Phantom Brave PC Review

While Disgaea has gone from strength to strength in terms of releases, Phantom Brave has remained fairly dormant aside from a PSP and Japanese only Wii release since it first arrived on the PS2 back in 2004. With Nippon Ichi looking to test its franchises in the PC market the game has been given another lease of life and if anything it’s even more complex and hardcore than Disgaea. 

It follows the story of a 13 year old girl named Marona who is protected by a phantom named Ash after losing both her parents to an evil spirit some years before. Marona is a young Chroma – a sort of sword for hire, and your initial goal is for her to earn enough money to buy the island she lives on. 

The humour and art style is very much in keeping with other Nippon Ichi games though it is perhaps a little less full on than when Etna appears in Disgaea. This is a PS2 game at heart and there is little chance of disguising that. There is a blurring filter and the menus now look lovely and HD but you are still going to be stretching and scaling the picture with effects to fit modern displays rather than the game being rebuilt from the ground up. Level textures look decidedly muddy, Sprites are pixelated and it is hardly a graphical tour de force. 

The interface is also clunky. If you’re not using a controller there is a quite counter initiative mouse and keyboard system in place. You may be able to move characters with the mouse but you can’t for instance then use a scroll wheel to cycle through options. It took a while to get used to. Save yourself the hassle and just use a controller.

Clunkyiness aside there is a really good game here and the depth of the thing begins to come to light quite early on. It shares a fair bit with Disgaea in terms of it being a turn based RPG and in terms of classes and skills levelling but there are key differences that the game is built around. The most obvious is the fact that you no longer have the grid system and instead everything is done with range circles. This really took us some time to get used to and to be honest it seems an odd design decision that doesn’t really add anything. 

A more significant and important difference is the summoning system which is the games whole ‘thing’. Instead of lining up characters to take into battle your game will revolve around Marona summoning phantoms to aid her. Marona confines phantoms to objects which then come to life for a set period of time. For instance, if you want a tough fighter then confine them to a rock to give them strength and defence bonuses. Mages are best confined to plants as that boosts their magic ability. The options are long, complex and incredibly deep. The catch is that after a set number of turns the phantom will turn back into the original object and not be summonable again. This means that if you aren’t careful you won’t be strong enough to down the enemies and complete the level.

The range of classes you can summon is huge and then you can give them all sorts of weapons and objects as well. You can also give phantoms bonuses by confining them to objects which are receiving environmental bonuses. There’s the whole being able to pick up and throw things off the map as well but we suspect your head is already spinning enough.

Overall, Phantom Brave is showing a bit of age in its presentation and its mechanics in terms of controls are a little clunky. That aside this has got to be one of the deepest and most rewarding games out there. It’s a massive level grinding dream which is easy enough to get into but will take hundreds of hours to master. There is also a stupid amount of secrets in here and if you had this and Disgaea PC you’ll probably not have time to play anything else in your lifetime (You get all the PSP and Wii content as well so get ready for the long haul). Even if a lifetime of grinding doesn’t sound like you it’s well worth giving this a try as it remains unique and how many games can say that?

Overall 9/10

Lumo Review (PS4)

Written by Bradley Marsh

Back in my early days, I had a ZX Spectrum, both the 48k rubber key and 128k at different times. I loved those machines, I had great times with them. One game that stuck in the old memory banks was Head Over Heels.

This was a game that had an isometric view and was split across different rooms, which you had to solve to progress, using a lot of logical thinking. It also didn’t hold your hand much, leaving you to work it out yourself, which in fairness, I remember a lot of games doing back then.

It is a game that I have always wanted to see make a comeback, but over the 29 years since its original release I have yet to see anything, bar being able to play it on emulators.

I want to go back a few months though, when I saw Lumo for the very first time. I watched the footage and immediately my memory was taken back to Head Over Heels and whilst there is one fundamental difference I could see a Head Over Heels for a new generation.

Lumo looks in every way to be a re-imagining of that wonderful game, using the isometric single room puzzle style and basically dumping you in the world and leaving you to your own devices.

Nostalgia made me interested in Lumo, yet everything about the game itself kept me involved.

You start the game in an empty room with nothing but a door, no instructions, no tutorial and no guide. The game just asks you to start exploring, it doesn’t use any kind of narrator to fill you in on backstory, nor does it give you any clear indication as to what you are expected to do to progress.

So there I go, heading towards this door into discovery, wandering around the map, room by room, blindly, working out what I am to do and what is to come next. There are a few indicators that make it clear I will need to seek some kind of upgrade to reach new areas, but no real indication as to what these are or where to find them.

