Over the past couple of years or so the trend of re-releasing classic games has been on the rise. From arcade classics to shmups and beat em’ ups various developers are digging through their vaults and seeing what kinds of treasures are to be found. One of the developers/publishers leading this charge so far has been Nippon Ichi Software/Nippon Ichi Software America (NIS/NIS America). They have been responsible for such re-releases as the Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha and Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo collections, the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, and Langrisser I & II. But these are games that they published, not developed themselves. So what about games they have developed themselves? While the first thought would be the Disgaea franchise, NIS America has been on top of that with re-releases of Disgaea 1 & 5 as Disgaea 1 Complete and Disgaea 5 Complete. I’m talking about some of their lesser known games, games that have been left in the PS2 era that only die hard JRPG/NIS fans would know about. That is where Prinny Presents NIS Classics comes in. Prinny Presents NIS Classics Vol 1. is the first installment of quintessential classics from NIS. Volume 1 kicks things with Phantom Brave: The Hermuda Triangle Remastered and Soul Nomad & the World Eaters. Let’s start with Phantom Brave: The Hermuda Triangle Remastered.
Phantom Brave: The Hermuda Triangle Remastered
Phantom Brave: The Hermuda Triangle Remastered is the remastered port of the PS2/PSP/Wii port of Phantom Brave that includes content from the PSP and Wii releases. The game introduces players to Marona, a carefree 13 year old who works as a Chroma, or adventurer for hire. She has the ability to see and talk to phantoms and is able to recruit them to help her out in battle. However this ability has caused others to think she is possessed and in turn have shunned her. We are also introduced to Ash, a phantom that has watched over and protected Marona ever since she was a child. In the past he was also a Chroma that happened to work for her parents, but due to a mission gone wrong everyone died. Almost everyone as Marona’s father used the last bit of magic he had into resurrecting Ash, turning him into a phantom, with him and his wife requesting that Ash watch over Marona. Now Ash watches over and helps Marona on her Chroma duties, trying to change people’s opinions on her with a smile. As the two go through the motions of being adventurers, an evil darkness starts to creep across the islands of Ivoire, the same evil that had killed Marona’s parents and forced her father to turn Ash into a phantom. It’s up to them to save the world from this impending evil. While the story is your typical save the world that looks down upon you trope seen in most JRPGs, especially during the PS2 era, the characters are pretty endearing.
Much like Disgaea, Phantom Brave is a tactical JRPG that has its battles take place in an isometric gridless field. Being gridless means movements are different. Instead of moving from space to space, characters have a set range indicated by a red ring and can move anywhere within that ring during that character’s turn. Once they move, they can move again but the range is shorter each time before the player is forced to take a different action or end that character’s turn. Now combat is much different from most other TJRPs as Marona herself isn’t much of a fighter and would rather talk things out without fighting. So she enlists the help of phantoms, like Ash, to do most of the fighting by confining them into objects around her. Depending on the object she confines the phantoms in will give them various status boots or debuffs. Up to fourteen phantoms, including Marona, can be on the battlefield at a time and while this may sound like a lot players have to keep an eye on how they move their phantoms as each one sort of has a countdown limit. Each phantom, depending on their level and what object they are confined in, has a timer that decreases after each turn. Once they react zero, they turn back into the object they were confined in or disappear off the battlefield. This forces players to think about how many phantoms they send out and who to send. Do they try to blitz through the enemies by sending everyone out or do they hold some back as reserves? This is actually a really cool gameplay mechanic that I haven’t seen in other TJRPGs. What’s also cool is that you can equip your phantoms with items and if the battlefield is sparse with objects on the field, you can have that phantom with the item, toss their item away and confine another phantom to that item.
