Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero continues the story of Marona the Chroma and her Spirit Companion Ash. After an encounter with the Shipwreck Fleet, Marona is separated from Ash and washes up on Skullrock Island. After joining forces with a Phantom Pirate, Apricot, Marona sets out to revitalise the Argento Pirate Crew and take on the Shipwreck Fleet to track down Ash.
In order to bolster your forces in Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero, you’ll recruit Phantoms with various abilities and skillsets to call forth in combat. Depending on the type of strategies you employ, some units will be more valuable than others. This guide will discuss some of the most universally helpful units available in the early stages of the game.
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Best Units in Chapter 1
When you first unlock the “Create Character” Facility in Chapter 1, you’ll only have access to a few types of units. Despite this, there are some very useful options in this first bunch that should be prioritized.
Fighter & Striker (Learn Skills Facility, Melee Combat Specialists)
The fighter and Striker both make excellent melee combat units in the game’s early stages. The Fighter specializes in swords, with balanced attack and defense but a vulnerability to magic attacks, and a powerful skill that strengthens them when surrounded by foes. The Striker prefers spears and has a greater focus on mobility, with a skill that strengthens their attacks after moving, though they share the Fighter’s vulnerability to magic attacks.
It’s best to have one of these in the early parts of the game since they can handle most of the enemies you’ll come across early on with some careful planning (and some support from Marona and Apricot.) It’s also important to recruit at least one of these two at the beginning so you can access the “Learn Skills” Facility, which allows your units to learn new skills as they level up and is essential to getting the most out of your team.
Merchant (Unlocks the Shop, Retrieve useful items from battles)
The Merchant is a vital part of your team, allowing you access to the shop facility to outfit the rest of your units while also retrieving useful items from the battlefield with the “Stock” command. They prefer General Items over traditional weapons, thriving when wielding vases, crates, and barrels against your enemies. They’re a fairly versatile unit in combat, and as their level increases, the Shop will become better stocked, so bringing them into battle to earn some exp is vital.
If you find a valuable item in a map, and you aren’t sure you’ll be able to plunder it, the Merchant can use the “Stock” command to add it to the shop. While only one item can be stocked in this way at a time, and you’ll have to spend BOR to get the item from the shop, it’s still a great way to guarantee access to a good item.
Healer (Heal Allies in Battle, Revive Allies out of Battle)
The Healer is a Unit you’ll want early on, to help you get more mileage out of your units, keep Marona alive, and provide defensive buffs. It’s important to protect your Healer, though, since they’re quite fragile on their own.
The Healer also gives you access to the “Heal” Facility, which lets you restore defeated units outside of battle. This makes the game a lot more forgiving when you lose a unit, so it’s important to have this Facility up and running before taking on any of the more dangerous battles.
Sailor (Long-lasting and easy-to-use unit.)
The Sailor is a fairly mediocre unit in terms of stats and masteries, but has the highest REMOVE stat in the game, giving them the ability to remain active for longer than any other unit during battle. This makes them great when confined to gadgets or as additional support in direct combat, and their ability to draw the attention of enemies makes them good for drawing attention away from other units.
When Reincarnating units they can keep the Sailor abilities that raise the REMOVE stat, so training a unit as a Sailor before reincarnating them into another class will result in units that can stay in combat much longer, so leveling up a few Sailors early will make later stages of the game easier.
Witch & Wizard (Elemental Attacks, AOE)
The Witch and the Wizard are both useful units to have around, with the former focusing on long-range damaging magic while the latter specializes in wider AOE attacks. Since friendly fire is a very real threat in this game, you’ll need to be cautious with your use of these two, though their ability to hit enemy elemental weaknesses and bypass physical defenses makes them a vital part of your team.
They rank lower in this list since they don’t unlock a facility when recruited and are not as necessary in the earlier parts of the game, where your physically inclined units can handle most threats. However, once enemies with high physical defense start showing up, these two will become essential to success.
Best Units Unlocked in Chapter 2
After completing Chapter 1, several new units become available in the “Create Character” facility, granting access to several new facilities in the process.
Angler (Salvage)
Getting an Angler once they become available can be hugely useful for your inventory. They grant access to the Salvage Facility, which allows you to dispatch a team to gather items. The time taken is determined by a combination of your chosen approach and the Salvage Facility’s level, but the overall quality of the items (and the titles attached to them) is determined by the Angler’s level.
In battle, the Angler specializes in wielding Beach Items to damage and blowback enemies, while negating Overboard (O.B) damage taken by her allies. With enough time and experience, the Angler can become a strong battle unit.
Chef (Juice Bar)
While the Chef’s preferred weapon, the Chef’s Knife, is a little tricky to find early on, you should still recruit one as soon as they become available to access the Juice Bar. This facility allows you to give some of your experience from each mission to the Juice Bar, which can then be redistributed to any unit you want. This makes it easier to level up new units, lets you spread experience to units that weren’t involved in a given battle, and can eventually be upgraded to generate even more EXP than you’d normally receive from any given encounter.
The Chef restores 20% SP to all allies inside his action area when attacking, making him an excellent support unit. Once he gets a Chef’s Knife, his Foraging Ability will boost the attack power of his Dex Skills by 45%, making him a formidable attacker. He later gains increased movement while wielding his preferred weapon, along with a powerful bonus to his SP restoration when an allied Angler is on the map. In short, the Chef is good to level up early, since they’ll become incredibly powerful as the game continues and can enable units that spend a lot of SP when attacking to go all out.
Zombie (Strength in Numbers)
Zombies are a unit with a simple strategy: Attack in Greater Numbers. Zombies get buffed when other Zombies are on the field, have excellent HP and DEF stats, and after level 5 they can heal themselves for 15% of their HP whenever they attack. Further emphasizing their utility in the early game, Zombies don’t need to hold a weapon to be useful, excelling in unarmed combat. Since they have bad Speed and SP, you’ll need to make use of Marona’s Confast if you want them to attack early in the turn order, though this drawback doesn’t prevent them from soaking up hits and drawing enemy attention.
Ghost (Alternate Spellcaster)
Players seeking a Monster Unit Spellcaster might want to consider the Ghost. Where Witch and Wizard specialized in range and AOE, the Ghost instead performs best at inflicting status effects. While it has lower INT and RES when compared to the other magic users, it has better SPD, REMOVE, and movement range. This allows them to act earlier in the turn order, stick around longer, and reposition more easily than their peers.
- Released
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January 30, 2025
- Developer(s)
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Nippon Ichi Software
- ESRB
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Teen // Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes, Language
- Steam Deck Compatibility
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Unknown
- PC Release Date
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2025
- PS5 Release Date
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January 30, 2025
- Nintendo Switch Release Date
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January 30, 2025