Reviewed: April 7, 2005
Reviewed by: Arend Hart

Publisher
Majesco Games

Developer
Microsoft

Released: March 15, 2005
Genre: Action
Players: 2 / 4
ESRB: Teen

8
7
7
7
7.0

Supported Features

Xbox Live Features

Japanese titles have long been known to have a certain quirky flair about them – and the previously mentioned titles are of no exception, as each has its own trippy bend to it – but one cannot deny that Japanese games generally tend to pack a rock-solid gaming experience demanding a great deal of both mental and physical stamina.

Enter Phantom Dust – a card battle game cleverly disguised as an action/adventure RPG. Developed and released by Microsoft Japan a little under a year ago, the title did very little to bolster Xbox sales in Asia and nearly didn’t make it to see US shores. In fact, Microsoft US dropped the title from its US roster completely (along with Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath and Psychonauts). Majesco snatched up the rights, did a bit of localizing, gave it a bargain price point of twenty dollars and shipped it to US shores.

Being completely ignorant of the card-battling mechanic, and given the fact that I’m not much of an RPG or even an RTS fan, I was a bit reluctant to take on the task of reviewing Phantom Dust. But knowing the quality titles that Japanese developers have been pumping out for the Xbox, and hearing that Microsoft Japan went for a more action twist on the generally slow-paced genres that the title emulates, I really felt that I would have regret passing on the offer.

You are allowed to choose from a handful of pre-determined names, and then directed to proceed to the battle station for your first series of missions. This initial series of missions will act as your training ground, in which you accompany another character into battle and impress them with a progression of newly realized superhuman abilities of attacking and defending.

Early on, the levels will contain a series of floating orbs – red for attack, blue for defend. Approach an orb and it will offer you a special ability that can be assigned to any of the four face buttons. Each ability requires a certain amount of energy to perform, which can easily be tracked using the handy HUD icon. Your energy depletes with each use, but recharges at a rather quick rate – not so fast that you never find yourself in a pickle, but never unmanageable, either.

In order to have your attacks connect, you will need to lock onto your target - which is an cinch using the right trigger. Doing this causes the normally free-moving camera (mapped to the right analog stick much like the Splinter Cell series) to lock on your enemy’s position with a brightly color-coded targeting reticle. If there is more than one enemy running about, you can easily cycle through them in order using your left trigger – but only in the predetermined order set by the game.

Once the camera is locked on the target, your character is now free to move about the level (albeit a bit awkwardly now that the camera is fixed to the enemy’s movement) and load up his special ability slots from the floating orbs. You are only afforded the four slots to fill at any given time, and trying to assign two to the same slot will delete the first, so carefully choosing your attack and defense abilities is of the utmost importance. Attack powers are range-specific – close, medium and long range each have their own preferred weapons – so you must carefully pick your abilities based on enemy proximity and movement. This is the crux of the card game –collecting and managing new abilities will become your focus throughout the story mode.

And I mention enemy movement – yes, unlike most turn based RPG, pseudo-RPG or RPG-action blends, the battles in Phantom Dust don’t feature parties of static enemies faced off sashaying in place just waiting for your attack. Instead, the battles play out as frenzied real-time encounters with your foes sprinting, diving, dodging and hiding about the moderately large stages as they power up for their attacks – and with you doing the same in retaliation. Each battle will find you at the edge of your seat, frantically juggling between attack and defend abilities, praying for your energy to recharge or cursing as your last long range attack misses its target. The skirmishes are blindingly fast, and just trying to keep track of your enemies makes even seemingly simple events – like managing your abilities slots – a finger-fumbling mess…but a fun one at that.

And speaking of messes, Phantom Dust features some truly amazing environmental destruction throughout. And by amazing, I mean as good or better than anything we’ve seen on the Xbox – including that which we have seen in MechAssault, Otogi, and even Red Faction II. Even better, this environmental damage can inflict damage on your character (or his enemies) should they find themselves in an unlucky position under toppling stone pillars, falling roadway platforms or crumbling stairwells.

