Phantom Dust

Xbox review by Matt Wadleigh, published on Wednesday 6th April 2005

Phantom Dust is one of those games that has a bigger story about the game getting to shelves than it does in the actual game. Developed originally as an Asian-only Xbox game, Majesco bought the publishing rights from Microsoft to publish the game in other areas of the world. This third-person action adventure game has fought hard to get to store shelves, and now that it’s upon us, it has an incredible amount of hype and expectation to live up to.

The basic background story behind Phantom Dust is that, one day, every human lost their memory. No one really knows why, or how, but yeah, no one knows any of the past. They do know however that it has to do with a bizarre dust that has covered the earth’s entire surface. Since the world is inhospitable, mankind has built towns underground (quite the opposite of our modern society, where everything is built into the sky), and only confused wanderers inhabit the land above.

The dust had other effects though, besides afflicting every human with Alzheimer’s disease. Some of them were infused with strange new powers that allowed them to shoot out fireballs and chunks of ice, because you know, when the world goes to hell and everyone’s memory has been wiped, there’s nothing more important the shooting fireballs and chunks of ice. Thankfully, the people with these powers are using them to help mankind, often rescuing people from the surface with them and defending their towns from strange creatures that’ve just happened to show up.

Now, if only they could master a broom and a dust pan and they’d be all set.

So, you must be imagining that you get to play as one of these magic-wielding people (they’re called Espers). Right you are! You’re also probably imagining that you’re a special Esper. Yes, you’re right again. You’re special because adventuring Espers found you inside some sort of tube, along with another guy named Edgar. You don’t have a name, well, you do but you can’t remember it because of the dust and what have you. Since you don’t have a past and damn well can’t have a future on our now barren and messed up planet, our hero decides to join up with the band that rescued him, partly for survival, partly for figuring out who he is.

During the beginning portions of the game, you’re given lots and lots of missions to complete. Notice that I didn’t say lots and lots of different missions, I just said lots and lots of missions. I left out the d-word because nearly every single one of them has the exact same objective, which is roughly “hey guy, check out this new fangled power and use it to kill whatever comes at you!” Then, you’re dumped into an arena with a couple of orbs in front of you which you set to the face buttons.

These orbs are comparable to the cards found in games like Yu-Gi-Oh or Baten Kaitos. They spawn at your spawn point, which could also be compared to the flag location in a “capture the flag” game. The various skills that you can acquire range in effects, some being weak or powerful attacks, some being weak or strong defensive measures and others upgrade your status. There are even some that can take away enemy powers and even teach you their skills.

All in all, the skills are pretty evenly balanced. In some battles you’ll be forced to only use defensive powers while your teammate does all the offensive stuff while in other battles you’ll have to take away enemy abilities (“catching it” with one of your defensive devices) and use them for yourself. Most of the time though, the spawning of skills is completely random, which can sometimes create temporary imbalances if a bunch of useless attack spawn up instead of the ones you were waiting for. Fortunately, they spawn rather quickly, so there’s little waiting.

Enemies powers also spawn, but you can’t use theirs and they can’t steal yours, so you don’t have to worry about defending your base and are instead allowed to move freely around the environments, which, while limited overall in quantity, are for the most part impressive. In the apocalyptic world, most of the world’s buildings have fallen to ruin, which makes for a great environment to fight in. Missed attacks will destroy chunks of old buildings, which can damage you if you get crushed, so you not only have to watch your opponents but all of the crap falling around you.

Sadly, two problems crop up from the get-go. First, I didn’t like the lock-on system. Instead of targeting the nearest target, often times it would lock on to random enemies that were far away. This is especially frustrating when you’ve unlocked from your target to go get new skills that have spawned and were chased by them. You turn around, lock on to attack, and then notice that your reticule has aimed to the wrong guy.

Secondly (and probably most importantly), is how repetitive the combat can become. The enemy AI isn’t exactly the smartest in the world, so many times just running around, getting far away from them, attacking, and then repeating worked. It would have been nice if they would flank or even act as a team instead of rushing from the front almost every time.

Even with these faults though, Phantom Dust remains engaging because of the incredible amount of effort that the developers went through to create this world. There is a literal TON of back-story in the game that’s doled out at an almost overwhelming pace but is all incredibly interesting. Appreciating the rich storyline is almost a must anyhow, since I imagine that many people could simply plow through all the missions rather quickly if they ignored it.

Part of Phantom Dust’s story is that it was developed by Microsoft in Japan. You might now that the Xbox isn’t exactly massive in Japan, and Japanese exclusive games are a rarity. It’s no surprise to me then that the graphics aren’t quite as awesome in Phantom Dust as they could be. Sure, the environments look really awesome, but you’ll fight in the same exact area over and over again, which gets really boring.

The enemies and the NPCs in the game are all varied, but aren’t very incredibly detailed. Our hero suffers from some animations that make him look like an orangutan while running, but in the end the campy look kind of fits the character and maybe even the entire game. The setting isn’t particularly pretty, so why does the game have to be? The graphics are complimented by a decent soundtrack with some enjoyable tunes from varying genres.

Josh Kramer, a fellow writer on Thunderbolt, has been spending a lot of time with Phantom Dust on Xbox Live. Here are his comments on the Live experience.

When it comes to online play via Xbox Live, Phantom Dust stands as unique and totally engrossing. From the online lobby you can buy, sell and trade powers, search for matches with fellow gamers, view comprehensive scoreboards or check for downloadable content (which has been promised in the way of new powers and other goodies). The option to bring your customized arsenal (built up in the story mode) online and test it out against others is much appreciated, and successfully connects the single and multi-player experience like few Xbox Live titles do. You can even bolster your arsenal with exclusive, Xbox Live-only powers by racking up wins online.

As you can see, there’s a lot to love about Phantom Dust. It would be interesting to travel back in time and have Microsoft release this one instead of Majesco and without all the hype. Would the game still sell as well? I think it would. Though some of its concepts were probably lost or underappreciated by this reviewer, the game is sure to please fans of the growing card game genre, and pretty much anyone can fall in love with the story. Plus, with lots of Xbox Live stuff to fool around with, you really can’t go wrong for twenty dollars. It’s not the best, but it’ll get the job done for sure.