proper ranged attackers now rather than just ranged skills, wielding guns (whose strongest moves can only be used if a character has not moved in the same turn) and bows. Of course, any character can still wield any weapon (and SP is no longer bound to particular skill types, so you can pick up anything off the field and use its skills in a pinch), but it's obviously to one's benefit to give a character something fitting their archetype as they'll gain proficiency and new skills with it much more quickly. Another useful addition is Chefs, who require a specific weapon type (Chef's Knives) to use any of their skills, but gain the ability to restore allies' SP - an invaluable ability during long random dungeon runs. Skill scrolls appear too, and can be given to characters to customized them with bonus passive skills, like extra damage with bows or restoring some SP when a Confined ally leaves the field (which Marona unfortunately cannot use). Each battle you enter is given a semi-random "MVP" criteria (earning the most XP, dealing the most damage, defeating the most enemies etc), with the unit meeting that criteria getting a substantial bonus once the battle ends.
The gameplay once again revolves around Marona, with her summoning allies into battle by confining them to objects on the field. Unlike the first game, said objects only seem to give bonuses now and no penalties, although it's obviously still to one's advantage to confine Phantoms that will benefit from a particular item - Flowers boost Intelligence (making them handy for casters) while rocks boost Attack, for example. Seemingly as an effort to discourage the common tactic of ignoring the Confining mechanic entirely and just making Marona into a one-man army, she is now more firmly established as a support character - her skill proficiencies are all rather low, but she gains several useful new abilities to aid other phantoms in battle - granting extra Confine turns and even giving other phantoms a turn immediately, effectively trading her turn for theirs. She also gets a unique ability called "Instant Throw" which allows her to reposition other units for free once per turn, and, after a certain point in the story can "Confriend" with another phantom, temporarily fusing them into a single unit that gets a major stat boost and the combined skills of both, as well as granting powerful bonuses to your team (like reviving all fallen allied Phantoms on the field). This ability only lasts a couple of turns (increasing as Marona's affinity with that character increases) and makes the Confriended character unavailable for the rest of the battle, though, so it must be used wisely.
Pretty much every nit I had to pick with the mechanics is improved in Lost Hero. Single-target skills now work in a logical fashion, not being able to pass through units to hit ones behidn them, which makes sense (and makes positioning more of an important tactic for both offense and defense). Fittingly, various monsters also have skills like reducing movement range, making ranged weapons and attacks an important component of strategy. Everything is now a proper 3D model instead of a sprite, making gauging distance for skills much simpler. The camera is improved with a proper overhead view option which is quite useful as you can imagine. All deployed units now gain experience from defeated enemies too, which helps various "non combatants" like healers, shopkeepers and Chefs power up instead of falling behind, and all characters are automatically revived to full HP after a battle concludes unless they've been rendered "soulless", at which point you must pay SP to revive them. Battles have considerably more interactive elements now, from something as similar as openable treasure chests to more interactive elements like cannons that can damage enemies and destroy barriers. Characters are controlled directly and can move and jump freely within their radius of movement on their turn, allowing for much more precise positioning - a godsend to anyone familiar with the first game's very spotty pathfinding, though you can of course free the cursor up by pressing L2 to examine enemy stats and other items on the field. Being knocked out of bounds no longer instantly removes a character from the fight, instead causing them to take some damage before putting them back in-bounds.
All told, I found myself quite impressed with Phantom Brave: the Lost Hero, even as someone who's become pretty bored with the Nippon Ichi formula. It's a better game than its predecessor in basically every way, keeping the core gameplay and charm intact while improving on all of its prominent shortcomings, and adding numerous new avenues of gaining items, experience and customizing characters makes it a much more engaging experience than its predecessor. It's also nice to see an older Marona in more of a mentor role this time around as she joins forces with the phantom pirate Apricot and helps her on her own journey, and the rest of the cast is surprisingly well-written too - Nippon Ichi games are known for their jokey tone, but they also add a lot of nuance and humanity to their characters and some surprisingly strong emotional beats. It's easily my first favorite game of 2025, and if you're on the fence, fear not - there's a free-to-download demo that covers the first two chapters of the game and even allows you to carry over save data to the full version so you don't lose any progress. Well worth a purchase in my book.
Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software
Released: 2025
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, PC