By By Sean Ewing
If you like the fight scenes found in Dragonball Z or The Matrix you should and just go buy Phantom Dust. This game does one thing and does it exceedingly well. The combat system is the star here, and is given ample time to shine. Everything you do is either in preparation of a fight, or as a result of one.
At first description, this might sound shallow, but after experiencing the deep combat system, this is obviously the best course of action.
There is a story here, and it is surprisingly passable. You play as the completely emotionless “Alpha,” or whatever you wish to call him. He’s an emaciated, pasty young man gifted with the special power of harnessing the strange dust covering the planet. Unfortunately, that strange dust caused everyone to lose their memories and retreat underground.
You join with an organization that goes above grounds for short amounts of time to fight the strange monsters that roam there, and to recover artifacts from their previous way of life. It’s not exactly inspired writing, but it’s better than the standard revenge plot found so commonly among action games.
The real differentiating factor is found in the fights themselves. Alpha is paired up with an AI partner and charged with a different task for each stage. Most stages simply require you to defeat all opponents, but some will change it up a bit and make you rescue someone or retrieve an item in a time limit. Once the battle starts, you are free to run around the ruined landscape and pick up new attacks to defeat your opponents.
You can only hold four techniques at a time, but you can overwrite previous attacks at anytime. Before battles, you choose the skills that will appear for you, but only three appear at a time, and you can’t pick the order they appear in. When you get your skills in line, and you have a tight arsenal of skills, you can have some truly outstanding battles. Rather than just stand around and trade punches, you can try to lure your enemy to a weakened area of the battlefield, knock the ground out from under him, fly to the other side, and then pummel him down into the ground.
Not all techniques are straight attacks. Some allow you to fly around the battlefield, restore health, some allow you to jump extreme distances, as well as a whole slew of defensive techniques. These techniques add a whole new level of gameplay, as well as enjoyment. For one, it allows you to truly be effective at any range by allowing you to change distances at will. Additionally, it’s just exceedingly fun to super jump across a ruined shopping mall to deliver a super kick to your enemy’s skull.
However your arsenal must be balanced. You can only have techniques from so many schools in your case. In addition to all of that, you have to also make sure you have enough aura particles in your case to power your techniques. So between thirty slots, you have to fit your attacks, defensive skills, special skills, and aura particles. This system is very reminiscent of a trading card game, like Yu-Gi-Oh! Or Magic: The Gathering, but as stated, the execution couldn’t be more different.
You can assign any attack to any button as you go, creating an exciting and dynamic atmosphere in every battle. The learning curve for such a method is pretty steep, but once you get used to it, battles become fast paced, cinematic, frantic, and beautiful.
This game really delivers a unique and fantastic dynamic that we should be seeing much more of. The variety in techniques and the freedom with which you can use them is a great innovation. Phantom Dust is a great new step for action games, and at $20 anyone with even a passing interest in action oriented games should pick this gem up.
Final Grade: A-