This isn’t a Dark Souls style learn as you go, where you will die many, many times and adapt, this is a slow meticulous game, where you stop and take stock of the situation. You look over a room and work out the best approach to get through.

I clearly cannot get to this part, as I cannot jump high enough, but this box over there doesn’t seem to fit with layouts I have seen in previous rooms. What happens if I approach it? Oh it moves! I can move it to here and use it to reach this higher area.

It is a simple logic, but knowing you have worked that out for yourself is very satisfying, you then build on that discovery to move forward even further. Eventually guiding you to a new powerup that allows you to reach previously inaccessible areas.

There isn’t a map for you to follow either, you need to remember where you have been and plot it yourself, until such a point you find a room that has a map in it. Which is great, but by then you have already covered a lot of the area already, this should be annoying, but it serves as a really nice reward for your exploration.

Whilst most of the rooms you encounter are pure logic based, there are some that require timing, such as using moving platforms to navigate to the right part of the room to find the exit. The one part that for me at least doesn’t sit well are rooms with giant boulders that you must jump on and move by walking on them.

There is on specific room fairly early on, where you must move across the room on the boulder, but only on a very thin ledge, before jumping from the boulder to a platform and then to safety. This would be fine, but the isometric viewpoint and the controls make this very fiddly, to the point where it just doesn’t feel like it belongs with the spirit of the game.

I won’t lie, I very nearly gave up at this specific room, because it went from simply using logic and exploration to solve, to something very different indeed and unfairly so.

Thankfully this kind of thing is very few and far between, seeing the rest of the game sticking to the formula that makes it as satisfying as it is. For me this is the only real blip on an otherwise flawless game.

The game itself looks stunning too, with some amazing lighting effects that really show off the game’s beautifully crafted world. That is mixed with a score that whilst not in your face, does a wonderful job of drawing you in and immersing you.

The main game may well be about making your way through this amazing world and you are fine to do just that. However, there are also a ton of collectables dotted around. Some are easy to spot, such as the rubber ducks, though they may not always be easy to get. But others are cleverly hidden away for you to discover.

This again shows how well thought out every inch of Lumo is. Shelves, for example aren’t just there for decoration, if you can reach it, then it may well be the window to a hidden room. There are tons of tiny visual clues that highlight where you may be able to reach, but they aren’t signposted, you really do need to take in the environment and remember what you have already learned.

It is the game’s ability to grow with you that keeps it feeling fresh from start to the very end. Yet it doesn’t do this in clear moments, it does it in a subtle way that feels organic and it works wonderfully.

Had it not been for one or two puzzle elements that felt out of place, this would be getting a perfect score. But don’t let that stop you from picking up and enjoying one of the best and freshest indie titles in quite some time.

9/10

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir Review (PS Vita)

Odin Sphere launched late into the life of the PS2 and along with GrimGrimoir brought a slice of 2D JRPG action to the Sony console. While GrimGrimoir focused more on strategy, Odin Sphere was the action title and offered up a mix of levelling up and bashing things that is now much more common.

Odin Sphere has always been a classic but now it is far more accessible to a wider audience with this remake. This is mainly down to the changes made to the combat system which makes it more fluid and brings it closer to systems found in Muramasa: Rebirth – another gorgeous looking 2D game remade for the Vita. Veterans of the game need not fear though as you can play the original version of the game also (although sadly not with the extra lovely visual overhaul).

Speaking of the visuals they are stunning. The game always looked good but the crisp Vita screen makes everything sing and sparkle in a way that hints at magic beneath the surface of the world just waiting to be released. Characters are highly detailed while lighting and glow effects illuminate beautifully illustrated backgrounds. The story is one of magic and fantasy and the world fits it perfectly.

The structure of the game has you taking control of a number of characters as a story of prophecy and armageddon is told via a girl reading a book. You start with Gwendolyn, Valkyrie daughter of the king and switch to four other characters as you progress. You’ll be with each character for a large period of time though so don’t expect to be switching around every few chapters. It’s very much a case of finishing one story before moving onto the next. It can also be quite jarring after you’ve spent six to eight hours with someone to move to the next character that has a completely different fighting style.

As the different stories are told the protagonists will often clash with each other. This eventually leads to a final book where players must pitch the right characters against the right enemy in order to achieve the ‘happy’ ending and also reveal a final hidden text.

