Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero

I haven't dove too deep into the B rate SJRPG scene on Steam because it has become quite vast and convoluted over the last decade. I have been a fan of this developer since my PS2 days, when I played the first Disgaea and prequel to this for countless hours, so it has always been easy to follow their projects. There are very very few high quality games of this type, and this game offers some very unique and inventive mechanics. The negative reviews for this game seem to be people mad it had a few bugs at launch, and its not the same ugly hard to look at game the first one was, and it lost 1 or 2 layers of needless mechanic padding.

As much as I am a fan of the series and similar games, this one I cannot recommend. Ignore the story and just talk pure gameplay this game is full of frustrating elements and some that are utter deal breakers, if I knew what this game was before buying I would not have bought. First, QoL aspects that it is missing. In games going way back in Nippon Ichi history there are features like skip attack animations you can turn on to reduce the time you spend grinding, this game? No. You have to watch every animation completely. Why a step back? Surely they already have the code from practically every previous game. Second, sometimes when you are moving and doing things the menu will default to end turn. Why? I can't say how many turns I lost this way. Third, the game doesn't give you any help with positioning for attacks, meaning sometimes you have to fiddle with where your unit is a bunch to make sure your attacks land. Previous games you could have it bring your unit to the right place for you. This one? No. But by far the worst and I mean deal breaking feature is this game crashes. In Dungeons. Let that sink in. If you're new to these games, a lot of the power building and scaling comes from running dungeons, which are multi floor levels that YOU CANNOT SAVE DURING. You can quit and the have a quick resume spot, but it's not the same as saving because if your game crashes your quick resume is gone and all your progress wasted. Dungeons can take -hours-. The game does give you an option to leave the dungeon to properly save but that comes at the cost of bonus which is another feature the game uses to incentivize you not to save and to do the dungeon without leaving. Let that sink in. Worse yet? The devs know about this. They suggest you limit your dungeon sessions (remember the bit about the game incentivizing you not to do that) or to go out and save freqquently (remember the gave incentivizes you not to do that). Sure they could have added the ability to save in your dungeon run so you are not stuck in a situation where you lose your progress, but no. Like the above reasons this game was rushed, they didn't care, they just didn't care. They have QoL features in many other titles they left out and they have what I consider a game breaking bug in this one that they won't give us a reasonable solution for, even if it is just a work around. DO NOT BUY.

It's a shame Steam has no mixed option when reviewing games. Phantom Brave 2 has left me a bit more disappointed than i expected. Once finishing the game (and doing most of the post endgame stuff besides grinding for the super boss), i was plain up unsatisfied. The character roster is neat and playing through the game was fun until like 70-80% into the story. New system was cool until every stage turned into the same 1 2 3 with almost always the same protections (modifiers or Geo effect from Disgaea) and confining has been dumbed down by removing versatile attribute scalings which had positive and negative % into only being +10% in one stat. Had the softlock bug a few times, but you can somewhat avoid it by trying to kill large enemies with knockback into out of bounce. Story is on par with Disgaea 6, only that it manages to make the firsts game story worse. Did not help either that i paid like 100€ for all character DLC's which quality wise were... meh. Character choices themselves were cool, even from the endgame, but you can really feel that they went out of money/development time. Not worth 60€ and definitely not worth 100€. If you like the first phantom brave, wait for a sale to buy it, preferably one over 30% off

youtubeの少女紹介動画を見て始めました。 BGMが良くキャラクターもシンプルに魅力的で好みでした。 ゲーム自体は慣れるまでテンポが悪くゲームを起動するのが億劫になりがちでしたが、少し慣れるとあれもしたいこれもしたいとなり楽しくなりました。 実績も変に時間のかかるものはなく、全実績解除の強迫観念にとらわれている方も気軽にできると思います。 ただ馴れ合いが嫌いな捻くれオタクの方にはあまりおすすめできないです。

A good sequel to the original. The first one's story is better but a lot of mechanics have been refined. I didn't care for the vehicles though. For a pirate themed game, steal could use refinement. I tended to lean heavily on the thieves class with daggers and one angler with a fish...

Les idées sont intéressantes, mais le manque de QoL donne juste la flemme d'essayer de créer plusieurs équipes. C'est dommage parce qu'il y a plein d'outil pour optimiser un peu tout comme on veut. La gestion de l'île est la pire idée possible, aucune idée de pourquoi dès qu'on achète un objet il pop au sol sur l'île, ou des mates qui courent comme des poulets sans tête, c'est juste chiant. Un prochain opus plus réfléchi, plus optimisé serait le bienvenu !

ストーリー○ キャラ○ 変身◎ UIクソ 拠点ショートカットの配置変更オプションと 戦闘ステージ内オプションメニューのカーソル初期位置にユニットステータスを持ってこい 最上段にロードなんて絶対に使わんのじゃ！ あとアイテム図鑑機能あるなら未所持品に「new」マークでも付けとけ（ディスガイアで当たり前にやってることだろ、てか今後発売するゲームでもアプデ対応じゃなくて最初から付けとけ）

I'm still shocked we even got this (there cant be that many left at NI after all the blowups), but I'm also still glad it came out. Now, like the Eiyuuden game from last year, it's not quite the manic wide-open creativity to a Zappa OST-meets-adorable empathetic children's tale to the extent of the first. It's incredibly sedate this go around; and if I may, a bit watered down. It's stretched out with reused plot, Non-Sicko Game powerups in the place of a few of the first's mechanics, and there's also a real problem with soft and hard crashes here and there. That said, it has an extensive options menu (remove hold to accept!), and it's still got that charm and weirdness enough for new players to NI's weirder fare.

Oke, the start was rough. But this game is filled with so much joy and loveable characters. The glitches are fixed and I personally think it is an amazing journey form start to end. Also, the dlc characters are nostalgic, fun and you can start this journey over again with a complete other team.

Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero è arrivato sul mercato con la grazia di un elefante in una cristalleria, o meglio, di uno spirito che sbatte contro i muri a ogni passo. Al debutto le condizioni tecniche erano talmente disastrose che le recensioni negative si sono accumulate in un istante, a causa di bug e rallentamenti che rendevano l'esperienza una vera prova di nervi. Sembrava quasi che l'universo cospirasse contro Marona, con prestazioni così incerte da far rimpiangere la stabilità di ere geologiche passate. Fortunatamente gli sviluppatori hanno deciso di rimboccarsi le maniche e le ultime patch hanno eliminato i demoni tecnici che infestavano il codice. Adesso il titolo gira con una fluidità invidiabile e mette in mostra una direzione artistica sbalorditiva, che cattura l'occhio in ogni scenario. La meccanica del "Confine" e la libertà tattica delle mappe senza griglia regalano un divertimento costante, privo di quei fastidiosi intoppi che ne oscuravano il valore. È diventato finalmente il gioiellino che i fan desideravano, capace di farsi perdonare ogni scivolone iniziale con una qualità che ora splende davvero.