I’ve been banging the drum of “turn-based simultaneous decision” for years now, and it’s at all times good to see a brand new sport doing one thing with it. One of the vital latest examples that I keep in mind is Iron Hazard, which truly utilized the system to a fantasy RPG and added time-manipulation. And in Phantom Brigade, the system is utilized to a mecha setting… with added time-manipulation!
In Phantom Brigade, your troopers reside in a vaguely described quasi-European nation that’s typically seen outdoors of an anime. Additionally, mecha are the most recent navy hotness. Instantly, a imprecise enemy assaults and overruns the land. You, the pilots of the Phantom Brigade, are the one survivors of the traditional navy. It’s now as much as you to strike again, liberate area after area, and retake the homeland. The duty can be insurmountable if not for the truth that your mechs are geared up with a system that lets them predict the motion 5 seconds into the long run.
I used to be a mech, and younger
Functionally, Phantom Brigade is a tactical sport the place you management as much as 4 mechs and a few allies that tag alongside on occasion. Every flip of motion lasts 5 seconds, however between these turns you’ve infinite time to find out what you’ll squad will do. You too can see what the enemy is planning, and that energy will tip the scales in your favor.
There aren’t too many transferring components to pay attention to when planning. Ensure that the mechs are on the proper spot, the targets are in optimum vary, and the warmth gauge will not be boiling over. The robots received’t shut down from overheating, however they’ll take harm. As well being is tracked per physique half (left arm, proper arm, higher torso, legs), this can be the distinction between getting to maintain your gun arm or dropping it.
When it really works, it’s very cool. As one other nerd buddy of mine put it, “utilizing armored cavalry techniques and tearing the enemy forces aside is so satisfying in a really ‘Entrance Mission manner.’” He’s proper; the mecha transfer and battle much more like Entrance Mission than Battletech. There’s an explosion of violence as soon as the flip commences. Stray photographs gauge total rooms out of buildings. Sci-fi base towers collapse as heavy beams sweep over them. Vehicles are crushed with no single thought. Mecha a number of tales excessive soar on jets, leaping over terrain and onto buildings.
Mecha get hit. Limbs disintegrate below hearth. They fall because the legs are shot from below them. The pilots drive them right into a limp, attempting to get to security and eject. They don’t make it as large machineguns, beam rifles, and swarms of rockets tear them to shreds. On this planet of Phantom Brigade, a mere 30 seconds could have handed between the beginning of the battle and the final of the losers is coating the insides of their very own pilot capsule.
This “Phantom Brigade” doesn’t stand a ghost of an opportunity!
However that’s whereas it really works. Although Phantom Brigade‘s battles are technically brief, there’s an entire lot of them, and the sport begins dragging actually quick. At 37.2 hours, I really feel like I’ve seen every part. I’ve fought and refought almost the identical missions for hours. Oh, I’m attacking a navy base? There might be turrets and — doubtlessly — an alarm tower to destroy to stop reinforcements from exhibiting up. Oh, am I ambushing a convoy? Effectively, no use attempting to steal the products! Getting a mecha close to a truck and and standing there for 3 turns earlier than escaping takes too lengthy. It’s a lot simpler — and far quicker — to simply kill everybody.
Having unlocked the flexibility to name in House Guard reinforcements, I barely even used it. They solely arrive on flip 3 and, by then, the killing is sort of completed.
Oh, the House Guard. If you transfer onto a province within the marketing campaign map, you can begin its liberation by previously summoning the House Guard, the resistance. With out them, stomping out all of the enemy bases within the space will accomplish nothing outdoors of the loot you’re taking. However as soon as the House Guard will get concerned, you get two gouges representing the state of affairs: House Guard energy and the enemy energy. Enemy energy is sapped by combating, however the easiest way to go about is to assault essential areas (or, typically, essential patrols).
