Phantom Brave

""You'll go no further! For her sake, I will not fail!""

- Ash

A turn-based strategy game from Nippon Ichi, creators of Disgaea and La Pucelle for the Playstation 2.

When Marona was a child, her parents and their employee Ash were killed by demons. In desperation they used their magic and a plea to God to turn Ash into a Phantom, a type of ghost caught between Life and Death, to protect Marona as she grew up.

Like her parents, Marona is a Chroma; she is able to summon the spirits of the dead and give them temporary physical forms by possessing inanimate objects. For this, the people in Marona's world think of her as The Possessed One who can kill them all, so naturally they go out of their way to insult and belittle her.

Game mechanics aside, Marona's a rather sweet girl who loves everyone, and who seems cheerfully uncomprehending of the fear she provokes in others. Which means her neighbors have someone to protect them from the dark forces that killed her parents.

Updated Rereleases were released for the Wii titled We Meet Again, with a new chapter called "Another Marona" and some new characters as well as a bonus art disc, for the collector's edition savvy, and for PSP titled Heroes of the Hermuda Triangle, as well as an MMORPG entitled Phantom Brave Online.

This game has examples of:

 * All of the Other Reindeer: Yes, they're that bad. Unlike many examples, though, they do
 * All There in the Manual: Why on Earth did Well, the game itself implies that it's As Long As There Is Evil, however
 * AND the
 * And Then John Was a Zombie: Averted.
 * For that matter, Marona is one of the few Nippon Ichi heroes who hasn't turned into a demon.
 * Animal Wrongs Group: Spoofed with Canary's monster rights group, H.A.R.M.
 * Army of the Dead: Marona's strategy in a nutshell.
 * Badass Grandpa: Sprout. Being as big as a dragon helps.
 * Badass Longcoat: Walnut.
 * Bad Powers Good People: Marona is the most kind-hearted Necromancer ever. It's heartbreaking that she has the All of the Other Reindeer treatment.
 * BFS: Sprout's sword, Shiva, is enormous.
 * Big Brother Instinct: Ash and.
 * Blush Sticker: Marona, Carona, and Castile. Some of the cuter enemies have them as well.
 * Big Damn Heroes: at the end of chapter 17. Surprisingly  also fits this trope, although he was cleaning up his own mess to an extent.
 * Bonus Boss: It wouldn't be Nippon Ichi without absurdly overpowered bonus bosses hundreds of times stronger than the plotline final boss.
 * In a mild subversion of the norm,
 * The remake goes Serial Escalation with
 * At a certain point, you are given the choice to open a bottle by the Putties. Doing so
 * The PSP remake (of the Wii remake) adds in
 * Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: Marona, Ash, and major enemies will teleport back to the field when thrown out, instead of being automatically defeated.
 * Also, any phantom who's currently taking their turn, and the final enemy on the field, no matter who it might be. (Also, the No O.B. special ability prevents tossing out.)
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: If you create any humanoid who doesn't do a specific task and talk to them, they may randomly say how awesome a Phantom Brave Anime would be.
 * Break the Cutie: Marona shows hints of this as the story progresses,
 * In the Wii and PSP versions,
 * Bullying a Dragon: Marona's affinity for phantoms causes her a lot of grief, but you'd think someone with the reputation for summoning an army of the undead would be the very last person you'd want to openly rip off after they completed a job for you.
 * Calling Your Attacks: In spades. Anyone even remotely important to the story calls their next attack, even when they're about to kill you.
 * Cap: Newly created characters have an initial cap of 100 levels...but it's a Nippon Ichi game, so you better believe you can fix that.
 * Catch Phrase: Ash's pre-battle taunt: "You'll go no further! For her sake, I will not fail!" Also, see In the Name of The Moon below. And don't forget Marona's mantra of "Kitto itsuka," "One day..."
 * Chronic Hero Syndrome: Yep, Marona. Ash scolds her from time to time for constantly helping the ungrateful.
 * The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: take a closer inspection at Turn Order. If one of your patented strategies is to attack an enemy that will move first, there's a good chance that, even if that enemy is K.O.'ed, another enemy will take that turn.
 * That's only one of the ways the computer cheats. Enemy characters stay in play permanently during battle, while your summoned ghosts fade away after about three turns and can't be resummoned (granted that's part of the plot so I'll let it slide).
 * Also, until mastering a weapon, you seem to deal roughly 0-1 damage (except with magic, like the healer's Shock), meanwhile enemies deal 4-6 in early game. Meaning the tutorial battle is impossible for just Marona, and since much of the party can't be counted on as steady characters, you're kinda screwed with just Marona.
