Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate
Developer: Rocket Panda Games
Publisher: Rocket Panda Games
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S (Reviewed), PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $24.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
When it comes to the Phantom Breaker series and the West, you never really know what to expect. The original release of the fighting game was something we managed to preview only for it to never be released when 7sixty shuttered but not even a year later a brawler featuring roughly half of the roster arrived in the West featuring a follow-up story called Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds. Now not only has Rocket Panda Games managed to bring over the actual fighting game in the form of its enhanced version Phantom Breaker: Omnia, they have now released Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate as well. Featuring a number of enhancements and arriving over a decade after the original’s release, is this anime brawler worth checking out?
Story
The story picks up following the events of Phantom Breaker‘s bad ending for Waka that sees the priestess manage to defeat Phantom’s minions but have her sister Nagi kidnapped as a result. With enough clashes of the character’s battling against one another using Phantom’s provided “fu-mension artifacts,” the barrier between worlds has started to splinter. With Phantom’s mind-controlling powers leaking into the normal world as well as flooding it with his demonic and robotic army, the four warriors find themselves battling against countless enemies and even finding their own powers drained as they are sent to the other realm by one of Phantom’s minions but still striving forward to save Nagi and put a stop to Phantom’s plans.
Although Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate allows players to select from one of four main heroines, Mikoto, Waka, Itsuki, and Yuzuha, the story mostly remains almost the exact same throughout with the only differences being character dialogue between the player’s chosen character and the boss they are about to fight in most instances, and even this is rather minimal as there are barely any interactions in the first place. This is rather unfortunate as not only does it make replaying the story a bit lacking, outside of using it to obtain equipment or level characters, but feels like a missed opportunity, especially in an “enhanced” version like this, not to add extra potential story elements, especially for characters that are given only the briefest of screen time and explanation as to who or what they even are.
That being said, it is nice to note that unlike the original release, all of the character dialogue is voiced in English this time around should the player choose. It must be said also that without any prior knowledge of playing Phantom Breaker: Omnia, players will likely have no clue as to who certain characters are, their motivations, or even the slightest hint about many plot elements as Ultimate, just like the original, does not spend much time explaining things outside of a quick introduction in the beginning. At least this time around fans of the franchise have access to the fighting game it is based on, though that does make this brawler something of a niche within a niche.
Gameplay
Mechanically Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate still plays very close to the original though things have been smoothed out a bit, enhanced, and given brand new forms. For example, one of the late game stages is no longer an actual maze which makes playing through it a far better experience. For newcomers though, this beat’em up takes advantage of its fighting game roots by giving every character (besides enemies) their own unique attacks depending on button press. This means players can string together light combo attacks, heavy attacks, high combos that can even include juggling an enemy or low attacks as well. Characters, once the skill is unlocked, can also perform special moves just like they could in the fighting game as well, using up part of their “special” meter to do so.
This special meter charges as players dish out damage or pick up food that can either heal them or charge their meter. Alongside executing special moves or finishing attacks players can trigger a powerful “outrage” attack that will vary depending on the type of equipment they have, initially players will only have access to auto-locking lighting balls, but more on that in a bit. Alongside this players will find themselves being able to fight in both the front and back lanes, with upgrades available to unlock attacks that can target the other lane directly. Swapping between lanes can be strategic both for picking up items as well as for getting some breathing room when enemy swarms become too intense, especially on harder difficulties. Speaking of harder difficulties, as mentioned before, once players complete the game once they will obtain the ability to gain rare equipment and “outrage” drops from enemies. These equipment items boost things such as attack, defense, experience, or point gain and the outrage attacks can heal, trigger powerful explosions in pinpoint areas, and more.
Now, as players play through either story mode or through local four player co-op mode (that can be done with CPUs) where any of the base game characters can be used, they will obtain experience points that will level up their chosen fighter and give them skill points. These skill points can be used to unlock various skills such as the aforementioned ability to use special attacks or attack the other row, extend combos, or straight up boost a character’s attack, defense, and speed parameters. The side modes are also where players will be able to access most of the side characters available in the game such as Cocoa, M, J, Nagi, and more. This includes the two guest-characters that were added to the original as DLC, Steins;Gate’s Kurisu Makise and Robotics;Note’s Frau Koujiro are also available in this mode. It is worth noting that no matter what character players use, the skill tree and stats are always the same when unlocking and players can reset their build at any time, though with a level cap of 99 it is possible to max it all out eventually.
Arcade Mode allows players to replay through either a stage or even the entire game again at any difficulty aiming for a high score or fastest completion time but it is worth noting that players can also have access to the entire roster of not only playable characters but even the enemies as well. This includes playing as everything from a golf-club swinging businessman to a giant demon or even a big truck. Obviously these gimmick picks are stranger than simply playing as the main fighters but do add some novelty to the game if players really want to try out something different. There is also the “Battlegrounds” mode that is literally pitting the player against four others locally and seeing who will be the last fighter standing. This mode can be done locally with friends or against CPUs as well and once again makes use of the entire roster of characters including enemies.
While local co-op is fun and giving players the option to have CPUs run alongside them to fight makes for some chaotic action even when playing solo, there is even more fun to be had online, or at least on most platforms. Online players can play with up to six total players running co-op through stages with one another or battle against one another in up to eight person brawls with cross-play enabled to make finding rooms easier. Unfortunately for the co-op mode, there is no way to drop-in to battles already started, so joining a group midway is unfortunately impossible. Also, at least at the time of this writing, it is nearly impossible to currently play any form of online on the Xbox Series X. Finding a lobby to join will make things work just fine, but trying to create a lobby either for co-op play or battlegrounds will almost instantly crash to the Home screen every single time. This issue has persisted throughout our time with the game and hopefully will be patched sometime in the future..
Audio & Visuals
Making the jump to Unreal Engine 5 has been an extreme improvement for Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate as the character sprites are as crisp as can be for every character and special move that they unleash. Even the backgrounds have been given significant facelifts which make the few city stages look even better. The frame rate is solidly locked even when four characters are battling against a mass wave of enemies on Nightmare difficulty with no slowdown in sight.
As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest improvements to Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate is the fact that the entire game now features complete English voice acting. This doesn’t mean that the story isn’t still rather thin overall, but it is nice to hear characters talking and interacting in English and utilizing their special movies with their signature phrases from the fighting game. The Japanese voice track is still available should players wish to use it. As for the soundtrack players can select from a nicely modified remix version or the original, though the remix does sound quite a bit better.
Overall
As said before, Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate is already something of a niche within a niche. Basing a beat’em up off of a fighting game and providing only the bare minimum of story building to help set things up. That being said, the fact that it was able to release at all is already a welcome surprise and between a graphical overhaul, the addition of co-op play both online and locally, even if it is with CPUs, makes for some truly chaotic fun especially on harder difficulty modes. While it may have been nice to see a little more done to add to the game, such as improve upon its story or bring new characters from the core fighting game into the roster beyond simply adding in enemies as playable characters, this enhanced brawler is everything a fan of the franchise could ask for and a colorful good time for fans of the genre in general, even if the story will leave newcomers scratching their heads.
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