Graphics wise, Phantom Brave still looks like a PS2 title even though it was advertised to have remastered graphics. The backgrounds and the character portraits. I think I was expecting the sprites to be upgraded to HD sprites. There are limited options to help make the sprites look a bit better but they still look like early PS2 graphics. Which isn’t a bad thing as looking up the original PS2/PSP versions of the game, they looked really good for their time and hold up pretty good, again with “remaster” in the title I was expecting HD sprites. As for the music, it gives off a nice tropical vibe when at Marona’s and Ash’s home base. As for the other islands, they each have their own themes, also with hints of a tropical vibe. The soundtrack overall is pretty good and enjoyable, though where the game shows its age is in the voice dubbing. The way that the voice actors deliver their lines, you can really tell that this is an early 2000’s JRPG.
Soul Nomad & the World Eaters
The second half of this Prinny Presents NIS Classic collection is the TJRPG Soul Nomad & the World Eaters. Soul Nomad & the World Eaters takes place in the continent of Prodesto where war was tearing the land and people apart. Peace was brought to the land and its people united by one man named Lord Median the Conqueror though it would crumble ten years later with the death of him and his son. It fell to his daughter to repair the damage and had brought peace and stability for fifty years, that is until the arrival of the World Eaters. Fast forward to 200 years later and the players take on the role of the hero (Revya as it’s the default name) a human who lives among a tribe of bovine-like people called Sepp with her friend Danette. One day the elder of the village, Layna, summons them to make them officially guardians of the village and to have them choose their weapons. Danette picks a pair of dual daggers while Revya is bestowed a black sword. As Revya takes hold of the sword a voice starts to emerge from the sword. It turns out that the sword contains the soul of Gig, master of the World Eaters. Layna reveals to Revya and Danette that she had defeated Gig and sealed him away in the sword so that one day someone can use his powers to destroy the World Eaters once and for all. So it is up to you and Danette to journey across Prodesto and stop the World Eaters.
Soul Nomad & the World Eaters’ story is a bit more darker/edgier than Phantom Brave due to having the fate of the world heaved on them. In fact its revealed that the only reason that Revya is living in the village is that Layna sensed that Revya would be a perfect vessel for Gig. This kind of story steers differently from the typical “finding out about an evil along the way” that most JRPGs use as right from the outset you/Revya have no choice but to accept. Or do you? This is where that sharp left turn happens. During the scene where you meet and talk to Gig for the first time, he demands that you give control over your body to him. If you choose not to, the story goes on like normal. But if you do give in, Gig takes over and you play as Gig who has taken control over Revya’s body and thus starts to go on a rampage. This branch off is called the Demon Path and it has its own full fledged story. Having an “evil” path/choice in most RPGs today is pretty common, but back in the 2000’s
Soul Nomad & the World Eaters takes traditional TRPG gameplay and elements and pust its own spin on it. Just like most TRPGs, you are able to recruit NPCs to your party and assign them as commanders of their own squad. The twist is that each squad can have their own “room” and each of these rooms have different formations. You can position each of these units in these formations and depending on who and where you position your units they receive stat bonuses. These include bonuses to attack, defense, access to skills etc. And if there’s a room formation you like you can lock it, otherwise if you change to a different room and then decide to come back to that room, the formation of that room will change. This is actually a really cool gameplay mechanic that lead to a lot of creative unit combinations.
Unlike Phantom Brave, Soul Nomad & the World Eaters didn’t receive the remaster treatment. Which I didn’t mind as the 2D character portraits and the sprite work for the characters still look good and have held up. And just like Phantom Brave, Soul Nomad & the World Eaters also has that “classic” 2000 anime voice acting intact.
Overall these are two solid blast from the past games that I though would never play properly again with both physical copies rising in price and rarity and with the ever looming threat of the PS3/PS Vita digital store fronts shutting down. Between the two I like Soul Nomad & the World Eaters better gameplay wise and the fact that it offers an evil route right away. Phantom Brave is a solid games as well but it doesn’t really look how a remastered game should look, though it does have the content that was in the PSP and the Wii versions of the game. If you miss NIS older games then picking up this first volume of the Prinny Presents NIS Classics is a must.
