This is one of those games that didn’t make a ton of waves when it came out but it centers around one of the original superheroes out there. The Phantom basically predates any of the big heroes that you’ve heard about. So it’s cool to play a game based on this guy. The gameplay’s fun enough and I like the overall presentation but what hurts the title is the short length. You can complete the game in a little over an hour. There are only 5 stages in the game, which total to 14 levels. Most levels aren’t very long either so yeah that’s why this goes by quickly.

The story begins with the Phantom’s son being stolen by a gang. He does not take this well at all to the point where his wife is really worried about the nonstop rage that she is seeing. The Phantom intends to save his son at any cost and may want to destroy these villains in order to prove a point. Will he be able to calm down in time and can his son really be saved?

It’s not like this is a super deep story or anything like that but I was just glad to have one with some story updates after each stage. The game is fully voice acted which is always a good thing and it adds to the intensity of the game. The way the cutscenes are advanced is a little odd though as you have to click X to go forward every few lines but the icon used is the same as for the skip button so it was always very nerve racking. I don’t see why they didn’t just push everything forward automatically.

So as 2D beat em up you’re going to be familiar with the drill here. You punch and kick at the enemies until they all go down. At that point you can continue and then fight the next batch of fighters. Rinse and repeat until you have made it to the very end of the stage. The only exceptions here are when you have a boat/car level and have to blast away at your enemies. Coming up with a second gameplay style was probably not easy so I can appreciate that level of effort.

I don’t think the gameplay was play tested too much though because you have way too much hit stun on all of your attacks. What that means is you can infinite combo every character in the game. Yes, that includes all bosses including the final boss. That’s a bit rough because then they never stand a chance. For that reason the bosses have a checkpoint system so if you do too much damage in one combo, the damage eventually stops at 0 for him to summon some enemies and rest up.

It doesn’t make the bosses more difficult, this only serves to drag them out more. I suppose that will just have to be good enough this time around and the game is still super short so clearly this didn’t make it too long or anything like that. The gameplay is smooth though. It may not be balanced but it does play well. Then you also have the Phantom yelling out his catch phrase every time you use the super attack. He has maybe 3 stock lines so you will be hearing those quite a lot. They work really well though. It’s the right amount of cheesy and campy if you ask me.

After you beat the game, there is technically some replay value by playing arcade mode or doing story mode on hard difficulty. There is no platinum trophy in the game this time though so you will have to settle for just getting the normal 100% completion clear here. Still not bad of course, that will be a feather in your cap but I admit that I would have liked seeing the Platinum on display. I probably would have beaten had mode right away if that had been the case.

In terms of gameplay hints, I will just say in the boat levels you don’t want to spam the gun. You actually do run out of ammo and then you might not have enough bullets when it is time to fire the gun. So shoot strategically and wait for an opening. Then when you have the opening, that is your time to pounce. In the normal levels, shooting is actually not recommended. It does less damage than your hand to hand combat and it knocks the opponents to the ground after 2 hits so they get their temporary invincibility back again. It just makes the fights longer and you’re better off powering up your super move to use instead.

Overall, 2D retro beat em ups are really in right now. It feels like everybody is getting in on this genre. Typically games in this genre are going to be short but the key is in putting a lot of bonus content for multiple runs. Maybe you have some different modes or something like that. This one desperately needed some more content and then I think everyone would have looked on it a whole lot more favorably. It is still a fun game though and that gives it enough of a nod to stay in the green. If you can get this game for cheap then you should do it. It’s not every day that you get to play as the Phantom after all! You may even be surprised at how big a fan of him you are.

Overall 6/10