I’ve been banging the drum of “turn-based simultaneous decision” for years now, and it’s all the time good to see a brand new recreation doing one thing with it. One of the vital latest examples that I bear 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 stay in a vaguely described quasi-European nation that’s typically seen outdoors of an anime. Additionally, mecha are the most recent army hotness. Immediately, a imprecise enemy assaults and overruns the land. You, the pilots of the Phantom Brigade, are the one survivors of the traditional army. It’s now as much as you to strike again, liberate area after area, and retake the homeland. The duty could be insurmountable if not for the truth that your mechs are outfitted with a system that lets them predict the motion 5 seconds into the longer term.
I used to be a mech, and younger
Functionally, Phantom Brigade is a tactical recreation the place you management as much as 4 mechs and a few allies that tag alongside from time to time. Every flip of motion lasts 5 seconds, however between these turns you may have infinite time to find out what you’ll squad will do. It’s also possible to see what the enemy is planning, and that energy will tip the scales in your favor.
There aren’t too many transferring elements 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 may take injury. 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 pal of mine put it, “utilizing armored cavalry techniques and tearing the enemy forces aside is so satisfying in a really ‘Entrance Mission method.’” He’s proper; the mecha transfer and combat much more like Entrance Mission than Battletech. There’s an explosion of violence as soon as the flip commences. Stray photographs gauge complete rooms out of buildings. Sci-fi base towers collapse as heavy beams sweep over them. Vehicles are crushed and not using a single thought. Mecha a number of tales excessive soar on jets, leaping over terrain and onto buildings.
Mecha get hit. Limbs disintegrate underneath hearth. They fall because the legs are shot from underneath them. The pilots power them right into a limp, making an attempt to get to security and eject. They don’t make it as big machineguns, beam rifles, and swarms of rockets tear them to shreds. On the 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 a complete lot of them, and the sport begins dragging actually quick. At 37.2 hours, I really feel like I’ve seen all the things. I’ve fought and refought practically the identical missions for hours. Oh, I’m attacking a army base? There shall be turrets and — doubtlessly — an alarm tower to destroy to stop reinforcements from exhibiting up. Oh, am I ambushing a convoy? Effectively, no use making an attempt 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 sooner — to only kill everybody.
Having unlocked the flexibility to name in Residence Guard reinforcements, I barely even used it. They solely arrive on flip 3 and, by then, the killing is sort of finished.
Oh, the Residence Guard. If you transfer onto a province within the marketing campaign map, you can begin its liberation by previously summoning the Residence Guard, the resistance. With out them, stomping out all of the enemy bases within the space will accomplish nothing outdoors of the loot you are taking. However as soon as the Residence Guard will get concerned, you get two gouges representing the scenario: Residence Guard power and the enemy power. Enemy power is sapped by combating, however the easiest way to go about is to assault essential areas (or, generally, essential patrols).
Residence Guard energy is misplaced as they lose battles. And so they all the time lose battles; for those who 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 brief essential location.
Whether or not the battle has simply began or the Residence Guard has been whittled right down to 1%, whenever you be a part of it, you’ll have just one ally on the sphere: a tank. It’s all the time a single tank, and probably the most fundamental mannequin at that. The battle itself only a standup combat; you’ve finished one like this many instances earlier than. The map is untouched, as if the determined battle occurred elsewhere. The enemy, like all the time, shall be a mixture of tanks and mecha, although they do have extra sorts of tank weapons. They are going to, afterward, begin fielding “Tank, However Larger.”
Not a flying tank, not a helicopter, not swarms of tiny mechs — Tank, However Larger — and that’s simply emblematic of lack of selection in Phantom Brigade. The platforms the enemy throws at you don’t matter; you simply word the weapon and the mech weight class (since you don’t need to shoulder deal with a mech of similar 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 elements or all Ebon elements will not be essential. For tanks, you may nearly ignore what they’re armed with, too.
Sic transit gloria looting
Even the loot finally loses its luster. Positive, you combine and match your mech with any combo of arms (left and proper), legs (one piece, truly), torso, and weapons. Slap Arrow elements 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 may’t go quadrupled, although foolish swords and axes exist.
There are three rarity ranges, from frequent to uncommon, and 20-ish ranges. And uncommon (blue) will all the time be higher than grey (frequent) 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 potential to fireplace by the terrain is ridiculously good.
Perhaps… Perhaps Phantom Brigade would have been higher if, as an alternative of blending mech elements, its mixtures had been mounted, making each studying to establish — and looting — particular sorts helpful.
The loot stops mattering as you enhance your capability to fabricate mech elements. Positive, you may by no means select what mods the merchandise could have as soon as it rolls off the meeting line. In actual fact, the sport doesn’t even let you know, however the potential to craft rares, even when particular resource-intensive, implies that salvage begins enjoying 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 pal’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 other people get invested in them. In Phantom Brigade, I couldn’t bear in mind the identify of the nation or the enemy faction 37 hours in.
I don’t also have a hyperlink to my pilots. Positive, I can set their names, nicknames, customise their appears to be like 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. Typically, you turn out a pilot for a rested one, and that’s it.
All in all, Phantom Brigade is an effective mech recreation for those who don’t play it for too lengthy. Across the time your gear begins hitting stage 10, it’ll have been too lengthy. However the recreation expects you to enter the ultimate battle loads higher ready, and I don’t know why you’d will your self to do this except you actually love the timed battles. And for all of the spectacle they offered with swarming rockets and beams slicing condominium buildings aside, I ultimately discovered myself jaded.