According to Yuya Hosono in an interview with Dengeki, the decision to make a sequel to Phantom Brave came about due to a western poll showing how popular the game's characters were. Despite Nippon Ichi Software having released several games in North America by that point, they believed that the top spots in said poll would have been filled by characters from the Disgaea series. To their surprise, the Phantom Brave characters ranked higher than the Disgaea characters, leading them to realize that "even after twenty years, there is still a desire for Marona and her team". Prior to this poll, no effort had been made to make a sequel to the game outside of remakes and an extra scenario being added to the Wii version, partly because few staff members who worked on the original remained at the company.