is a tactical role-playing game for the PlayStation 2 video game console, developed and published by Nippon Ichi Software. It was released on January 22, 2004 in Japan, on August 31, 2004 in North America and on February 4, 2005 in Europe. The North American release was the first game published by NIS America. The game shipped in two "editions", Normal and Special. The Special edition came with a free soundtrack and shortened instruction manual.
An expanded remake for the Wii console, titled Phantom Brave: We Meet Again, was released on March 12, 2009 in Japan. A North American release by NIS America was originally set for June, but was delayed to August 14 to include dual audio and as a result of manufacturing issues. In addition to the Wii game disc, NIS America included a DVD which contains official artwork and both animated and non-animated sprites.
The game was ported to the PlayStation Portable with added features under the title Phantom Brave: The Hermuda Triangle. Siliconera teased gamers with a "puzzlehunt", giving them the quote "Maybe that means thank you?" This puzzlehunt eventually came to be the announcement that Phantom Brave: The Hermuda Triangle was set for release in North America and Europe. While US players got both PSN and UMD versions of the game, players in Europe were only offered the downloadable PSN version.
The game was ported to Steam on July 25, 2016. The PC version has all of the added content in both We Meet Again and The Hermuda Triangle. It was also released on August 31, 2021 on Nintendo Switch and PC as part of the Prinny Presents NIS Classics Volume 1 compilation. A sequel, titled Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero, was released on January 30, 2025. A remaster of The Hermuda Triangle for PlayStation 5 was released on November 7, 2024.
Plot
The protagonist of Phantom Brave is a 13-year-old girl named Marona. Marona lives on Phantom Isle in the oceanic world of Ivoire with a phantom named Ash. While he was still alive, Ash worked alongside Marona's parents Jasmine and Haze as a Chroma, a sort of bounty hunter or adventurer for hire. On an assignment on the Isle of Evil, a fragment of a malevolent being known as Sulphur attacked the group, mortally wounding them. Using the last of his life energy, Haze attempted to revive the party after the battle. However, there was only enough life left in him to bring Ash back as a phantom. Haze and Jasmine's dying wish was for Ash to watch over their then infant daughter Marona.
Marona is the only one able to see Ash in phantom form. This is primarily because of her unique ability, Chartreuse Gale. This ability not only allows her to see and interact with phantoms, but bind their souls to various objects to grant them a temporary body, using the skill "Confine". Using this power she can summon Ash and other phantoms to the world of the living to aid her in her own endeavors as a Chroma, similar to the work done by her late parents. Because she possesses the ability to see and speak with the dead, many assume that she is either controlled by or cooperates with evil spirits, and are afraid to even interact with her, much less employ her for Chroma work. In the early portions of the story, people who offer Marona employment would rescind any rewards upon completion once they discover that she was a phantom-possessed Chroma.
As she continues her Chroma work, Marona's path crosses with that of a man named Walnut. Walnut prides himself on his status as a Chroma Oxide, one who secretly follows a Chroma on their mission and steals the reward for their work. Walnut regularly tries to meddle in Chroma-related matters involving Marona, but is rarely successful. As they continue their work, Ash and Marona also meet a sickly young girl named Castille. Unable to walk for most of her life, Castille has been unable to go out into the world and make friends. However, after helping Castille's family on an assignment, Marona and Castille become friends. Marona leaves Putty (a mischievous nature spirit found on an assignment) with Castille to keep her company when Marona is unable to do so.
Signs of Sulphur returning to Ivoire in full force become more apparent. Earthquakes increase in frequency and monsters plague the land, with lesser forms of Sulphur known as Wraiths appearing to attack Ash and Marona. Marona and Walnut are forced to team up, and it is revealed that Walnut is Castile's older brother who has been stealing money from Chromas in an effort to pay Castile's hospital bills so that she can be cured of the sickness that keeps her bedridden. Ash and Marona meet more people who are aware of the signs signalling Sulpher's return and are making preparations to meet Sulpher in battle, if necessary. Among these individuals are Raphael, a renowned knight from a legion known as the Nine Swords of Ivoire, and Sprout, a renegade soldier whose family was killed by Sulphur many years earlier. While Sprout seems to side with Ash in this fight, he is hellbent on the destruction of Sulphur at all costs.
