Phantasmata Reviews

I really adore this game so far, it is very colorful and all of the character designs are very intriguing. the dialogue is fun, very tongue in cheek i do think it is worth getting on sale if you can, at least while it has been a few years since an update, but it is decently playable in this state

Great little RPG! a bit on the easy side, but that's not a complaint! less time focusing on trying not to lose and more time focusing on the story! 8/10 :)

This game is absolutely amazing! While i was playing, i could definitely feel like Xenon put all of his love and personality in it, i usually don't like RPGs but Xenon managed to make it really fun and dynamic with amazing [strike] characters [/strike] [b] CRITTERZ!!! [/b] Pros: - [b] CRITTERZ!!! [/b] - [b] JINX IS RAD!!! [/b] - [b] WEAPONIZED FOOMBA!!! [/b] Cons: - [b] NEEDS MORE CRITTERZ!!! [/b] Even if the game is still in early access, it's already amazing! Thank you Xenon for the work you're putting in this game!

I like the unique art style and the edgy dialogue, but unfortunately I have to recommend against this game. The combat relies on a timing gimmick to achieve max damage which becomes quite tedious when it's used for every single attack. It also feels like there are too many battle encounters put in as a way to extend game time. I encountered a crash that lost my progress, and on reflection, I did not want to replay to that point or beyond. I got the gist of the game, and I know there is more fun to be had elsewhere than slogging through endless combat with that timing gimmick.

Let me preface this review by saying that I really enjoyed playing this game for a multitude of different reasons, and it was well worth the price to experience all of the things that this game had to offer, even in its early access not quite finished state. I'm gonna talk about all of the good things about this game before getting into the nitty gritty. Like most of the reviews would tell you, the atmosphere and tone of the game is really what sells it. It's not quite like any other piece of media out there and the combination of different art styles, charming writing, and surreal settings alone makes it worth picking up and playing for a while. There's a lot of different recruitable characters that you can find and get to join your team with a myriad of different skills and personalities, and beyond that there are mechanics that allow you to further power them up and tailor them to your liking. The music never misses and it's always very high energy, featuring a lot of really neat jungle/breakbeat/EDM inspired tracks. If you like weird rpgs with unique aesthetics and lots of weird little quirky things sprinkled in then you'll really enjoy what this game has to offer. Here is where I have to talk about all of the bad stuff though, unfortunately this game has a fair amount of it. I know that this game is still apparently in development and a lot of this could potentially change, but a lot of the issues I had seemed to be things that were fundamentally baked into the game, like the combat system or the way the game handles it's power scaling/difficulty. This game doesnt have any kind of a leveling system and the way you're supposed to get more powerful is by purchasing better gear or teaching your characters new moves. In my playthrough this basically made the beginning of the game a huge slog where i struggled to find enemies to farm money off of, and then the end of the game tedious and braindead as i autoattacked everything to death within one turn (i had each of my characters equipped with decent weapons and an accessory that allowed me to attack twice in a row) so I didnt really have a need to engage with any of the different skills or classes or any of the other cool mechanics they implemented. I suppose I could have gone out of my way to do so but that would have made the battles take EVEN LONGER and the game makes you get into a fight every few steps so by the end i was just powering through the fights to see how the story ended. Another thing that soured me a bit was just how long some of the maps were, a lot of the areas were pretty much just very long hallways filled with enemy encounters and junk to occasionally walk around, walking back and forth between different areas and exploring felt like a massive chore but I still did it anyway because I really enjoyed finding secret characters or funny npc dialogue, but it could have been much more enjoyable if the encounters werent so abundant, or if they were more fun, or if the maps didn't take so long to traverse. Another issue I had was with the power level of the enemies, the boss encounters didnt feel very different from the normal enemy encounters, all of the monsters in the game had somewhere from 25-100 health and every encounter was a huge challenge at first and then completed within one turn by the end, all of the big climactic story battles were finished before the enemy had a chance to attack which was a bit of a letdown, but this is nothing a bit of balancing and tweaking couldnt fix, which will probably happen once the game is completed. The last few issues I had were things that I'm sure are a result of the game not being completed, I got stuck in a few rooms because the exit didn't work, i got softlocked a few times because i entered a map that didn't allow me to move, one area that goes from being a dungeon full of enemies to a big shopping center would swap back and forth depending on what door you went in or out of. Characters I hadn't unlocked yet would talk in certain encounters even though they weren't in my party yet, and it crashed on me a few times. Just the normal kinds of quirks you would expect to find in an early access game, not experience ruining or anything, just save often! This is probably the longest review of a game I've ever written and I think it's because this game is really and honestly something special, I wanna see it get done and I wanna see it do well, and if the devs read this I want them to feel proud of everything they've done so far. I sunk a good amount of time into the game just because I enjoyed the characters and the world and I felt motivated to explore and to meet everyone I could and see everything I could see. If you're someone who really enjoys rpgs, especially weird little indie ones with lots of heart and soul, don't pass this up. All of the little quirks and issues are things that can be overcome with a bit of patience and polish and this little game has a lot to offer!!!!!!