Don't forget to steal SNAKISH SWORD

[Addol]

Because I forgot.

To new players: Snakish Sword is the tutorial sword, has a nice (but pretty much useless mid-late game) skill.

P.S.: to old PS2/WII/PSP players, Island's Bottlemail gonna help you a lot, don't forget about him, he's still waiting there.

[ShinkuTear]

To add on to this: To get the Snakish, pick up your crew and stack them on the house, and climb up, you should get a Changebook, and then a Bottlemail.

Bottlemail has questionable stats, but is a crazy good thief.

Changebook is a super rare book with a super awesome use later game.

[Addol]

Yeah, DON'T sell your CHANGEBOOK / EGG.

All characters are going to be "bad" until you transmigrate them with 100+ EXP.

[Amaryllis]

Many years ago, I learned so much about this game from this FAQ

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/919034-phantom-brave/faqs/37762

This says post game, and it does contain spoilers, but a lot of information is useful and worth knowing immediately if you're into powerleveling. It's worth keeping in mind if you're done with the story and want to dive into the nitty gritty of the grind.

[davidb11]

Transmigration only works if you have a changebook, so you really can't use Transmigration at all in ths game, unless you've become insanely lucky with random dungeons.


The entire ponit of this game is fusing your characters with equipment, and giving them better stats by doing so.
Same with their weapon.
Thats' how you can make your characters insanely strong even early on.

And the advice to get the Bottlemail during the tutorial is really not as easy as you think, since you need a ridiculous amount of people/objects to climb on to get to the point of your free bottlemail.

At least it's been my experience, you need a lot of things combined to jump up on to get to unlock the bottlemail.

I've spent 333+ hours in this game on the PS3, a lot of it grinding, trust me, you don't transmigrate. :)

[ShinkuTear]

Originally posted by davidb11:

At least it's been my experience, you need a lot of things combined to jump up on to get to unlock the bottlemail.

Yep, you need the massive amount of "Only the characters the game gives you in the tutorial"

3-4 characters on the tree, and bam, Bottlemail. Just so happens, the tutorial supplies you with 5. Soldier, Healer, Merchant, ghost thing, Ash/Marona.

[davidb11]

Really? I could have sworn you needed more for that.
My mistake.
I must have misunderstood the requirements, because I got really high up before I got the Bottlemail, and even more for the other rewards.

I don't know I forgot, but it must have been because of how long it's been.

[Escarodeta]

THANK U SO MUCH FOR REMIND ME OF THIS!

[Amagi]

I missed the bottlemail one, but imo getting a weird dungeon isn't that bad. Took me 30 minutes to get one through mind numbing actions, but hey, at least it wasn't an hour.

[davidb11]

Gettign a weird dungeon for me is basically impossible. Because everytime I try, I end up missing it by zoning out while tying to form one and completely skip it.

It's unbeliably frustrating to try to do that for me, it really is. :(
I have maybe gotten 2 weird dungeons to actually be built out of probably 10 that spawn, because the words just blur together while trying ot get it. :(

[Marsgreekgod]

Can someone explain what this is all about. I never played this game before.

[Amaryllis]

Originally posted by marsgreekgod:

Can someone explain what this is all about. I never played this game before.

The main topic is concerning a special sword that while not super powerful, is useful to have in the early game.

Basically in one of the tutorial stages, there is a sword called "snakish". It has a special attack and can't be found anywhere else.

In this game, you obtain items by summoning your phantoms and when their time is up on the battlefield, they have a chance of taking that item that summoned them with them. The chance is based on some factors I'm sure--I can't immediately remember--but the game helpfully lets you know the percent chance of taking an item home with you whenever you summon someone.

Now, I forgot if it was hard to get, but to maximize the chance of getting this item, there is a character called the bottlemail, who has a significantly higher rate of getting items than other characters.

The rest of the thread is about reminding old players where that bottlemail is, but this helpful albeit slightly cumbersome video should demonstrate how to get it for new players

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWYSq0g-gGQ

So with this bottlemail, it should be relatively certain that you'll get the snakish sword.

Now, is it worth it? Well, the sword honestly can get obsolete quickly, but is a neat trinket to have I suppose. The bottlemail is very useful, but you don't absolutely need to have one at the start. It's a neat character to have though.

That's the two main points of discussion in this thread.

The other points regarding the use of the changebook and egg can probably be left over for most new players, but are worth remembering and looking into when you play more and are interested in grinding and the likes.

[Addol]

Originally posted by davidb11:

Transmigration only works if you have a changebook, so you really can't use Transmigration at all in ths game, unless you've become insanely lucky with random dungeons.


The entire ponit of this game is fusing your characters with equipment, and giving them better stats by doing so.
Same with their weapon.
Thats' how you can make your characters insanely strong even early on.

And the advice to get the Bottlemail during the tutorial is really not as easy as you think, since you need a ridiculous amount of people/objects to climb on to get to the point of your free bottlemail.

At least it's been my experience, you need a lot of things combined to jump up on to get to unlock the bottlemail.

I've spent 333+ hours in this game on the PS3, a lot of it grinding, trust me, you don't transmigrate. :)

You need it if Ash is your main, but seriously, my mains are Marona and 4 characters with Big Bang/Healing Birth combo.

Since this port has PSP postgame you get a lot of EGGs in the extra stage, check your mailbox.

[davidb11]

You need Transmigration if Ash is your main, I don't understand why?

My main party for my game play, even all the way through to beating Laharl in the post game, was Marona, Ash, 2 bottlemails, who by that time were insanely powerful, even against Laharl, and 4 other random character.

You get stupid powerful just by fusing weapons to your characters, and fusing together weapons.
Transmigration isn't going to help as much as combining a ton of gear to make yourself stronger.

Unless I'm missing something.

[Addol]

Originally posted by davidb11:

You need Transmigration if Ash is your main, I don't understand why?

My main party for my game play, even all the way through to beating Laharl in the post game, was Marona, Ash, 2 bottlemails, who by that time were insanely powerful, even against Laharl, and 4 other random character.

You get stupid powerful just by fusing weapons to your characters, and fusing together weapons.
Transmigration isn't going to help as much as combining a ton of gear to make yourself stronger.

Unless I'm missing something.

Does your character (Ash) gain STATS with weapon fusion?

Well, transmigrated chara with 100HP at lvl 3xx has equal or more HP than the not transmigrated chara lvl 22xx. More or less.

[davidb11]

That is weird, because I can assure you, when you fuse a character and weapons, they get stronger. At least, I'm fairly certain. How else do characters gain stats?


I'm not sure why my experience and your seem to be completely contridictory.
Nor why I never heard anyone ever before you claim Transmigration in this game is a good idea ever.

That includes all the times I've read everything I could about this game years ago on the Gamefaqs community, and others.