Good day. Do you want XCOM? Do you just like the latest and wonderful MechWarrior Ways recreation? And most significantly, are you in any respect within the passage of time? In that case, then there’s somebody I’d such as you to satisfy.
That is Phantom Brigade, a turn-based techniques recreation that got here out final week. It’s a recreation of two halves, one the place you command a squad of mechs on the battlefield, the opposite placing you in command of strategic stuff like conquering enemy areas, managing pilots and upgrading/repairing your mechs.
These are all issues I really like and issues I’ll check out in even probably the most primary try at a turn-based recreation. However Phantom Brigade is de facto setting itself aside in just a few key methods.
First up, it seems superb. It’s received a really Digital On type of vibe occurring with its mech design (and animation, even), and I simply love how slick and funky the entire thing seems. Even the interface is superb, taking cues from video games like Countless Legend, and displaying that simply because a recreation is about technique doesn’t imply it additionally cant look good.
Subsequent, this isn’t strictly a turn-based techniques recreation. Like Damaged Strains, which I favored and wrote about just a few years again, Phantom Brigade is kinda turn-based, in that you just undoubtedly get on a regular basis on the earth to line up your strikes, however the precise decision of these selections performs out in real-time.
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The story’s narrative basis is that you just and your crew of mech pilots have gotten maintain of a secret prototype weapon that allows you to see briefly into the longer term. Simply lengthy sufficient to see how far an enemy unit goes to maneuver within the subsequent 5 seconds, and what they’re going to do whereas they’re getting there. Handy!
It really works like…a video editor. The developer walkthrough under takes you thru it intimately, however the starting stage of every flip includes lining up a collection of actions on a timeline, on which you’re capable of “scrub” backwards and forwards to see how every part goes to go. When every part is to your liking, you hit play execute and the entire collection of strikes performs out.
That may sound straightforward. When you can see into the longer term, then you may see what your opponent is doing, and you may merely react accordingly. However there’s problem and unpredictably inherent on this, since each time you shoot, or transfer, or come into bodily contact, or deploy a defend, these actions are timed, and play out throughout an animation sequence.
Preventing recreation followers would possibly know the place that is going; it’s all nice seeing what your opponent is doing and organising one thing to defeat or counter it, however for those who get the timing mistaken, you then’re fucked.
You may also have seen from that video and gif that Phantom Brigade is, on account of this emphasis on timing, at all times transferring. There’s little or no extended use of canopy right here, the sport needs to make this extra of a dance than a gunfight. I’m very a lot into this at only a click-by-click stage, because it at all times offers me so much to do, even on turns the place it seems like not a lot is going on.
The sport launched in Early Entry on the Epic Video games Retailer a few years in the past, which is once we first coated it, however has now reached model 1.0 standing and dropped on Steam as effectively, trying a bit of slicker and enjoying a bit of tighter within the course of.
This submit was initially written in 2020; it has been up to date after spending time with the 1.0 launch.
