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Review of Phantom -PHANTOM OF INFERNO-

SubjectPhantom -PHANTOM OF INFERNO-
Phantom -PHANTOM OF INFERNO-
ByHelpfulness: 3
Vote: 7.3
kanjieater on 2022-11-01
ReviewThe first route (Eren) was a lot of fun. The build up between the the prologue carried over to the first act, then continued to build up to the second. Unfortunately I thought the third and final act fell a bit flat, but was still a great ride. If I had stopped there I'd probably bump my rating up by a full point. Unfortunately there were a series of issues related to multiple play throughs.

Overall the game runs nicely, and has some nice features like showing the total amount of script and choices you've seen. Choices get marked as red indicating what's been read. But unfortunately the normal script gets no such treatment, which would have been a better implementation. One of the final endings has the exact same text as an extended ending. You'd think one would be able to just skip it - but no. No skipping even though you've read it. It does skip text you've read. But it isn't automatic. You have to turn it on every time new dialogue appears that you think you've already read. Haven't actually read it yet or the game doesn't count something you HAVE read as "already read"? For some reason it will skip the voice acting of that next line. So it doesn't skip the unread text, but it does skip the voice acting. How is it that in 2013 Nitro+ still couldn't get the most fundamental VN feature right, when games 10 years prior already had it down to a near perfect science (e.g. Ayakashibito). Suffice it to say the text skipping in the remake version is an utter mess.

On the story telling front, it's a dark action movie. I haven't seen anything like this in a VN to date and I'd definitely like to read more like it. The themes of cars, guns, and a battling global mafia was on point. I never expected a Japanese man to teach my American-self so much about about our precious guns. Thank you, Gen-chan. Most of the characters are interesting but I will say that by the third act some of them start to fall apart. Cal's hate feels ridiculous and forced. The yakuza who killed Mio's brother now wants to protect Mio - of literally no relation - because of his promise. I can get it, but I still think it's weak. And with what _had_ been a non-stereotypical story, it devolved into a school setting. Granted I liked the overall reasons for why Eren & Reiji were there, but it still felt like a weak finish. Then to add to that, the different routes at time feel as though the you're watching the same action scene 8 times. Very few times did something truly substantial happen until the very end. One action seemed seemed like Reiji & Cal's name were just swapped to fill content. It seemed like the writing suffered from KanjiEater's VN Trope #1: When a VN tries focusing too much on multiple branching possibilities, instead of leaving you with a single coherent & interesting path. The gun system as well seemed cool. But you almost never see the impact of picking a single gun over the other. It would have been interesting if choosing guns had greater & understandable consequences. For instance, if a member of your party died due to your gun choices the story could change significantly. But, in most cases you can just choose one gun and use it the whole time without any consequence.

The music was nice. It's not a life-changing soundtrack like Saya or AkaAka, but it's not overly repetitive like Ayakashibito, or obnoxious like Chaos;Head. Solid & interesting tracks with a few that stuck out.

Overall, it was a fun ride. I can't see myself ever trying to 100% this again, but maybe playing through a single route and dropping would be worth a revisit one day. Also, the choice early on if you wanted to shoot a kid was pretty edgy so I added a few points for that.
3 points
#1 by Ileca
2022-11-03 at 00:06
< report >Yeah, I was so disappointed that the story had to end up in Japan. It's like throwing in the bin the exact reason why your story was superior to others.
For that reason, I personally consider my first route, Claudia's, to be canon. No Japanocentrism with their schools and yakuzas I don't give a fuck about (it's like this dumbass obsession of finding rice or making Japanese baths in isekai), excellent drama befitting of the theme, with that feeling of being an outsider/migrant in a cold and cruel world (not a high schooler in hiding), super tragic ending that moved me a lot, and ngl, a sexy as hell American pin-up *lick lick lick*. It's like the game was complete for me in that first part. Not that I hate any of the other characters or anything. No, I love them, but not as much as Claudia.