Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero

Far inferior in every way to the original

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 an…

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.

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.

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...