I’ve played several tactical (or strategy) RPG’s in the past: Final Fantasy Tactics, FFT Advance, FFT A2: Grimoire of the Rift, an Onimusha strategy game (briefly), and two different Tactics Ogre games. All of those games I just listed are grid-based, but Phantom Brave: We Meet Again (Wii) goes against convention in that and several other ways.

First of all, moving your characters around on a battlefield isn’t done in an exact way like in grid-based strategy games; you can move your characters anywhere within a projected circle, and you can often move them several times in the same turn. You can even hop on top of other characters (including enemies), items on the field, etc. Under slippery terrain conditions your characters could go sliding across the field – and off of ledges – if you aren’t especially careful. Fortunately in most you cases you can press the cancel button and try placing your character any number of times, and placement is KEY since attacks are performed within a three dimensional area whose effectiveness is determined by width as well as height.

Secondly, characters aren’t simply placed where you want (with some limitations) before the start of a battle; all of the “warriors” at your disposal are “phantoms,” and – as such – have to be “confined” to objects on the battlefield. It’s this particular quirk that REALLY sets Phantom Brave apart. Let’s say that there’s a rock and a weed nearby; confining a phantom to the rock would replace it with the selected character (ready for battle) and change their stats according to the benefits and drawbacks of said object. One benefit of confining a phantom to a rock (and stat-changes vary from rock to rock) would usually be a decent increase in total defense, and a drawback would usually be a notable decrease in speed. If you, instead, confine that SAME character to the nearby weed, that character would normally see an increase in the intelligence and resistance stats, while suffering a decrease in attack; so you have to choose your phantoms AND the objects you confine them to with care.

And here’s where the game gets a little crazy: you can pick up – and then throw – pretty much anything and anybody. Not like the look of that particular enemy? Well, you can just pick them up (under most circumstances) and throw them off the side of the field map. Like the weapon that one enemy’s holding? Well, assuming you have a phantom with a decent “steal” stat, you might be able to walk right up to that enemy and snatch the weapon from them. Admittedly, I get my weapon’s taken from me more often than I steal them from enemies, and sometimes the thief simply tosses my cherished item out of bounds so that no one can use it. That’s the sort of game this is; it’s often difficult to predict exactly what an enemy will do or even what strategy will be most effective. I’ve defeated higher level enemies with much lower level phantoms thanks to a quick grab and a toss. However, you can’t always be certain where thrown items (and enemies) will land – especially on fields with a slippery surface.

There’s plenty more to tell about the gameplay of Phantom Brave: different phantom classes and abilities, leveling up weapons and objects, combining characters and items, generating random dungeons… But instead of writing a game manual, I’m going to describe what it’s like to play the game with the Wii’s unique controls. I (briefly) attempted to play the game with just the Wii-mote, but it was somewhat difficult to use the directional pad to select points and targets on the map. The Wii-mote/Nunchuk scheme works much better for me, and I have little trouble commanding my troops with the precise analog stick. I believe that the classic controller can also be used to play the game, but I haven’t tried using it. There’s no use of the pointer and motion controls, but I think that was to be expected since this release of Phantom Brave is essentially a Playstation 2 port with some added content. Overall, the game is fairly easy to control if you look for on-screen icons that indicate which buttons should be pressed and just spend a little time messing around, and if I remember correctly, the initial stages of the game serve as a sort of tutorial to help you learn the basic ins-and-outs of gameplay (an opportune time for the aforementioned messing around).

In conclusion, I’ll say that Phantom Brave: We Meet Again is one of the most (if not THE most) unique, creative, endearingly quirky, and FUN tactical/strategy RPG’s I’ve ever played. It’s sure to provide me with oh-so-many hours of continued gameplay, and I can certainly see myself going back for more and more.