 * Subverted under "Protection" (which had you skipped the tutorial, you might miss). It seems though that virtually every enemy has this when attacked by most of the party besides the healer and Ash though.
 * Crap Saccharine World: The "cute" characters in the game are crippled, yelled at by angry villagers, are the angry villagers themselves, are harmless fools ...and that's not getting into the Putties, who are locked into cages or transported into circuses despite being fully sentient because, well, they can't talk. There's a thousand other things, and if not for the graphics and the music this would probably be a Crapsack World.
 * Cutlass Between the Teeth: Four-legged characters use this by default, because they obviously have no arms.
 * Darker and Edgier: Compared to other Nippon Ichi games, like Disgaea, this one is much more serious. There's almost no slapstick or Black Comedy.
 * Deader Than Dead: Marona can, by attacking the "body" of one of her phantoms, Soul Kill them. She can still reconstitute it by sacrificing an object (and with a certain item, make the soul stronger). It is implied by dialogue (the evil has lifted and peace fills the air) that this is the right thing to do with Baal when it joins the party after you defeat it as a Bonus Boss.
 * This can also happen on the maps themselves. Marona herself is immune from souldeath.
 * Death Equals Redemption:  Doubles as a Heroic Sacrifice.
 * Dem Bones: The Cerberus generic class, which doubles as being a dog skeleton, is great at casting elemental magic and is a middling physical attacker but fails terribly at all other skills.
 * Demonic Possession:
 * Diabolus Ex Nihilo: Sulphur is a demonic monster that nearly killed everyone 30 years ago before being stopped by Scarlet the Brave and now its coming back. Nobody knows or asks its origins.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Most of the Bonus Bosses. Especially
 * Drought Level of Doom: one of the endgame levels has a severe shortage of confinable objects, greatly limiting your ability to deploy units.Though of course you can still bring your own.
 * Dub Name Change: Ash's catchphrase for his powers in the Japanese version is roughly translated as: Grant me the power to destroy my foes! The power of the Water Dragon, Eccarlate! For some reason, this was changed to: You shall go no further! For her sake, I will not fail! (This explains why he says it in several cutscenes where the other characters are also activating their powers).
 * Dynamic Entry: Attaching the ability Big Bang to some characters leads for utter hilariousness as when they are summoned to the objects they cause an explosion around them, usually taking out a bunch of the enemies stupid enough to stand around the item you confine them in, or if such item is not available, the one you throw into the fray. People die.
 * And, if you use it on a certain map with a certain enemy enhancement by using a certain item, that character hits the level Cap.
 * Easter Egg: One of the possible randomly generated names for the anthropomorphic owls is Orly.
 * This is due to one of the translators being One of Us, posting frequently on the Penny Arcade forums (and, one suspects, The Imageboard That Must Not Be Named).
 * Everythings Even Worse With Sharks: Subverted. Cauldron, the shark man gives Marona way more money than he promised, forms a fan club for her, and beats up anyone that bad mouths her.
 * Expy: The Mystic class looks exactly like Noir from La Pucelle.
 * Fake Ultimate Mook: The Manticore and Dragon Classes. The Manticore looks like a huge, fiery lion and the Dragon is, well, a dragon. But then, if you look at their stats, the Manticore cannot use any skills well at all other than physical magic (and it isn't even great at that), and the Dragon, while it's good, can only stay around for two turns before vanishing. (The maximum amount is 8 - most stay around for at least 4.)
 * The Dragon and the slime both seem intended to be meatshields instead, actually. It just so happens the dragon can also attack, trading some of the defense for offense. Of course, considering that any stat can be your 'main attack stat,' it's better to confine the soldier's skill that lets him hang around longer to the slime so IT gets two turns as well, and then just give it a pillar/devil rock as a weapon. May even be necessary to level Marona later, depending on your chosen technique.
 * The Fair Folk: Putties.
 * Fallen Hero: Sprout, who in the backstory went from a Knight in Shining Armor to an Anti Hero reminiscent of Ganondorf.
 * Father to His Men: Drab.
 * Foreshadowing: "" indeed.
 * Fighting a Shadow: Wraith is the shadow of Sulphur, and so are the smaller "Summon" monsters. It's assumed Sulphur himself is this when fought as a Bonus Boss
 * Or at least, he will be when
 * Free Rotating Camera
