Review by: Cole Jones

Stuck somewhere between life and the afterlife, the titular phantoms of Phantom Brave: We Meet Again are powerful spirits that can be "confined" to any random object (and momentarily brought back to life) by those powerful enough to see them – like the young lady Marona. As she journeys to understand her powers, she builds new relationships, saves maligned spirits, and eventually protects the world with the help of her sworn phantom protector, Ash. As you hop between tactical battle maps, cheesy cutscenes, and your home base Phantom Isle, this cutesy adventure has no problem challenging anyone who tries it for hundreds of hours on end.

Originally released for the PS2 in 2004, Phantom Brave: We Meet Again takes the traditionally grid-based Strategy RPG premise and introduces a few modifications. For starters, it tosses out the rigid square grid in favor of a free-form movement circle that gives you a little more wiggle room targeting objects or characters. This occasionally leads to a few out-of-bounds headaches, but it generally works in your favor when attacking and "confining." Instead of pre-placing units or making use of a "spawn portal" to invigorate your Phantoms, Marona must confine each member of your phantom army to an object on the battlefield. This is as easy as getting in range of a desirable rock, bush, or skull and pressing "confine," but since every item comes with its own set of confining bonuses (and detriments), you'll want to make sure each character gets their applicable boost.

All this might be tricky to juggle in the beginning, but Phantom Brave's real hitch is its "Remove Number" that dictates how long a phantom has until they pull a Cinderella and reverts back into their confined item. While Marona can hang out indefinitely, she's not much of a fighter. You'll need to carefully pace your powerhouses to survive; as the 5-10 turn limits quickly becomes Phantom Brave's biggest headache in lengthy battles.

As I was playing Phantom Brave, I couldn't help but feel like it's one of those games that require a guide to play "correctly." From insider tips like scoring a Bottlemail as soon as you are able, to the proper way to fuse characters and weapons, much of the game involves trial and error tactics hardly hinted at in the game. Other NIS titles leave you a lot to figure out, but they're a bit more forgiving -- Phantom Brave is a game for a certain kind of hardcore gamer. With a gaggle of party members, weapons, and other objects that can level to 9999 (on top of its complicated SP and confining system) it’s probably too much for casual gamers. But if you get your jollies from taking on a brutal 20-floor random dungeon with level 250 characters, there's little else like Phantom Brave on the Wii.

Phantom Brave still feels like a fairly original game. If you passed on it the first time, it's worth a look if you don’t expect anything too new. It's the exact same visually unimpressive game it was long ago, and the additional chapter entitled "Another Marona" is little more than a few hours of unrelated fan service. Phantom Brave: We Meet Again isn’t worth $40 if you've got a perfectly fine PS2 copy in your backlog. But if you’re a Wii gamer thinking about taking on a strategy RPG, Phantom Brave is a unique offering that is at the very least worth a rental.

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