Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds launched a rather stomach-churning 12 years ago, a game which I’m sure many have fond memories of, playing with friends, enjoying its silly enemies and simple action. I’m sorry to say that, given the wealth of newer beat ’em ups released since then, it’s not held up all that well. But what’s this? A remaster? Can spruced up graphics and some gameplay tweaks save the day?
That’s right, Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate is now the version of the day, a remaster of the original game with added characters and moved into Unreal Engine 5, so things are shinier, and you’ve got more options in the co-op and versus mode. I do like that the online co-op lets you play with up to six players, which can potentially lead to pure chaos on screen.
The versus mode feels a bit tacked on in games like this, and that’s especially true here as the combat mechanics just aren’t deep enough to make you want to keep hopping in and testing yourself against your friends. To say that most of the combat here is button-mashing would be vastly underselling the amount of button-mashing you can do in Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate.
Technically, you’ve got light, medium, heavy, and special attacks, along with a few movement options and some ultimates as well. In most levels though, you’ll be just hammering one of those wondering when things are about to end. Despite this, there’s fun to be had here because of the incredibly odd enemy design and the generally good feeling of levelling up, but it’s short-lived. If you’re playing alone, you’re most likely going to lose interest pretty quickly.
It’s all just a bit flat, and the story, despite being completely unhinged and involving dimensional travel, isn’t especially inspiring either. It’s all slightly better-looking and it runs smoother than it used to, but unless you’re an absolutely rabid die-hard fan of the original game, that’s really not enough to pit it against more modern takes on the beat ’em up genre like Streets of Rage 4.
I really wanted to enjoy this game more than I did. Reviewing a game you’re excited about but then don’t get on with is, frankly, rubbish. All that excitement just sort of ends up disappearing into the void, and instead of getting a nice pay-off, you get a bit of sadness. It’s not great, you know? Despite my best efforts though, I just couldn’t enjoy this game.