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation: Marona can gain power and followers by killing beings and summoning their phantoms, and then absorbing them into herself, her servants, or even her weaponry. The plot completely ignores this in the Cutscenes.
 * Fridge Brilliance: Why do you think everyone is so afraid of her in the first place?
 * During cut scenes, Ash can occasionally take on a physical form without the need for Marona to confine him (Often when he's protecting Marona or in front of friends). During gameplay, he's like every other phantom and requires Marona to confine him.
 * Also, we only ever see Ash referred to as Marona's Phantom; not the army of Player Mooks that Marona is capable of summoning in gameplay.
 * Yet another example: Marona is trying to accumulate enough Bordeaux to finally buy her island. You can get tons of it by completing missions and replaying old areas, and the actual payment received for your jobs pales in comparison. Still, don't expect any of it to go towards your life's dream.
 * Genre Busting: There's really never been a strategy game quite like this before or since; the dependence on items already in the field to summon your allies is unique in itself, to say nothing of the dozen-or-so wrinkles that come from this such as the fact that anything can be used as a weapon, including other units or that anything (or anyone) can be merged.
 * Grievous Harm With a Body: Body Swing - "The weapon's a man, man!"
 * He Who Fights Monsters: Sprout. Don't let the name fool you.
 * Heroic Mime: Putties are an entire race of Heroic Mimes.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Idiot Hair: Marona.
 * Ill Girl: Castille.
 * Improbable Weapon User: Everyone.
 * Improvised Weapon: Literally anything on the map can be picked up and used as a weapon. From swords to flowerpots, to rocks, to trees, to mine carts, to clumps of weeds, to starfish, to the corpses of your enemies, and then some. Oh, and fish.
 * Infinity Plus One Sword: ANYTHING can be this; given Marona's ability to fuse items; however the Bragging Rights Reward would be the Divine Sword. There's roughly a 30% chance of you fighting a God at the bottom of a Random Dungeon. If you did 99 Dungeon levels in a row without ever exiting the dungeon, there is a 10-16% chance it will have a Divine Sword. You still need to be able to steal it and Confine it though.
 * Interspecies Romance: Sienna used to love an Owlman.
 * In the Name of The Moon / By the Power of Grayskull: Every character has a phrase they shout prior to a fight, which generates a Battle Aura. Mostly done by Phantoms, except at the end, when Marona finally gets one. The color mentioned in each phrase corresponds to a spell or technique at their disposal. A player can obtain these for their own use, with some difficulty.
 * Ash and Marona both start with them in their actual skill list. "Chartreuse Gale", Marona's special skill actually lets her...see and summon phantoms.
 * Item Crafting: With souls.
 * I Will Protect Her: See the page quote.
 * Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Walnut.
 * Kansai Regional Accent: Cauldron the Hawaiian shirt wearing shark man speaks in a Kansai accent in the Japanese voice options. It's kinda weird.
 * Karma Houdini:
 * Karma Meter: Exists, yet it's effect on the plot is almost nil. Killing your own characters will result in a build-up of "Dark Points" for these characters. Mostly bad for Player Mooks, too many and they'll go nuts and hurt your own characters in-between stages. (Neither Ash nor Marona are ever affected by this.) Full dark points actually grants the title "Blsphm" (sic) and the Dark Eboreus Ability (not the strongest ability or title, but still). Dark Points can be cured with cookies. No, really. The "Granny" class has a random chance of baking cookies for a character which reduces Dark Points.
 * Knight in Shining Armor: Raphael.
 * Lethal Chef: Marona. While burning spaghetti is probably not as bad as most examples, it doesn't stop Ash from joking about it.
 * Lethal Joke Character: Even character classes that have horrible combat abilities across the board have their uses; Bottle Mails (literally walking bottles) don't fight well but have a 100% chance of taking items to which they are confined away with them to Phantom Island, so if you need that item you're sure to get it. Slimes are unimpressive except that they have 100% compatibility during fusion, allowing you to mix and mash abilities into one, then fuse the Slime into Marona or Ash. The Old Man's ability to randomly grant EXP can level up weapons without expending mana, and so on.
 * Level Grinding: It's Nippon Ichi. There are, however, ways to completely break the game and grind levels like crazy, such as creating a dungeon with a Failure title (enemies will be severely weakened and give no EXP or money, but the bonus EXP from binding Phantoms into objects in its levels will soon become ludicrous). You can also Restart At Level One any dead character you've brought a Changebook to; they'll gain bonus starting stats which greatly amplifies their successive stat gains each level.
