Phantom Brigade Review — Russell Troxel

DISCLAIMER: I received this game from the developers for free. I don’t think that fact affects my opinion of the game, but it would be irresponsible of me not to tell you.

Ever since I was four years old, I have been a huge fan of just about any media featuring giant robots and/or giant monsters fighting each other. Starting with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers at the age of four, I found or was introduced to movies, TV shows, and video games like Godzilla, Zone of the Enders, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, War of the Monsters, and Pacific Rim all of which fostered in me what is now an undying love of titanic duels between massive combatants. So when I learned of Phantom Brigade by Brace Yourself Games, I never really stood a chance.

When the Phantom Brigade comes for you, we do it in style

Phantom Brigade sets players in command of the titular Phantom Brigade, a militant civilian resistance fighting a guerrilla campaign against an invasion from the neighboring country. Both the occupied and the occupying nations, neither of which are named, are armed with two-story fighting machines, but the player’s rebels have an additional asset: a computer that can predict the future in five second increments. Using this temporal advantage, players must combat a foe that is larger, more powerful, and more advanced in furtive skirmishes and ambushes.

It’s been years since the invasion, so you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you before you’re free.

There are a plethora of reasons to like Phantom Brigade but I think the chief reason is the combat. Once the player decides to strike at an enemy location or detachment, the conflict is decided through a number of rounds, each round being the next five seconds as predicted by the temporal device. However, the five seconds don’t begin until the player has finished planning. Before that, they see a full breakdown of the next five seconds, where and when enemy units will move and when and at whom they will fire their weapons, so players can disrupt or manipulate those actions. Once the player has locked in their actions, the round plays out in real time or, the much cooler option, slow motion. After the turn is resolved, a new round begins and the opponent attempts to react to the player’s actions from the previous turn, all of which are, of course, charted in the timeline provided by the time device.

Projections of the future can feel overwhelming at first, but *Phantom Brigade* does a good job of slowly scaling up the encounters to give players a solid footing.

But it’s not just the temporal tactics that make combat in Phantom Brigade fun, the game embraces the fact that you’re fielding giant humanoid robots in a rare and delightful way. If an enemy is hiding behind an obstacle, players can use their massive guns to destroy it. If any enemy is getting too close for weapons to be effective, mechs can deploy their semi-truck-sized shield and throw themselves at the opponent, knocking them out for the next round. This particular tactic also works brilliantly against the many tanks and support vehicles your opponent will send your way, trampling them underfoot with a staggeringly high likelihood of an outright kill. I’m not exaggerating when I say that body slamming my foes with a twenty foot robot and watching them crumple like a rag doll is now one of my favorite things in all of my gaming history.

At the end of a successful skirmish, it’s time to pick your enemies clean for new parts and equipment.

To support the excellent combat, Phantom Brigade features a remarkably in-depth unit customization system. Not only do players equip their mechs with primary and secondary weapons, but also torso, legs, and right and left arms, as well as installing subsystems into any modification ports that may exist on any of those parts. This granular approach allows people like me to handcraft their perfect robot warriors for nearly any role in combat but I fear might put others off. A perfect example of this is the heat report for each mech. Weapons and thruster rockets all produce heat when used and each of these lists an amount of time that will be required to pass so the mech can cool off before the weapon can be fired again or else the mech will overheat and take damage. Unfortunately, this report is almost always wrong because it only compares the heat produced to the mech’s heat capacity. The heat reports fail to take into account the mech’s heat dissipation rating and how long it takes to fire the weapon. If a player pays attention to these factors and designs their mechs carefully, they will be able to forge something that can perform beyond predicted capabilities, but a lot of people don’t want to spend time on that and I think those players deserve more accurate information at a glance.

You want stats? We got stats. You want customization? We got customization. You want approachability? We got stats.

Continuing on the subject of flaws within the diamond that is Phantom Brigade, there is astonishingly little story. As mentioned previously, neither the nation the player is fighting nor the homeland they are defending has a name, in some places the invaded nation is literally referred to as “homeland.” I won’t guess why the developers made this choice, but it takes a lot of weight out of the premise, which is an extra potent problem with how little narrative is in the game. The game opens with a couple of cutscenes complete with voice acting, but in the 30-odd hours with the game since, the only story are small narrative blurbs focusing specifically on the Brigade. I like these blurbs but their infrequency combined with the lack of any other writing makes the world feel like an empty stage waiting for the player to make something out of it instead of a conquered nation filled with people who have had their lives destroyed. Lastly, I think it’s a real shame that there’s no option to review the entire battle once the player has won to see everything they accomplished in one grand spectacle.

Every now and then, you get a small insight into the world through these vignettes. I love these brief looks into what life is like for the Brigade and it makes me want more.

As I said in the opening, the hook for Phantom Brigade was already so baited for me it may as well have been a shish kebab, but I think there’s a lot to like here even if you’re not a mechaholic like me. Both the combat and customization are deep and fun, facilitating just about any approach one could favor and the visual design and brilliant addition of slow motion make playing a blast. The real decider is going to be how much time Phantom Brigade wants you to put into it. I think it’s reasonable to be hesitant but I’m confident most people will have a good time.