Phantom Brigade review: great turn-based mech battles, poor UI

Like any other turn-based strategy game, time stands still. Phantom Troupe while you give the order. A giant robot pilot patiently waits indefinitely to queue up commands with a 5-second timeline. For reference, ghostly images of their future movements are plotted on the map. The crucial difference is that when you click the “Run” button, the game switches to real-time and all the action happens at once. Not only the team, but also the enemy will move at the same time.

For five seconds, the battlefield is in complete chaos, with mesmerizing projectiles and explosions, and collapsing buildings engulfed in a metal carnage. Then, periodically, time stops again to issue orders for the next round while rockets and lasers are suspended in the air. Phantom Troupefrom Brace Yourself Games, Not always intuitive, but rarely captivating.

Your team is a small, guerrilla strike force in the midst of an invasion by an unnamed enemy nation. As you patrol the Overworld map of mobile bases looking for enemy patrols, convoys, and bases to attack, you’ll find that your enemies always have more weapons and pilots than you. What they don’t have is predictive technology that depicts their future behavior on a map to give you the edge.

battle with Phantom Troupe So it’s a constant white-knuckle state of counterattack that allows you to scrub back and forth along the timeline to see the path enemy units take and which units they target, and react accordingly. . Phantom Troupe It strikes a unique balance of feeling omnipotent while being at the mercy of an intricate system that simulates each turn of every battle.

anytime, many progressing. For example, you might see an enemy mech’s laser sight settle on a vulnerable sniper. Or, if the distance is short enough, you can send that rugged ally on a direct collision course with an enemy shooter, allowing the swing of the shield to outmaneuver the chassis. You can also leave the mech within inches to ensure a recovery. But that same mech might get a few final hits before the fight is over.

And whatever you end up doing can be revisited during the next planning stage. Play back the previous 5-second interval to explore details, pause to rewind, and inspect the wheels that were briefly moved. This is similar to the death or victory summary system in other games. ape out again super meat boyto look back and contextualize your actions by viewing from a bird’s eye view. Phantom Troupe, the summary is occurring every turn. They are a constant visual payoff to painstaking choreography.

Image: Brace Yourself Game

playing Phantom Troupe, reminded me of 2011 frozen synapse, which featured a similar hybrid of real-time and turn-based mechanics. rice field.of Phantom Troupe, you have to deal with the pesky uncertainties of war every time. When you aim at an enemy mech, you don’t know which part to hit or how much damage to do. You can also place the mech at an angle where only one of his opponent’s limbs can absorb the blow, but even then the results are unpredictable. Each projectile flies towards its target individually, so while some will reach their target, scrubbing through replays will result in others failing or completely colliding with the environment or another mech. increase.

I have often come to enjoy this inaccuracy. It requires some surrender to these giant machines, and an acceptance that they cannot smoothly yield to your will.the terrible chaos of Phantom Troupe Giving the unit such weight and tactility, even from a zoomed-out omniscient perspective, is what makes it special and captures the overall charm of giant robots in the first place. You can tweak it, tweak it, tinker with it, but in the end it works with a little less effort quality that needs to be seen. You have a god-like ability to see five seconds into his future, but that knowledge will only get you so far. The rest, in a way, is up to the pilot and all the simulated systems.

Image: Brace Yourself Game

It’s a shame, then, that Brace Yourself Games often have a hard time telling. Phantom Troupecomplexity, especially outside of combat. The UI is full of small obstacles and weird oversights that get annoying the longer you play. For example, the inventory screen only allows you to compare your equipped items and stats. There’s no easy way to sort through the unequipped arm components to find the best part to scrap, especially when they all have very similar names. and there is no way to reference parts that you already own. There are many useful tooltips, but they are inconsistent and vaguely organized. This is a game that would benefit greatly from some kind of community wiki, as we still don’t know what some icons mean or how to be sure. Statistics interact.

Even in the heat of battle, some key details are strangely hidden. For example, when an enemy is aiming at my ‘Mech, why wouldn’t I want to immediately see the enemy’s equipment? Combined, why do we finally need to see the weapon popup and its effective range? Some symbols are too thin to parse in their entirety.

Image: Brace Yourself Game

The drip feed of new equipment can also be slow, and nothing can tell you in advance what kind of weapons you’ll encounter, so it never encourages you to try new loadouts. Aside from that, there’s little reason to move away from a strategy that works, especially if you’re too lazy to parse all your equipment.

If these UI shortcomings contribute to the theme’s cohesive style, I can forgive it.Busy game-like interface high fleet looks even more puzzling than Phantom Troupe, but pours tons of information into a gorgeous and complex cockpit UI.the sliding gray menu of Phantom Troupe, on the other hand, is bland and unclear. A barebones story and setting with anonymous blue and red factions works well enough as a placeholder. The game’s unique command system allows it to capture the inherently awe-inspiring of giant, whimsical robots fighting other giant, whimsical robots, but the surrounding framework has the same It lacks such sophistication and clear purpose.

Phantom Troupe It was released on February 28th on Windows PC. This game was reviewed using a pre-release download code provided by Brace Yourself Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, but Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased via affiliate links.discoverable Additional information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy can be found here.