 * If starting Another Marona from scratch, level grinding becomes a must. Another Marona is significantly shorter than its main-game counterpart. The Final Boss is the same level regardless. Do the math.
 * Littlest Cancer Patient: Castille.
 * Lost Forever: That Snakish sword in the tutorial? It's the only one. In the entire game.
 * There are several others like this. Anytime a boss appears with a unique weapon (especially if they are swords), they can be disarmed using certain attack techniques and their equipment stolen by certain phantoms. Another example are Eggs, which while not unique, are only found in extremely rare random dungeon types and/or a few specific story maps.
 * The Wii version's New Game Plus allows you to obtain those items again if you missed them the first time, but because tutorial levels won't be available again during a New Game Plus, the Snakish sword will still be Lost Forever if you don't obtain it the first time you see it.
 * Of course, you don't need it. In fact, it is not very useful. All it really does is have a Snake Beater tech that's relatively good at the beginning of the game but is later outclassed. Actually, the fact that there is only one of it lessens its usefulness, as even if you fuse it to a better weapon, you can only ever have one unit who can use Snake Beater.
 * Master of None: There's only one thing Soldiers are good at: staying power. They hang around on a map longer than any other class. You can add their ability to other characters via fusion, but it costs a ludicrous amount of mana to do so.
 * Message in A Bottle: Marona gets some of her missions this way. The bottle-mail can also be recruited as a monster type.
 * That only gets you one. You need to defeat 10 of them in a Weird dungeon setting to get more.
 * The Messiah: Marona.
 * More Expendable Than You:
 * Necromancer: Marona goes without the skull fetishes most have; her phantoms are also tidier than most. There is a traditional one that create ghosts and zombies who is a mercenary leader in the plot.
 * Interestingly, Marona can summon Phantoms of...zombies and ghosts. They're...un-undead? No, that isn't right...
 * Nice Job Breaking It Hero:
 * No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Practically the driving point behind the entire plot.
 * Not Quite Saved Enough: let's review:
 * Castille: as a servant   after a
 * Walnut: in most of the story paths, so possibly  Though it is worth noting that the endings of the main path seem only to differ mostly on what the main character is up to (and many of the endings are referenced in other ones), so he may
 * Marona: by Baal, has her   stolen.  But it's implied that Baal did not actually steal anything. So...
 * Ash:
 * Sulphur:  but the main characters are now paranoid that
 * One Stat to Rule Them All: Get that Speed stat up...STAT!
 * Our Werewolves Are Different:  Bijou (along with every other generic Werewolf in the game) is never seen in human form and is mostly portrayed as a one-man Goldfish Poop Gang. Despite this, he rarely is portrayed as evil until
 * Palette Swap: For minor PCs. Additionally, switching out Titles will change the color scheme of player characters. Even Ash and Marona can undergo a slight change, though not as drastic as sometimes having black or white hair like the generics do.
 * Petting Zoo People: There are weasel-men and shark-men, werewolves and, most prominently, humanoid owls. There's even a whole series of owl player characters; they tend to be slightly weaker than humans but faster and more agile.
 * Player Mooks: Any non-Ash Phantom in the PS 2 version.
 * Playing With Fire:
 * The Pollyanna: Again, Marona. She's eventually vindicated.
 * Powerup Full Color Change: There are eight title ranks that each determine the power and color of the phantom you give the title to.
 * Power Glows: Accompanied by each character's Battle Cry.
 * Pretty in Mink: The witches wear dresses and hats trimmed with white fur.
 * Reasonable Authority Figure: Count Malt, one of the first few adults to never give Marona the All of the Other Reindeer treatment, even in their first meeting.
 * Regal Ringlets: The Archer unit has this hairstyle. Later games from NIS gave her Mega Twintails, instead.
 * Relationship Voice Actor: Ash and Marona are Happily Married.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: which makes Carona's accusations in "Another Marona" very funny.
 * Ridiculously Cute Critter: Putties, Scrabbits (except for Count Malt), Saber Kitties, and Wisps.
 * Rousseau Was Right: By the end of the game,
 * Sealed Evil in A Can:
 * Also, there is a Golem on Frigidia Isle that Scarlet the Brave managed to Seal away. One of Marona's missions has them just checking on the seal; but she ends up just killing the thing.
