Phantom Legacy (Part 1)

Phantom Legacy. I think this is one of my favorites, definitely. Even though I never played the previous game and some of the things said are confusing, it is really interesting. Very foreshadowy.

Before we get started I want to mention the one bug I found. When you find the “spatial distortion” and you have the orb to get the key, once you get the key, you can still re-examine the wall. When you do, you will get the first message, the one where you don’t have the orb.

Gameplay: 5. The battles are perfectly balanced, a tad bit hard (but I suck at these games :P) and there were many puzzles, despite the shortness of the demo.

I think the battles were probably the most balanced I’ve ever seen. The battles were easy since it was the beginning of the game, and this is great logic. Also it seems to represent future events or whatnot of the previous game, such as the character being level 40. I never ran out of healing items, though I did use quite a lot of them. The enemies would go down in a few hits, and you had a few spells to play with too. I thought the boss battle was really good as well. It was generally easy, but it had its rough parts. I had to keep up that constant healing item use, but there also that “retaliation” skill. It took to realize what it was doing: I thought it was going to do exactly what it sounded like; the monster will attack back when I attack him during retaliation. This is how it worked (I think) except I didn’t realize it until the fifth time I got hit with Solomon’s Law, losing all my mana. But that was really great; it made the boss feel dynamic and not just some battle.

Though there was only really “one large” puzzle in this demo, it was a good one. It was easy, so hopefully ones in the future will have more difficulty. But I liked the premise. You had to gather these two pieces at first that you think will get you on your way, but then you need something else. While it was just a look around and put this here and that there type of puzzle, it was still interesting.

Graphics and Mapping: 5. Probably the best graphics I’ve ever seen. (battle animations, the chipsets look ripped of course lol. Although they are used quite well)

I really liked the chipset used in this game. The chipset of that palace thing. The mapping was good too; some rooms were symmetrical sort of giving it a realistic view. The purple fog overlay was really nice too, giving a hint of the danger. I liked the touch based encounters too, and the graphic used for the monster. It was really nice how we jumped backwards and exploded in a poof when beaten too that was cool. I really like the battle animations; they were probably the most interesting looking I’ve seen in a game. All huge and sparkly :P. I also liked how you used that animation during the boss scene, to show like debris coming from the ceiling, and I like how you used to monster graphic during the cutscene, made things feel more real than using just a characterset. I also liked the transitions into the boss battles; the breaking glass, and the “spinning” photo… those were really nice touches. I also liked after the second save point, when you’re going to meet the first boss, that there’s this little delay and then a “fade out” before going to next map. That was VERY atmospheric. It showed something was really going to go, despite the obvious sign of the save point.

Music and Sounds: 4. The music was very well fitting. Sounds were used a few times I think, but could use a little more.

The music sounded custom to me, and it was quite fun to listen to. I think the volumes were also consistent. The music practically made the scenes aside from the dialogue, and I thought it was great implementation. I don’t think I heard a lot of sounds other than the battle animations, but I play with low volume expecting loud noises so :D. Yeah, not a whole lot to say here.

Atmosphere and Setting: 4. There was quite a lot of atmosphere through graphics and speech, but hardly any info about the world; though there was info about the current situation as well as the hero’s intentions.

The atmosphere was very good in this game. The mood was obviously rather dark, as this hero goes searching for “him”. The dark colored monsters and the purple foggy overlay adds to the murkiness and sort of “evil aura” that’s looming. It was a great touch. The dialogue what with the “justice” that needs to be done and what not also added to this, showing the hero’s direct goal and purpose. I don’t think any info was provided about the world or the palace thing you go into, but hopefully some will be provided, especially since this is a sequel, we need to know as players how the world has changed etc. There was info provided however about the hero’s goals, which provided a little info about the past game and what has happened, this was insightful.

Story: 5. While it didn’t go into much detail, I thought it was really, really effective by utilizing that fact. It sounds really pretentious, that something is obviously going to happen, and I wanted to demo to keep going.

The story was very alluring too me, I wanted the demo to keep going. Even though it was cliché, generic, and vague (but these are things no one can avoid of course) it was presented in such a way that it felt mystical; like with the end part where shadar is saying in mind: “Now relinquish your human side, and you shall become the savior of this world” or something like that, that was interesting, especially after the fact how Shadar mentioned previously that he might hurt Slade’s family, it was an interesting transition. Very well done. Otherwise, we don’t know a whole lot that’s going on. Not too much info is provided about the previous game, but I’m sure that’s to come later. (Hopefully it will; at least a summary)

What I liked: The great story, and the interesting implementations of puzzles. Oh and the perfectly balanced battles.

Closing Statements: I’m sorry for the shorter review; it’s mostly because your demo is short. But understand that I really like game. Maybe I’ll play the previous one sometime XD