The structure of the game is fairly straight forward. You move to an area and then progress through a series of linked 2D arenas. Some contain battles while others will have rest spaces, treasure or simply be pretty to look at as you run through. Each location is ended with a boss fight and normally has a few smaller bosses along the way as well. You can also explore away from the main areas to find extra items and skills. Skills can then be further leveled up through points gathered from enemies and ‘Phozons’ that are released by butterflies, certain plants and dead monsters.

Aside from bashing things your main focus is on food. You can plant seeds and grow fruit and also collect ingredients to have cooked into meals by wandering chefs for you. Each time you eat you not only recover health but also slightly boost you maximum hit points and also get experience to level up. This makes the eating part of the game key to progressing as without constantly munching you may find yourself too weak for later levels.  There is also an alchemy system at work which lets you mix potions with collected ingredients.

It’s a wonderfully characterful game and there certainly isn’t much out there like it. The high fantasy story isn’t anything particularly knew but it is an interesting tale with a number of decent twists that should keep you occupied through the many hours of gameplay. The change in systems really helps the game to flow and while it certainly seemed to make the game easier that is no bad thing as the original was one of the toughest games we’ve ever played with progress constantly stopped by leveling walls, awkward combat and super powered enemies. We loved it but we certainly won’t be loading up the classic version of the game any time soon when we have this absolute joy to play with.

Overall, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is a perfect fit for the Vita. It sits very nicely alongside Muramasa and Dragon’s Crown as a combat heavy RPG while also being an all-round better experience than both of them. The new approach to the combat and revitalised visuals make it feel fresh and relevant and it’s about as essential as any Vita game has been for a very long time. It’s deep, satisfying and gorgeous. It always was a classic and certainly still is.

Overall 9/10

Guilty Gear Xrd - Revelator- Review (PS4)

Following hot on the heels of the superb Guilty Gear Xrd comes the next instalment in the much loved series and my oh my it is a thing of beauty. While everyone is still waiting for Street Fighter V to be somewhere approaching finished REVELATOR has possibly the most content yet in the world of 2D fighters.

The tutorial mode alone is massively in-depth and will take players through the absolute basics such as movement to the advanced techniques of the game. Unlike most tutorials this one is actually quite inventive as well as you jump over obstacles, pop balloons and combo creatures. The more familiar process of producing special moves and combo strings is also included and even players who have never played a fighting game before will find a level where they can work on becoming an all-conquering warrior.

The game sees the cast of the original Xrd return along with a handful of new characters with more following as DLC. Of some surprise is that the returning cast haven’t really been tweaked or rebalanced. That said the first game was pretty much flawless anyway so it’s easy to see why the team decided to leave things as they were.

It’s tricky to go into all the different systems of Guilty Gear but the approach has been to tweak what was already in place rather than to bring in something drastically different. It’s intimidating for even veteran players but it also gives the tutorial mode yet more time to shine as it takes you through step by step. 

Though we would have thought it was impossible the game looks even more eye-meltingly amazing than its predecessor. Characters are large and detailed with flourishes a plenty and anime style entrances to each stage. The stages themselves buzz and hum with activity and lights. It’s glorious and stunning and any other words you can think of that describes something so utterly spellbinding. If there’s a more talented art team working in video games we’ve yet to see it.

The visually visceral design is not restricted to the backgrounds either. In motion the game is a thing of beauty with huge special moves and characters zinging around the screen. It can be difficult to keep up with it all at times but once you get used to the frenetic pace it makes you feel like some kind of joystick Jedi and with all the options and techniques each fighter has there is a real depth of choice to pick from.

As well as a depth of characters there is also a wealth of modes to choose from. Unusually, the arcade mode actually acts as a precursor for the story mode and goes through events that happen just before it starts. This gives players extra incentive to spend even more time with the game and encourages the use of all the available characters to get the full picture of what’s going on. These modes are joined by the M.O.M mode where players compete for in game currency and medals that can be used to level up characters to take on tougher challenges.

As you would expect the online options are also excellent with the usual ranked and player matches present. The presentation is very different though with players walking their avatars around an area and challenging players they come in contact with. There’s also a weird fishing game where you can fish out items in exchange for in game currency. This mode also allows players to change region so they can look elsewhere if their particular area is empty of players.

Overall, Guilty Gear Xrd – REVELATOR- is yet another master class in how to make and present a 2D fighting game. Every time the team produce a game it’s hard to think how it could be bettered and yet they keep finding new ways to improve, add and keep jaws dropping. There’s certainly a lot to take in and get to grips with but once you get it there is no other fighter out there with the same levels of depth to explore. The fact this depth is packaged with so much style is the final, beautiful cherry on top of the cake.

Overall 9/10