The Phantom was one of the earliest pulp heroes in the beginning for comic book heroes and has its origins in newpapers strips in the mid-’30s. For nearly 100 years, the character has been around and been featured in comics, movies and various video games over the years, but it has been some time since a video game has been released.
The 16-bit days brought with them The Phantom 2049, a side-scrolling platformer based on a then-modernized animated series, and it’s been about 30 years since the character has been in a game.
Vivid Worlds and Beatings Galore
The Phantom is back in a side-scrolling brawler, which itself is a good fit for the character and its last game being one sign of the times and now brawlers are back in. This latest incarnation of the character in a game uses an art style right in line with with Streets of Rage 4’s visuals, and between this and Mayhem Brawler, it’s become a go-to art style for beat-em-ups that allows for games to look fantastic with vivid color and a ton of detail and it holds true here.
The Phantom looks to blend modern-day brawler looks with classic beat-em-up gameplay. Both the title character and the secondary playable character Diana fit the classic pulp setting nicely with that art style showing off a lot of rich detail in the game world itself and allowing it to look like a lived-in world.
The Phantom looks to blend modern-day brawler looks with classic beat-em-up gameplay
The Phantom looks to blend modern-day brawler looks with classic beat-em-up gameplay.
That was one key to classic brawlers like Streets of Rage and Final Fight – the worlds looked like places you would really be in, especially with Final Fight’s areas looking beaten up. The slums area in particular had cracks everywhere and the subway had grafitti and destroyed seats and it didn’t look like a perfect world. That’s one thing that makes 3D games with more of a budget stand out in a way too – they’re able to do more fine-detail work dealing with assets than just plopping pristine assets in the world where it might look technically “better” than pixel art, but the damage to the world gives the game’s world a sense of character.
Bash and Dash
The Phantom is coming to the Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam on March 13 for $22.99 and looks like a great pickup for anyone who enjoyed brawlers in the past, or who just wants to go through one with a hero. We really haven’t seen hero-based brawlers since the days of Spider-Man in arcades or for a better overall game, Batman Returns on the SNES.
Having a comic hero in that kind of experience is a unique now since what’s old is new again and The Phantom is a character that’s always been around - but hasn’t really been a showcase character in comics or gaming in a long time, and this looks like a fantastic launching off point for him to a new generation of players.
