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Hello everyone! Did you try already World of Destruction, the JRPG for the Nintendo DS of which I talked about in the last entry? I´m sure the game brought back some memories to those who used to play JRPG games back in the 90s. In this entry I´m going to talk about Phantom Breaker Extra, another of those “Made in Japan” versus games full of samurai lolitas, ninja maidens and all that bizarre stuff that the Japanese (and some not Japanese) love so much, and it´s charming spin-off with chibi characters called Phantom Breaker Battle Ground.
We will start with Phantom Breaker Extra. Developed by 5pb. Inc., a Japanese company specialized in visual novels, Phantom Breaker is a versus fighting game in which, just like games such as Arcana Heart or Vanguard Princess, all (or most) of its fighter rooster members are female characters. Although the game was originally released exclusively for the Xbox 360 in 2011, it got an “extended version” in 2013 which, on top of being released also in the 360, was released as well in the Japanese arcades on Sega´s RingEdge 2 arcade board, on top of Sony´s PS3, and which will be the version I will be talking about in this entry since it’s the most complete of them both. Although there were plans to release the game also in the western market, the release was suddenly cancelled in the last moment with no further details offered as to why, causing the game to remain exclusive for the Japanese territory. The story (to call it something) of Phantom Breaker takes us to Tokyo, Japan. A mysterious man known as Phantom presented a series of young people with special power a series of artifacts known as Fu-Mension Artifacts, telling them that if they participate in the tournament he´s about to hold and win, they will be granted one whish, so the youngsters decide to participate for different reasons. What they ignore is that Phantom´s powers have been sealed in a parallel dimension, and that every time some uses a Fu-Mension Artifact it opens a crack in the space-time, and when the crack is big enough, Phantom will be able to access that parallel dimension and recover his powers to conquer the world!! Muahahahahaha!! Ok, perhaps is not that dramatic. Actually, it doesn´t make any sense, but fear not, fortunately the gameplay is much better that the story, which by the way was not that difficult. The game´s fighter rooster includes 18 characters, all with their own unique fighting style, and that cover all the possible fetishes, from your typical maids and high-school girls, to gothic lolitas and femme fatale. The characters are:
Chris Cocoa
Fin Infinity
Itsuki Lia
M Mei
Mikoto Ren
Rimi Tokiya
Yuzuha Waka
Ende Shizuka
Riga Sofia
As for the gameplay itself, while we could say that the game doesn´t innovate that much in any aspect, in fact, as it usually happens with this kind of productions, the game rather stays in the conservative side, it still manages to add enough twist to the formula to deliver a fun and competent combat system. The game has 4 basic buttons, one for the weak attacks, another for the medium ones, and a third one for the strong ones, which we will be able to combine to deliver all kind of combos, and then a final button for the special attacks, which can also be weak, medium or strong (equivalent to Street Fighter 4 EX attacks). Phantom Breaker´s main gimmick resides in the 3 different combat styles we will be able to choose from to adapt our character to our playing style, and that help to make the game combat system more diverse, as even 2 players could be playing with the same character, depending on the combat style they chose, the gameplay style will change completely. The styles are:
- Quick Style: This style will allow us to perform larger combos by mixing attacks with different power (including special attacks), as well as allowing us to perform double jumps. On the other hand, it will reduce our health gauge as well as our attack and defense power, meaning we will inflict less damage while also taking more damage than usual. This style will only allow us to stock 2 levels of our Burst Gauge. When we activate our Overdrive in this style, the action on screen will slowdown a few seconds, making it easier for us to perform combos. We will also be able to perform a Slip Shift, which will allow us to doge an enemy attack and counter quickly. This style is ideal for fast and technical players who are good at chaining combos.
- Hard Style: This style will strengthen our health gauge as well as our attack and defense power, however, it will make us less agile, shortening the distance we can run, and allowing us to perform combos only with hits with the same amount of power (weak, medium, strong), meaning the amount of available combos will be inferior. This style will allow us to use the Protection technique, which will allow us to block an enemy attack and counterattack instantly. When the Tension Gauge is full and we have at least 1 stock of our Burst Gauge, we will be able to use a Critical Burst, a powerful attack that cannot be blocked. When activating our Overdrive in this style, we will be able to take hits for a few seconds that, while the will still hurt us, they won´t be able to take us down for a few seconds, hence improving our chances to perform a counterattack. This style is ideal for offensive players who want to finish the matches as fast as possible.
- Extra Style: This style is exclusive of the Extra version of the game, as is the most difficult to use by far, making it ideal only for veteran players. This style will allow us to switch between the Quick and Hard styles every time we perform an Overdrive, although the styles will have some limitations when compared to the original styles. We will be able to perform double jumps in both styles. We will be able to have up to 4 stock in our Burst Gauge, but we won´t be able to perform Phantom Break attacks. This style will cause you to inflict the smallest amount of damage while taking the biggest.
