Phantom Brave and other NIS games

Has anybody out there played any of these: Disgaea, La Pucelle Tactics, or Phantom Brave?

I tracked down all three and I've started playing Phantom Brave. I never played much of this type of game before, mostly because Final Fantasy Tactics on PS1 kicked my butt. I was just no good at it. But something about these games drew me to them. It's probably the anime influenced art styles and general insanity involved. There's seems to be a ton of depth involved. It's almost mind boggling, but I'm going to try to get the hang of it. I must admit to also getting the strategy guide for Phantom Brave. I figure I'll need it, and it was only $5 from EB anyway. I played through the beginning and had a hell of a good time.

I like the idea that these games can keep you busy for 100 hours or more too. Like I said befor eit's almost mind boggling. No, forget the "almost", it IS mind boggling. Some people seem to have a problem with the graphics, but I find the "dated" look to be part of the built in charm.

Between Phantom Brave and Wild Arms 3 my RPG plate is full, and then Disgaea and LaPucelle are waiting in the wings too. I know they're out of print and generally harder to find than they should be but I feel good knowing I'll be able to enjoy them when I have the time.

EB still seems to have Phantom Brave in stock for $29.99 and they're selling the strategy guide for $4.99 (originally it was $19.99) It might be worth picking up now before they're gone for good.

An independent game store over here had some guy trade in Disgaea for the new Tenchu game and the store was selling the used Disgaea for $25 or $30, don't really remember. I thought it was in my best gaming interests to acquire it. It was definitely a bargain considering what high prices Disgaea can fetch, new or used.

And La Pucelle, also hard to find, but another little independent shop had one last new copy for $30. I was considering it for weeks, marvelling at the fact that it was still there. I couldn't take it anymore so I finally picked it up, but I got some store credit in the process so I didn't feel too bad about it since it didn't cost me much in the end.

I haven't actually played Phantom Brave too much yet, but last night I played for a bit and was so happy when I felt that I actually "understood" what I was doing. It was just a lot of fun, and I never thought I could have that much fun with this kind of game. I let all three run on some of their little demo loops and some of the stuff that you can do is INSANE. There was one attack some guy in Phantom Brave did, and this one wasn't even too over the top or anything, but some dude planted a tree that grew in an instant and then he jumped into the tree and knocked out a coconut or whatever at the enemy... wacky stuff, but I love it.

The strategy guide for Phantom Brave is pretty well put together and it has a way you can build up and make some kind of dark weapon for the main character before you even move on to the second main game level and the weapon will make the game VERY easy to get through. I'm kind of working in that direction to see what happens. If nothing else I'll get a handle on how some of the innner workings of the game actually work and get a good handle on how some of the stats and stuff can be affected. In the end if it's too easy I can always start over and do it on my own anyway.

Cool stuff.

All are for PS2

Yeah, the voice acting on all of them seems to be really well done, even with the limited exposure I've had so far. The only thing that bugs me about it, and this is really just a nit pick, is that you get text and vocals at the same time and you have to press the X button to advance the conversations. So it's like "Sentence_pause_Sentence_Pause_Sentence_Etc... " so it doesn't play out as a naturally flowing conversation. But again, it's just a nitpick, and actually it makes sense in the end from a game design perspective I suppose. And for a couple of them it's pretty cool to have the option to use the original Japanese track or an english one, suitable to individual preferences. Besides that, it feels very apparent that the folks who made these games really love what they do.