 * Sealed Inside a Person Shaped Can:
 * Shout Out: One foe begins the fight with "Enough talk, have at you!" while another uses "Kazan Monsters, I choose you!". Also, a random name for Owl units is Orly.
 * One of the random things a resident Phantom will say is, "I've tried so hard, and got so far..."
 * Spiteful AI: The enemies that spend their turns either throwing all the confine-able objects (and your phantoms) off the map or attempting to steal your own Weapons to use against you.
 * Supporting Protagonist: While we may be controlling Ash outside of battle and the story is generally told from his point of view, the main focus is Marona.
 * Survival Mantra: "One day..." Marona keeps her sanity with those two words. That One Day....everything will be alright.
 * Taking You With Me: The "Parting Gift" support ability that damages all surrounding enemies (and objects) once a phantom's timer runs out and they leave the field.
 * Talking to Herself: Averted. While Flonne and Marona are voiced by the same actress and they do talk to each other, those are the only scenes that are not voiced.
 * Theme Naming: Most characters are named after colors, particularly wood hues. Many types of special magic are also named after colors; Marona's ability to use phantoms is "Chartreuse," Walnut uses "Psycho Burgundy," and so on.
 * Ungrateful Bastard: Oh yeah.
 * The Undead: Phantoms have it pretty good compared to most undead. They are confined to either physical objects temporarily that Marona temporarily transmutes into a body or free-wandering on Marona's island, which is pleasant in itself; they can't feel strong sensations like hot or cold but other than that aren't in any pain. Curiously, there are ghosts and zombies in Marona's universe and Marona can make phantoms out of them too, but not the shadows of Sulphur.
 * Untrusting Community: Community? Ha! Try "Untrusting Universe".
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: On Phantom Island, as Ash, you can stomp on Marona, your generic NPC characters, and any other character that appears. In the Wii Version, pressing the Z button allows you to beat up your characters, ranging from a strike to a giant swing throw. The kicker is that by beating the crap out of your own characters is that you gain experience from doing so. With the Changebook, you can use your NPCs to beat up on the main characters, KO them and level up.
 * Not to mention how "fusion" powers up your skills and items; and consumes one of the beings fused. An easy way to get a quick Title? Summon a cheap Phantom then banish it, and only it's Title will be left. You want to double your experience and Mana absorbed when you kill enemies and to heal when you take a step? Summon a Slime (they have perfect efficiency with anything in fusion transfer), fuse a high-level item to give it some mana, Summon 50-100 of the beings you want to transfer the skill; fuse them into the slime, and then fuse the slime into the character you want the skill given to.
 * Marona's version of "Transmigration" is...messier than Disgaea. You have to let a Phantom's HP be taken to 0, then it's body needs to be destroyed. Then she can reconstitute it's spirit with into a special item.
 * Wave Motion Gun: You'd be surprised what counts as a wave motion gun when some of the items AND enemies have abilities that resemble a giant death beam when used. This includes dogs, some random plants and even attached abilities to characters.
 * Heck, by fusing abilities such as Balsa Bazooka into a character anything they can get their hands on can become one.
 * We Cannot Go On Without You: This makes sense, actually. Since Marona is basically using Summon Magic; and is a living human, if she dies and all of her summoned Phantoms die and/or run out of turns, game over. Phantoms cannot permanently die as long as she's around to put them back together.
 * Subverted in the Dungeon Creator: if you manage to win that battle inside the dungeons even if Marona is knocked out, she will be resurrected at the next level, but with 1HP.
 * White Mage: The Healer class.
 * With This Herring: Given the community she's surrounded by, Marona starts out empty handed, but can quickly earn her way into a Disc One Nuke with a little work. This trope comes into play literally if you decide to use a Fish as your weapon.
 * You Kill It You Bought It: Hey, look over there! It's a Blacksmith! If I kill him, I'll be able to summon Blacksmith souls! .....yeah.
 * White Mage: The Healer class.
 * With This Herring: Given the community she's surrounded by, Marona starts out empty handed, but can quickly earn her way into a Disc One Nuke with a little work. This trope comes into play literally if you decide to use a Fish as your weapon.
 * You Kill It You Bought It: Hey, look over there! It's a Blacksmith! If I kill him, I'll be able to summon Blacksmith souls! .....yeah.