As preparations for the final battle are made, Ash and Marona return to the Isle of Evil and find Raphael is possessed by Sulphur. Marona's team of phantoms is forced to engage Raphael in a duel. After Raphael is too injured to continue and comes back to his senses, he entrusts Ash with Heliotrope, his sacred sword, for use in their battle against Sulphur. At the center of the island lies a portal from which Sulphur is entering the world, and upon the heroes' arrival they expect to engage in combat with Sulphur. However, they are intercepted by Sprout. Having gone mad from the dark power that he has stolen from the minions of Sulphur that he killed and by Sulphur's increased influence in the area, Sprout attacks Ash and Marona. When he loses to Ash he kills himself with his sword, Shiva, in an attempt to stop Sulphur within him, but Sulphur materializes anyway.
Ash and Marona battle it out with Sulphur, but in spite of their best efforts, Sulphur is merely weakened and is still attempting to enter into Ivoire. Walnut appears and sacrifices his own life to sever the portal between Ivoire and Sulphur's domain.
Gameplay
Phantom Brave is a tactical role-playing game with battles that take place on an isometric board. Marona dispatches her phantom allies by confining them to objects on the field, such as trees, grass, rocks, and flowers. Different objects grant different stat bonuses to the characters that are confined to them, making it advantageous to confine certain characters to certain things. A soldier, for example, often benefits from the stat bonuses found on a rock because of his physical combat abilities, whereas a witch works better when summoned out of a flower or another object that increases its magical abilities. Up to 14 phantoms can be dispatched during any given battle, but the phantoms can only be confined to the physical world for a particular number of turns. The number of turns that a character can stay confined is based upon their class. For example, a witch can stay on the field for three turns, while a soldier lasts eight. While a high confine is desirable for continuous use of the character, a low confine number is actually advantageous if the player intends to either reuse the item to confine another phantom or take items back from the battlefield permanently, or for bomber units. Depending on their class, each phantom has a certain chance of acquiring the item he is confined to, bringing it back to Phantom Isle when the battle is won.
Phantom Brave has a gridless system in which each character can move a certain number of dm in each turn. The terrain also has traction and pliability characteristics, which affect how long characters continue to slide along after they stop moving and how high they bounce when the character jumps down from a ledge. On slippery surfaces, it is possible to make the characters "ice skate" by moving very short distances (consuming few dm) and letting them slide to their destination. In addition, the hold and throw system inherited from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness allows characters to pick up and throw objects and even other characters (including allies) toward a desired location.
Unlike most tactical role-playing games, the border of the battle maps do not have barriers around their edges. Most characters and objects can be thrown off, hit off, fall off, or slip off of the field of battle and sent O.B. (out-of-bounds). Characters and objects that are O.B.'d are gone for the rest of the battle. When an enemy is O.B'd, the level of each of the remaining enemies rises by one, so the player can trade a large force of weak enemies for a smaller number of stronger ones. If the enemy's HP is reduced to zero before it is thrown out of the stage, its allies will not be granted a level up. The last enemy on the map cannot be thrown O.B., and Marona's team members do not gain levels for falling out of bounds.
All characters and weapons accumulate "mana" (a magical currency for increasing a character or weapon's abilities) whenever they kill an enemy. This mana can be spent to fuse two characters together, an item into a character, or an item to an item. Fusion increases the level cap of the beneficiary by the level of the consumed item or character. By spending mana, the player can improve equipment percentages (stat bonuses given to characters who equip the item or character) and confine percentages (bonuses to characters confined in the item on the field), and even transfer skills to the beneficiary. In Phantom Brave, weapons have a much greater effect on a character's stats than their natural affinity. The maximum obtainable character level is 9999.
While on Phantom Isle, a character class called Dungeon Monk can be asked to create a random dungeon. Some characteristics of the dungeon can be seen before creation, including the type and general number of enemies present, the floor conditions, and if the use of equipped weapons is restricted or not. Dungeons also have titles, which are applied to every enemy in the dungeon. As the floors of the dungeon are cleared, the title of the dungeon will improve. These titles can later be removed and placed on player characters or weapons to alter their stats. Random dungeons can also be retitled. A popular leveling trick is to give a random dungeon the "failure" title, allowing the player to beat hordes of high level enemies easily. Random dungeons tend to take the form of a linear series of floors, although occasionally a floor may have a special named layout (for example, "Self-Styled God" floors have a stronger enemy in the center of a terraced layout). These floors occur randomly and confer an extra bonus upon completion. Unlike in Disgaea, where to descend to the next floor one may merely move a character to a certain panel, in Phantom Brave one must defeat all the enemies present to continue. To leave a random dungeon, one must either clear every floor, or use a Dungeon Monk's Return skill, which costs money proportional to the current depth.