Hi everyone,
today we are releasing a major update for Phantom Brave PC, with several new features and fixes to long-standing bugs. Large parts of this update -- outside PC-specific fixes -- are a result of our work on Phantom Brave: The Hermuda Triangle Remastered on PS5, and this patch brings all the applicable improvements to the PC version of the game. I'm personally particularly happy that we got to work on this game, as it is my favourite Nippon Ichi SRPG of its era, and one of my overall favourite entries in the genre.
New Features & High-Profile Bug Fixes
Anti-Aliasing Settings
This patch introduces various anti-aliasing options into the game, namely FXAA, partial/full 2x/4x MSAA, and partial/full 2x/4x SGSSAA. The image above shows a comparison with no AA on the left and SGSSAA on the right.
Restore UV Animations of Lava, Quicksand, etc.
In the original PS2 version of the game, some surfaces such as lava used UV texture animation to visualize their flow. Sadly, this effect was lost in the transition to later ports of the game, including the PC version. We have managed to restore this effect and it is now re-enabled, as you can see above.
CRT Shader Option
Back when Phantom Brave was originally released, a lot of us were still playing on CRT TVs, and LCD technology was just becoming more mainstream. Some people prefer the look of graphics of that era in a CRT style, so the game now includes an optional filter which simulates a CRT image. (Due to the nature of this kind of effect, you probably have to look at the screenshot above in fullscreen to appreciate it)
Color-coded Elemental Skills
As a quality of life improvement, skills with an elemental damage effect are now color-coded to indicate their element, as shown above. While this is not particularly useful for skills like "Fire", others are often less immediately obvious, and this change makes it easier to identify their elemental effects at a glance.
(Re-)Introduce the "Recreate" Dungeon Monk Option
The PSP version of the game featured a shortcut option for re-rolling dungeons generated at the "Dungeon Monk" NPC. We rebuilt this feature and added it in this patch.
Prevent Randomization of Unit Stats
This one requires a bit of a longer explanation. When you create a new unit in Phantom Brave, its stats are randomly generated (to some extent, and within specific constraints). That is intended behaviour, and you can see these stats when selecting a unit to create. However, in every version of the game except for the PSP port, these stats are partially re-randomized after you select a unit, resulting in the actually generated unit having different stats from the one displayed in the preview.
We reconstructed the PSP behaviour, as it makes more sense for players and is likely what was intended all along.
High Frame Rate Support
Phantom Brave now supports framerates higher than 60 FPS!
Note that this is a very old game, originally released more than 20 years ago (typing this made me feel old), so a lot of its logic was bound to fixed framerates. We have resolved a lot of issues while working on the framerate unlocking, and even more during the beta period, but there might still be some that slipped through the cracks. Please report if you encounter anything suspicious.
Fix Z-fighting Artifacts on Several Maps
The PC version of the game suffered from Z-fighting issues on several of its maps, as the Z buffer precision was utilized quite poorly despite the geometric simplicity of the game's graphics. While it took some doing, we have managed to improve how the game distributes its geometry across the Z buffer range, solving all of these issues.
Higher-resolution Map Textures
The game now includes a setting which allows you to use higher-resolution versions of some map textures. This applies only to the 3D model textures, not any of the game's sprites.
Additional Improvements & Fixes
Here's a hopefully complete list of smaller changes which were not mentioned above:
- Added a quality of life feature which automatically selects the currently equipped item when switching equipment.
- Resolved Z-offset issues on AMD and Intel GPUs (make sure you are on the latest drivers!).
- Greatly improved saving and loading speed.
- Fixed a potential crash on shutdown.
- Fixed various issues with the handling of configuration options, and change the defaults for some settings.
- Fixed a potential memory leak.
- The game is now DPI-aware.
- Improved/corrected usage of some button prompts, especially with mouse/keyboard controls.
- Fixed many small language and text issues throughout the game.
- Improved resolution/display mode handling.
- Fixed game launch behaviour when stored in a path with non-ASCII characters.
- The game now allows input from arbitrary gamepads when more than one is connected.
- Added "-latest" flag to directly load into the latest save game.
- Added autosaves on episode completion.
- Added a "skip intro" quality of life feature.
As always, I'd like to thank everyone at PH3 -- especially Markus and Alex, who were the core team on this release -- as well as NISA, and of course our beta testers for their work.
Enjoy!
- Peter "Durante" Thoman, CTO, PH3