The battle controls (targeting, cycling, attacking, defending) are all quite intuitive and respond impressively, however the character controls are a whole different matter. Your character moves as if he is always running into the wind with a layer of Crisco on his boot soles, and his herky-jerky animations bring back memories of the first generation Playstation 2 titles. Thankfully, the battle scenes are so hectic and the targets are locked so solidly that control issues don’t hinder the excitement. However, the dull between-mission missions, which have you racing from one end of the home base to the other, quickly become a very dull and irritating experience as you try to steer your palsied little friend in his clip-clopping tap shoes though the seemingly molasses-coated hallways.

The game boasts 200-plus missions, but don’t let that fool you. The missions here are neither the depth nor the quality of your standard action-adventure or RPG title, and tend to be more akin to what you would find in the story mode of a fighting game. Because that is what Phantom Dust really ends up being – a fighting game based on the mechanics of card battle. There’s very little exploration, and the story mode only really serves to introduce teammates and build up abilities for online play through Xbox Live.

Promising a bevy of online player vs. player and team-based modes, it was a major disappointment that never once during the review process did I find even a single online match being played. I even created a number of public matches, and never once had anyone join in for battle. I know the title is fairly new, but you would expect a niche title like this to have at least an underground following that would be drooling over online real time RPG card battle. For this reason alone, I really cannot comment on the broadband aspects of Phantom Dust. Suffice it to say that if they are any bit as good as the story mode battles, they ought to be a lot of fun.

As mentioned earlier, environmental objects feature an awesome level of destruction that often relegate battlefields into crumbled piles of debris. Toppling structures do damage in their wake as well, causing chain reaction destruction to surrounding objects and injuring any humans who are caught underneath. Given this, environmental objects make for great weapons to hidden foes.

All is not perfect, however - as mentioned earlier, the character modeling is downright atrocious, with characters seeming almost superimposed onto the worlds. The most noticeable is the running animations never seem to match the snail’s pace at which your character actually moves. Other hitches would be the turning, which is almost instantaneous and almost sprite-like. Again, in battle – where you spend most of your time – you really do not have time to notice the animation glitches, as the camera is locked on the enemy. It is the multiple treks through headquarters that will drive you batty.

And speaking of batty – who picked these facial models? Each and every one of the character models looks a bit weird, and some are downright disturbing – most noticeably the protagonist character that you play, who looks like, well…Michael Jackson (now that is disturbing). We all know the Japanese like femme male characters, but it’s really hard to feel any emotional attachment to an emaciated plasticine scarecrow in hot pants.

The sound effects however are not so impressive. While the actual booms and blast of the battle scenes are quite moving, little things like the repetitive clip-clopping footsteps (as mentioned earlier) really detract from the experience.

Finally, while there are competent voiceovers in the cutscenes, most of the in-game conversations take place in the form of text boxes, which really hinder the experience.

With over 200 “missions” to tackle, you will definitely get your money’s worth – especially if the online community picks it up. Until then, I will keep on trying to quickmatch myself into a battle, but I won’t hold my breath.

Sadly, based on the American buying trends, I am almost positive that just like the Panzer Dragoon Orta, Otogi, and Gunvalkyrie titles that came before it, Phantom Dust is bound to collect a lot of just that – dust – in the clearance bins. If that is the case it would really be a shame – like like the aforementioned titles, Phantom Dust might not be a game you sit and play religiously, but it is one of those quirky collector titles that you pop in every now and then to entertain friends and show off your Xbox.

It may not hold my attention as much as Otogi or Panzer Dragoon Orta – and especially not as much as the perennial fan favorite Ninja Gaiden – but this unusual Japanese import makes a nice addition to any collector’s library.

If the title featured a bit more voice acting, a bit less reading, a more engaging story and more realistic movement and animation, it would have been scored higher. Still, with regard to quality and cost, Phantom Dust deserves at least a gander.