On top of these 3 styles, which will be essential to understand and master if we are to be successful, specially against the most experienced players, the game also makes use of other mechanics such as the Burst Gauge, which is the typical power gauge that will fill up during the combats and will allow us to perform the special attacks, the Tension Gauge, which will be located right underneath the time counter and that will also fill up as we fight. The more it full it is, the more powerful our attacks will become, on top of being also necessary in order to be able to perform some attacks. Then we have also the Phantom Break attacks, which are the most powerful attacks of the characters (an equivalent to street Fighter 4 Ultra attacks), and the Overdrive mode, which will allow us to use our Burst Gauge to recover some health for a few seconds on top on activating other effects depending on our style. In addition to all this, the game will also include other features typical of the versus fighting games such as the throws and several types of Cancel, offering like this a deep combat system that will surely please the fans of the genre despite not innovating that much.
Regarding the game modes, the game includes 5 of them. The first one is the Situation Battle Mode, a.k.a. History Mode, in which we will select a character and face several opponents controlled by the AI as the events of the story are narrated between the combats trough static images that display conversations between the characters. The Arcade Mode is similar to the previous one, just that this time around there won´t be any story related conversations. We also have the Versus Mode, which is the typical mode that will allow us to fight against our buddies on local matches or against the AI controlled characters we choose, on top of allowing us to watch a match between 2 AI controlled characters. There is also the Training Mode where, as its own name indicates, we will be able to practice the different techniques of the characters. And last of all we have the Network Mode, which will allow us to play online against players from all over the world. The problem is, since the game has only been released in Japan, it might be difficult to find players to play with, and when we do, there is a good chance we will experience some lag issues, but well, at least the option is there.
As for the graphics, we could say the game just hangs in there. While the characters are designed in 2D, the backgrounds are designed in 3D, just like we could see also in the eye popping BlazBlue series, although Phantom Breaker is nowhere near the level of awesomeness of Arc System Works´ fighter. Although the characters are well designed, the animations are rather stiff when compared to other modern versus fighting games, and even some timeless classics such as the still gorgeous Street Fighter 3. On top of this, and maybe this is just me, opposite to what we can see in the previously mentioned BlazBlue, where the 2D characters fit perfectly over the 3D backgrounds, in Phantom Breaker the characters give the impression from time to time to be floating around the backgrounds, kinda like the feeling you get in the driving scenes of the old movies, where the background didn´t quite match what was going in the foreground, but again maybe that is just me.
All in all, although Phantom Breaker will not remembered as one of the best versus fighting games ever created, it surely has enough to offer to the fans of the genre that want to try new things. You can buy the Xbox 360 (buy) and PS3 (buy) versions in several import websites, with both versions being identical.
GAMEPLAY VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRMkGW-kBfA
TUTORIAL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi1EBZOabBE
As I was saying at the beginning of the entry, I wanted to take this chance to talk to you about the “small brother” of Phantom Breaker, a game called Phantom Breaker Battle Grounds. Opposite to his older brother, Battle Grounds is a charming classic style 2D Beat Em up that features chibi versions of the characters that appear in Phantom Breaker. The gameplay in Battle Ground in pretty straightforward, we will pick one of the 4 available characters (plus a fifth one available via DLC, or 8 characters in the PS4 exclusive extended version) in order to advance through the stages as we beat the crap out of the waves of enemies that will flood the screen. Despite being a classic style Beat Em Up, the game uses a control scheme similar to the one of its older brother, with 3 buttons for the weak, medium and strong attacks, plus a forth one for the special attacks. In addition to this, we will also be able to use the majority of the special attacks and mechanics that appear in the original versus game, providing the characters with a fairly big choice of skills for a game of this genre. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the enemies, who are mostly just your typical cannon fodder waiting for us to beat the crap out of them with some good old button mashing, for button mashing will work just as fine as any beautiful combos we could pull of, and that can make the game become a bit repetitive pretty fast. Opposite to what we see in most Beat Em Up games where we can move around the stages freely, Battle Grounds uses a system similar to the one we could see in Treasure´s ABSOLUTELY AWESOME Guardian Heroes, thus we have that while we can move to right and left completely freely, in order to move “up and down” the stage will be divided in two planes, the background and the foreground one, and we will be able to switch anytime we want between them with the press of one button. Battle Grounds also features a level up system similar to the one seen in the again ABSOLUTELY AWESOME Guardian Heroes (is it too obvious how much I love this game?), in which we will be able to customize our character via a skill tree by using the gems we will collect during the stages after defeating our enemies. |
| We will be able to level up and customize our characters. |
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| The game supports online and local multiplayer for up to 4 players. |
GAMEPLAY VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OiJchDRlSc
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