A must-play for Mecha and Strategy fans | Full Review - Phantom Brigade

Phantom Brigade is turn-based tactical RPG puts players in charge of the Phantom Brigade, a band of mech pilots trying to liberate its land from its oppressive invaders.

🟩Pros

+Innovative combat system

+Addicting progression

+High degree of customization

+Open-ended campaign

🟥Cons

-UI needs a bit of work

Set in a dystopian future, the game puts players in the shoes of a team of customizable mech pilots fighting against a powerful military. This team is the titular Phantom Brigade.

Five seconds at a time

At the start of the game, the team have obtained a secret prototype weapon that lets them see briefly into the future, 5 seconds at a time. This is a game changer to both the characters in the story and to the players, providing an innovative tactical combat system that I have literally never seen before, and it just works.

Gameplay Analysis

Phantom Brigade is turn-based, but it is also real-time, combining the best of both worlds. The tactical aspect of turn-based combat is mixed with the cinematic and high octane appeal of real-time battles. The overall feel of the gameplay, despite being a mixed strategy genre, feels VERY similar to the modern XCOM games.

The combat is cinematic and action packed

The game's combat mechanics are just simply addicting. The battles take place on a grid-based map, and the almost always out-numbered players must carefully maneuver their mechs to outmaneuver their opponents and gain the upper hand by way of smartly leveraging each of the units strengths and abilities, as well as the environment, to their advantage.

Long range mechs can support from the back, on elevated ground, sniping key points of interest like power generators or alarm towers, while melee-based mechs can leverage their high close quarters damage and heavily damage multiple enemies with one sweep ambush.

The mechs also interact and behave way more than I expected, they can fall down, collide with each other, get dismembered, and suffer friendly fire; all depending on the environmental circumstances. Attacks need to be managed, because there is also a possibility of overheating, adding an additional layer of choice for the player to make a critical decision between pushing their Mechs to the absolute limit performing an important action; or to be careful, avoiding overheats which can cripple the Mech.

Innovative tactical combat system

Thanks to the prototype tech, the Phantom Brigade can peer into the future five seconds at a time, able to predict and see enemy movements mapped in this “timeline system.”

Accordingly, every turn consists of planning out moves in a five-second span, running, attacking, and using abilities are all mapped in a timeline system as if you’re editing a video and splicing commands in instead of clips. After you’re done, clicking Execute will play these moves out in a real-time manner, resulting in some intense cinematic-style action-packed moments. In this game, you will be spending 30 minutes of tactical decision making for 30 seconds of real-time engagement.

This phenomenal system adds an entirely never seen before strategy and depth to the game, requiring players to think several moves ahead and anticipate their opponents' actions. Clearly differentiating itself from traditional turn-based chess-like games like Front Mission and real-time pausable tactics games like Company of Heroes.

Level Design

The battlefield is fully destructible and is highly dynamic — both visually and mechanically. Buildings and structures can provide cover, but can be destroyed and also penetrated by powerful weapons.

Seeing beam weapons piercing through multiple buildings to hit a target across town is just mind-blowingly spectacular. Although, as much as possible, destruction should be minimal for civilian territories. While there are also points of interest in the map that need to be destroyed like Alarm towers or Power Generators, you also need to protect key civilian buildings and avoid damage to them.

Graphics

The graphics are simplistic, some older games have looked better, but they still pack a lot of detail and polish look into it, especially with the clean and pristine vivid looking Mechs and environments. They have done an amazing job with the lightning system, as well as the visual effects, especially when it comes to the destructible environment, explosions, and particle effects.

The Mechs

Players can build and customize their own mechs, choosing from a wide range of weapons, armor, and other upgrades. This allows players to tailor their lineup and loadout to their specific playstyle, whether they prefer long-range snipers, medium ranged assault mechs, or up-close brawlers. The customization options are deep and varied, and experimenting with different builds is a lot of fun, especially when the game starts to settle.

Phantom Brigade takes a while to settle because there’s so much going on, especially with the various gameplay elements. The timeline system is also a lot confusing to use at the start, even while slowly going through the tutorial section. However, once you get the feel of how it controls, it becomes a non-issue after the first hour or so.

Campaign

In the players’ campaign to liberate their homeland, there is an Overworld element that functions like a pausable real-time grand strategy game with a fast forward option where you take over points of interest in the map, taking you to countless battle instances. You roam with your brigade throughout the massive landscape across 30 provinces to take and involve 4 enemy factions. There are also more than 70 unique narrative events like defending locations, rescues, and assassination missions.

Since the Phantom Brigade is just a small guerilla group, you cannot fully take over towns slowly one by one like a traditional grand strategy. You have to inspire the people of the province to instigate a province-wide revolution by way of destabilization before claiming the whole region. This gives a proper game mechanic when it comes to guerilla tactics.

Entering new hostile territory will prove to be a challenge, as the longer you stay in your enemy regions to destabilize them, the harder the battles become. You can “reset” this by temporarily retreating to a friendly territory, and at the same time, gather your breath and take this time to customize your mech line-up.

Missions and Progression

Before a battle or a mission, Phantom Brigade gives you an outlook of the map, possible enemy locations and compositions; and customization of your squad/mech line-up.

After a mission, you get debrief with rewards and loot, especially from fallen enemies and allies. You get to recover their parts with the possibility of repurposing these parts into your mechs. See a cool sniper-rifle held by an enemy you just killed? It will appear at the Debrief. However, there is a limit on which items you can recover or dismantle.

Technical Performance:

Phantom Brigade is optimized accordingly, bordering at around 60 fps in battles at a 5440x1440 resolution, using an RTX 3080, i7-8700k, 32GB RAM. It also properly supports ultrawide resolutions and still retains a centered UI which is a great QOL feature for ultrawide users. UI scaling options, sleek HUD, and a clean user interface makes for a good user experience to accentuate the already addicting gameplay.

Conclusion:

With its innovative combat, engaging campaign, and deep customization options, Phantom Brigade is an exceptional Mecha strategy game that's sure to keep players hooked for hours. This is definitely worth the price if you are a fan of Tactical Mech genre. A step in the right direction in the evolution of the genre.