Phantom Fury – Our Review

The Hype strikes again, giving us a product with many problems and some good elements. This is Phantom Fury.

Phantom Fury, according to the trailers and the promises of the development team, was supposed to be a step forward for the boomer shooter genre. During the course of the entire campaign completed in about 8 hours, it turned out to be complete chaos, revealing all the issues and unclear ideas of the team.

The biggest problem was literally showing in the trailers fast-paced and smooth gameplay, high interactivity and a story with a more cinematic structure than previous chapters of the series. In reality, pad in hand, the inconvenience of the control system is very noticeable and the general imbalance only makes the situation worse.

3D Realms missed an important opportunity.

Phantom Fury Gameplay

One of the fundamental elements of a good retro fps is the attention to the gameplay, the feeling of the weapons and the movement.

Phantom Fury fails in many of these features. The title offers a good number of firearms, but only some are truly efficient. In combat it is essential to stay behind cover or lure enemies to eliminate them one at a time.

This is because moving quickly is not recommended due to the extremely precise aiming of the opponents.

The discovery of medikits and armor is extremely rare or too frequent, due to the various balancing problems based on the different situations.

The aiming system, in particular with assisted aiming, allows you to eliminate the enemy quickly if he is in frame, directing shots to weak points, such as the head or legs.

Depending on the type of enemies encountered, it is essential to use the right weapon, but often it will be enough to position yourself in a distant position and unload many magazines from the standard pistol at the target, who will not react very quickly, due to the poor artificial intelligence.

Close Quarters Weapons and Vehicles

Phantom Fury also offers a good variety of close-quarters weapons, in addition to the bionic arm.

The bionic arm and electric saw are the only truly useful weapons, especially close-range weapons that are recommended for mutants.

The bionic arm is very useful because it can eliminate almost any enemy with a single shot, with a cooldown of a few seconds, which can be speeded up by upgrading it.

Sidearms are more suitable as tools for solving environmental puzzles than actual resources.

In some sections you have to pilot vehicles. The level in which we pilot an armed pick up is the most problematic due to the control system of the vehicle. The driving will be very imprecise and you will find yourself driving in zigzags trying to keep the vehicle stable.

The pick up will not take damage when attacked, but strangely when you arrive at one of the checkpoints it will mysteriously catch fire and you will be forced to get a new one. The second vehicle that is used for a scripted section is an attack helicopter.

We will only need to eliminate some helicopters but compared to the previous one it is much more pleasant.

Environmental Puzzles, Power Ups and Boss Fights

The interaction with the environment in Phantom Fury created some interesting puzzles, but due to the confusing level design and poorly managed physics, they are often frustrating and lower the pace of the narrative in the most important moments.

Some of the worst are the crane on the train and restoring power to Los Alamos.

The upgrades are useful for improving some characteristics such as health, armor, bionic arm recharge. In addition to unlocking very useful talents such as generating a shield to block enemy shots or carrying heavy weapons such as automatic turrets.

To become stronger you need to recover a scientific resource and accumulate as much of it as possible. Given the difficulty in finding this resource, it is important to choose carefully what to enhance, to avoid unpleasant situations.

Phantom Fury has bosses of all kinds, but balance is not its strong point.

You go from a helicopter on a train that can eliminate the player in seconds to having a comfortable room with tons of ammo and a door to easily handle another helicopter.

Unbalance is very heavy in many boss fights. Very often the best solution is to eliminate them quickly with heavy weapons, using a cautious approach from a distance.

Phantom Fury Technical Component

Phantom Fury in the console versions has serious technical issues. many compenetrations, bad physics that can literally kill the character. You can get stuck on the ground or in a narrow space, and in certain larger areas you can experience heavy frame rate drops or stuttering.

The title has a serious problem with the management of settings and saves.

At the first start you can set the difficulty, subtitles, language and various important settings from the menu, and everything will go normally.

The problem arises from the next start because every time you reload a saved game. To reset the difficulty and other settings you will have to start the level again from the beginning.

A notable problem is the lack of quick and free player saving, given the often enormous distance between one checkpoint and the next.

Phantom Fury Narrative Component

Phantom Fury, in its narrative, is a good title. Well written and with interesting twists, but with a clear cut at the end.

The plot is narrated through radio communications with members of the GDF and the various emails in the various terminals scattered throughout the various levels.

The characters, although not very detailed, have a clear personality and the acting is decent.

Unfortunately only a small cameo was dedicated to John Blade, a great waste of an important character from Sin.

Artistic Component

Even though Phantom Fury has many flaws, from an aesthetic point of view it is a marvel. Every scenario, from cities to underground laboratories, passing through deserts, is always a spectacle. It is worth observing the unique and careful style in the creation.

Each shot closely follows the aesthetics of classic 90s films and fps, in particular many settings are a clear reference and almost remake of different sections of the 2001 version of Duke Nukem Forever.

From a musical point of view, the title offers many interesting and truly spot-on songs that significantly raise the level of the game, almost obscuring the undeniable defects.

The use of the new low poly style but tending towards the more realistic has its reason and can offer particular views.

The Balancing Problem

Phantom Fury is a noticeably unbalanced title, with extremely frustrating sections and more relaxed ones where resources abound.

This could have been stemmed by adding different options for customizing the gaming experience, as already done by the excellent Warhammer 40000 Bolt Gun.

The difficulty levels in Phantom Fury are set very poorly and this can lose many possible new players to 3D Realms.

Final Considerations

3D Realms missed a great opportunity with Phantom Fury. Serious gameplay and technical problems drastically lowered the quality of a title that had the potential to be a good shooter. Luckily the plot and the artistic level save the title from a complete and much more serious rejection. Although Phantom Fury is a courageous title, it shows the consequences of the incorrect balance between graphics, narrative, level design and gameplay.