While Square Enix may be the current king of recycling elements of their various RPG franchises, Nippin Ichi is giving them a run for their money. Their previous two releases, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, and La Pucelle Tactics, used the game graphics and gameplay engines with a few tweaks here and there to keep things fresh. Their latest title, Phantom Brave, follows this same trend, but does a bit more to separate itself from the pack.

Phantom Brave revolves around Marona, a little girl who has the ability to summon phantoms to aid her during battles. She works as a mercenary of sorts, getting paid to do battle with bad guys. Summoning phantoms isn't a normal ability in the world Marona lives in, and because of her abilities she is treated like an outcast. Even after she helps people, she is still looked down upon. Her only real friend is the phantom named Ash who has vowed to protect Marona at all costs.

You'll start Phantom Brave from your base of operations on Phantom Isle. Three phantoms will offer their services to you right off the bat, with more coming to aid you as you progress through the game. Those familiar with Nippon Ichi's previous games will be familiar with the duties of these phantoms right off the bat. One serves as your healer, and can be used in and out of battle. However, when on Phantom Isle, if you use him to heal you he will charge a fee, just like the hospital in Disgaea. The second phantom will be your weapons shop, and allow you to buy weapons and items while you're on Phantom Isle. The last phantom is strictly for battle, and may seem useless at first, but you will soon find a need for him.

In addition to these three phantoms, you also have Ash, who is your main fighter as you begin your journeys. As you progress through the game, you'll be able to create new phantoms to aid you in battle. The more money you have, the more experience your newly created phantom will start with. There is a wide variety of characters you can create, and the further you progress the more phantoms will become available to you.

As you battle, your characters and weapons will earn mana. You can use mana to fuse characters or weapons together. The more you use a weapon, the more skills you will learn with it. Once you have learned all of the skills that weapon has to offer, you can fuse it with any character, and they will retain those skills. You can then equip them with another weapon and start the process over again. This adds to the customization system, and really allows you to be creative with your characters.

It is important to have a good number of phantoms to call on. The fighting system in Phantom Brave is quite unique. Every battle with start with Marona and only Marona. You'll have to use her to confine the phantoms you've created to various objects on the battlefield. Each object has its own attributes that will affect the phantom confined to it. Some may give your character more speed, or less attack power, while others will increase their magic ability. You'll have to plan out which phantoms are confined to specific objects to get the best results.

But that's not where the battle planning ends. Each phantom you confine will only hang around for a limited number of turns. After their allotted turns are up, they will leave the battlefield. Each phantom can only be confined once per battle, and there are a limited number of phantoms Marona can confine within a battle. So not only do you have to pay attention to the object you're confining a phantom to, but you have to be careful about who you confine, and when you confine them to ensure you have enough phantoms to last through the battle. All of this makes for a very deep and intricate battle system that will take time to master.

This is also where Phantom Brave begins to lack a bit. You have to create more and more phantoms to have enough to last you through battles, and each new phantom will cost you money to not only create them, but equip them as well. In addition, you will have to level up your newly created phantom or else they will be no use to you on the battlefield. There are many times throughout the game where you have to stop your progress to go back and level up for several battles. You literally can't continue until you get your characters leveled up enough. While all RPGs encourage you to level up your characters, most do not require it like Phantom Brave.

Another slight issue with Phantom Brave is the graphics. While Phantom is a PlayStation 2 game, you'd never know it just by watching someone play. It really doesn't look any better than something along the lines of the original Final Fantasy Tactics (a PS1 game). It's also pretty much the same graphics engine used for Disgaea and La Pucelle. While graphics don't make the game, it would be nice to see some kind of added flair to distinguish Phantom Brave from the plethora of PS1 RPGs. The voice acting is also a bit rough around the edges. While you can choose a Japanese or English language track, the various character grunts and yells are always in English, and almost all of them sound... odd. You get used to them after awhile, but they can get a bit annoying.

All in all, Phantom Brave is a very good Strategy RPG. Fans of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, and La Pucelle Tactics will have a field day with Phantom Brave. If you haven't played either of those two titles, now is a great time to get into the Nippon Ichi craze with Phantom Brave. As long as you can get past the leveling up issue, along with the dated graphics and sub par voicework, Phantom Brave is a stellar RPG. The customization and in-depth battle system really make you think sometimes, and give you many options while in battle. Is it the best PS2 RPG of the year? Probably not, but it's still a very solid entry into the SRPG genre.