House Guard energy is misplaced as they lose battles. And so they at all times lose battles; in the event you don’t bail them out, they’ll lose each final one. That’s simply how the sport works: there’s no mechanical tussle behind the display screen, it’s only a timer on a short lived essential location.
Whether or not the battle has simply began or the House Guard has been whittled right down to 1%, whenever you be part of it, you’ll have just one ally on the sector: a tank. It’s at all times a single tank, and probably the most fundamental mannequin at that. The battle itself only a standup battle; you’ve completed one like this many instances earlier than. The map is untouched, as if the determined battle occurred someplace else. The enemy, like at all times, might be a mixture of tanks and mecha, although they do have extra kinds of tank weapons. They’ll, afterward, begin fielding “Tank, However Greater.”
Not a flying tank, not a helicopter, not swarms of tiny mechs — Tank, However Greater — and that’s simply emblematic of lack of selection in Phantom Brigade. The platforms the enemy throws at you don’t matter; you simply be aware the weapon and the mech weight class (since you don’t need to shoulder sort out a mech of identical or larger class). This isn’t Battletech, as there are not any iconic mechs or iconic loadouts. Seeing whether or not an enemy mech is utilizing all Arrow components or all Ebon components will not be essential. For tanks, you’ll be able to nearly ignore what they’re armed with, too.
Sic transit gloria looting
Even the loot finally loses its luster. Certain, you combine and match your mech with any combo of arms (left and proper), legs (one piece, truly), torso, and weapons. Slap Arrow components along with Ebon or Knox, combine heavy with mild, it doesn’t matter. On the finish of the day, rarity and stage rule. And, not like in Entrance Mission, you’ll be able to’t go quadrupled, although foolish swords and axes exist.
There are three rarity ranges, from widespread to uncommon, and 20-ish ranges. And uncommon (blue) will at all times be higher than grey (widespread) or inexperienced (unusual). I stored a Degree 3 blue shotgun till the remainder of the mech was all Degree 9 blues, just because I couldn’t discover a higher blue weapon. The one purpose why I used grey railguns was as a result of I couldn’t discover any higher. However the means to fireside by the terrain is ridiculously good.
Perhaps… Perhaps Phantom Brigade would have been higher if, as an alternative of blending mech components, its combos had been mounted, making each studying to determine — and looting — particular varieties helpful.
The loot stops mattering as you enhance your capability to fabricate mech components. Certain, you’ll be able to by no means select what mods the merchandise could have as soon as it rolls off the meeting line. In truth, the sport doesn’t even inform you, however the means to craft rares, even when particular resource-intensive, signifies that salvage begins taking part in fourth fiddle.
So on the finish of the day, once I’ve seen all of the maps — even when they’re good — and I’ve skilled all of the missions I can do, what’s left? The setting, the story? Effectively, the second a part of my buddy’s quote was “the world-building appears fairly weak in comparison with Entrance Mission or Ace Fight to this point.” He hadn’t been Phantom Brigade for lengthy. I’ve, and I do know it doesn’t get higher. These could also be foolish settings, however they’re settings, and folks get invested in them. In Phantom Brigade, I couldn’t keep in mind the title of the nation or the enemy faction 37 hours in.
I don’t also have a hyperlink to my pilots. Certain, I can set their names, nicknames, customise their seems and even select their pronouns, however it does nothing. The sport doesn’t pull their names or bios or demeanors (that are solely pointless, so far as I’m conscious) for occasions or unit barks or something. They’re simply the a part of the mech that has a well being bar that tracks whether or not your robotic was taken out by concussion or not. Generally, you turn out a pilot for a rested one, and that’s it.
All in all, Phantom Brigade is an effective mech sport in the event you don’t play it for too lengthy. Across the time your gear begins hitting stage 10, it can have been too lengthy. However the sport expects you to enter the ultimate battle lots higher ready, and I don’t know why you’d will your self to try this except you actually love the timed battles. And for all of the spectacle they introduced with swarming rockets and beams slicing residence buildings aside, I finally discovered myself jaded.