We Meet Again and Another Marona has examples of:

 * A God Am I: Carona is accompanied by a Funguy who claims to be God.
 * Alternate Universe: What if everyone just died? Another Marona itself is an Alternate Universe as it diverges from the main game prior to Marona's first job rather than continuing where the game left off. As such, she doesn't know any of the characters she meets at the beginning outside of the reputation they have built up.
 * Corrupt the Cutie: Carona is a Darker and Edgier corruption of Marona, to the degree that it's basically stated ingame.
 * Darker and Edgier: Carona to Marona, again.
 * Digging Yourself Deeper: Ash after being accused of pedophilia. A real Crowning Moment of Funny.
 * Doomsday Device: The Magenta Core.
 * Dumb Muscle:
 * Everybodys Dead Dave:
 * Evil Twin: Part of Carona's training is
 * Flanderization:
 * Good Is Not Nice: Carona.
 * Hopeless Boss Fight: Though when you first face Carona she isn't terribly overpowered (but instead has an army of Mooks to face you), the next cutscene assumes she's beaten you. Comes with a bit of Gameplay and Story Segregation as many players will face her in a New Game Plus, where she is easily defeatable.
 * Kill Em All: The Expansion Pack epilogue in Phantom Brave: We Meet Again, "Another Marona" starts off in an Alternate Universe where instead of having to deal with the living, everyone except apparently Marona just keels over and dies. As Phantoms, they accept her a lot easier.
 * Lolicon: Carona accuses Ash of this; but it was made obvious previously that she's jealous of his loving relationship with Marona and very, very bitter. (Also, you really don't get more Chaste Hero than Ash.)
 * Laughably Evil: God Eryngi's feeble attempts to convince the main characters that he's God at the beginning of the storyline by shouting such phrases as "I'll curse you!" repeatedly and shouting that he's obviously God are actually rather hilarious, and the fact that he's an angry-looking bearded mushroom contribute to this effect.
 * Love Redeems:
 * The Man Behind the Man:.
 * Omnicidal Maniac:
 * The Other Darrin: Walnut goes from Steven Jay Blum to Vic Mignogna.
 * Before We Meet Again, Troy Baker was his voice actor
 * Morality Chain:
 * New Game Plus: A new addition to the Wii version, characters from Another Marona can be carried over to the main storyline and vice versa. Of course, their affect on the actual plot is nil.
 * No Ontological Inertia:
 * Soul Jar: The Magenta Core
 * Stripperiffic: Carona
 * Super Title 64 Advance: Played straight with the Japanese title of the game, which is simply Phantom Brave Wii.
 * Throw the Dog A Bone:
 * Took a Level In Dumbass: Sprout took multiple levels in dumbass and underwent Badass Decay at the same time.
 * Training From Hell: Carona subjects Marona and crew to this.
 * Wife Husbandry: Carona accuses Ash of this.
 * Xanatos Gambit:
 * Training From Hell: Carona subjects Marona and crew to this.
 * Wife Husbandry: Carona accuses Ash of this.
 * Xanatos Gambit: