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 crucial latest examples that I bear in mind is Iron Hazard, which really 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 army hotness. Instantly, a obscure enemy assaults and overruns the land. You, the pilots of the Phantom Brigade, are the one survivors of the standard 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 geared up 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 sport 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’ve gotten 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.
Pictured: a comparatively calm battle in Phantom Brigade. Screenshot by PC Invasion
There aren’t too many transferring elements to concentrate on when planning. Ensure 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 are going to 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 good friend of mine put it, “utilizing armored cavalry ways and tearing the enemy forces aside is so satisfying in a really ‘Entrance Mission manner.’” He’s proper; the mecha transfer and struggle much more like Entrance Mission than Battletech. There’s an explosion of violence as soon as the flip commences. Stray photographs gauge whole rooms out of buildings. Sci-fi base towers collapse as heavy beams sweep over them. Automobiles are crushed and not using a single thought. Mecha a number of tales excessive soar on jets, leaping over terrain and onto buildings.
And thus the struggle towards the HOA continues. Screenshot by PC Invasion
Mecha get hit. Limbs disintegrate beneath hearth. They fall because the legs are shot from beneath 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 earth of Phantom Brigade, a mere 30 seconds may 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 pieces. I’ve fought and refought practically the identical missions for hours. Oh, I’m attacking a army base? There will probably be turrets and — probably — an alarm tower to destroy to forestall reinforcements from exhibiting up. Oh, am I ambushing a convoy? Properly, 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.
The implication is that you could be need to conquer all of this, although you solely must encompass the capital district to go for the endgame battle. Screenshot by PC Invasion
Having unlocked the power to name in Residence Guard reinforcements, I barely even used it. They solely arrive on flip 3 and, by then, the killing is almost executed.
Oh, the Residence Guard. While 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’re 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 preventing, however the easiest way to go about is to assault essential places (or, generally, essential patrols).
Ramming a lighter goal stuns it. All tanks are lighter targets. Screenshot by PC Invasion
Residence 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, 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%, if you be a part of it, you’ll have just one ally on the sphere: a tank. It’s at all times a single tank, and probably the most primary mannequin at that. The battle itself only a standup struggle; you’ve executed one like this many occasions earlier than. The map is untouched, as if the determined wrestle occurred elsewhere. The enemy, like at all times, will probably be a mixture of tanks and mecha, although they do have extra kinds of tank weapons. They’ll, in a while, begin fielding “Tank, However Larger.”
Behold the dread type of Tank, However Larger! Screenshot by PC Invasion
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 notice 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 aren’t 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 necessary. For tanks, you may nearly ignore what they’re armed with, too.
Sic transit gloria looting
Even the loot ultimately loses its luster. Certain, you combine and match your mech with any combo of arms (left and proper), legs (one piece, really), 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 degree rule. And, in contrast to 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 at all times be higher than grey (frequent) or inexperienced (unusual). I saved 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 fireside by means of the terrain is ridiculously good.
The workshop “expenses” are literally templates you may make infinite copies of so long as you’ve gotten the sources. Generally, you may loot a ridiculous quantity of stated expenses. Screenshot by PC Invasion
Perhaps… Perhaps Phantom Brigade would have been higher if, as a substitute of blending mech elements, its combos have 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. Certain, you may by no means select what mods the merchandise may have as soon as it rolls off the meeting line. Actually, the sport doesn’t even inform you, however the potential to craft rares, even when particular resource-intensive, implies 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? Properly, the second a part of my good friend’s quote was “the world-building appears fairly weak in comparison with Entrance Mission or Ace Fight up to now.” 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 bear in mind the title of the nation or the enemy faction 37 hours in.
However there’s a canine within the sport and everyone loves a heckin woofer in a sport! Screenshot by PC Invasion
I don’t also have a hyperlink to my pilots. Certain, I can set their names, nicknames, customise their appears and even select their pronouns, however it does nothing. The sport doesn’t pull their names or bios or demeanors (that are totally 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 degree 10, it is going to 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 offered with swarming rockets and beams slicing residence buildings aside, I finally discovered myself jaded.
