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Phantom Dust is a third-person CCG action game set in a post-apocalyptic world.

The game can be played in its original form on the OG XBOX and a remaster can be downloaded for FREE on XBOX ONE and Windows 10:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/phantom-dust/9pcdnbhr11mr?&activetab=pivot:overviewtab

The gameplay is unique, and though the first set of missions single player campaign makes up a pretty robust tutorial, it never hurts to dive into some external help.

https://phantomdusted.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLslwWHTaK4

CHECKPOINTS
Chapter 1-2
Chapter 3-4
Chapter 5-6
Chapter 7

PARTICIPANTS
grayghost81
singlebanana
mr_stubbes
disposed hero
douglie 007

I honestly have no idea.

Shot in the dark but Spirit of the North?

My guess would be Dust: An Elysian Tail

I like these guesses, but both are incorrect. :)

The indie game Dustwind?

Is there a game about Kansas I’m unaware of??  :slick:

You have finally decided to face your fears and play Syberia 2?

Enjoy Phantom Dust

I’ve never heard of Phantom Dust but I’m in.

Are you sure you don't want to play Syberia? They are free on GOG.

https://www.gog.com/game/syberia_i_ii?pp=4d89d294cd4ca9f2ca57dc24a53ffb3ef5303122

Oof, feel like I'm spreading myself pretty thin here, but I'm gonna try to get in on this one too. This is a game I've always been interested in, and I feel like if I don't play it now with you guys I probably never will.

I just installed it. I'll try to play this game

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

I've put some time into this one and am at the beginning of Chapter 2. I wasn't sure what to think about it at first, but it's grown on me and I'm really enjoying it now. The structure kind of reminds me of something like FF7 Crisis Core where the gameplay is mostly divided up into fairly short copy/paste missions, so we'll see if it ends up getting old or not. I do like that the short mission-based structure lends itself to a pick-up-and-play format, so it's pretty easy to pick it up for a few minutes and knock out a couple of missions here and there. Also the main character looks like if someone hit 'random' on a character creation screen and said "Meh, good enough."

The gameplay itself is kind of cool and interesting. There's some strategy involved, and picking up the pseudo-random abilities reminds me of something like Twisted Metal or Mario Kart. The game has been pretty easy so far, but they keep introducing new elements to the gameplay so I'm curious to see how that affects things. It's been a very interesting game so far!

Steven, I laughed at the random character creator comment and I love the Mario Kart comparison.

I just finished chapter two. I am enjoying the game to a certain extent but sometimes get frustrated by the fact that it seems the enemies will hit you with 100% accuracy, but they can rather easily avoid your shots constantly.

I LOVE that you can skip missions after failing them a few times. Like, yep I get the idea, NEXT.

I'll probably start this tonight. From what I've seen about the game I'm not sure how much I'll enjoy it, but from what y'all are saying it sounds like you can get through it fairly easy.

So I finally started playing and made it about halfway through chapter 2. As of right I'm not sure how I feel about this game. The story seems kinda interesting and I’ll be interesting to see where the game takes it. The missions and combat are OK too. The missions are short so as Disposed Hero mentioned it’s very easy to pick up and play a few missions if you don’t have a ton of time. One thing that kinda bugged me at first was the map. Besides highlighting the room you’re in it doesn’t do much without a directional marker so you basically have no idea where you are on the map. Luckily the underground is fairly small so it’s easy to learn where certain areas are. I also want to say that laser attack is damn near useless. I’ve probably casted 50 times and maybe have had 3-4 hits.

What it’s like to use the laser attack: https://youtu.be/5EXC_rjs7tg

Edit: just started Chapter 3 and I have one more thing to add, I really hate that there is friendly fire in this. Not only can you hurt and kill your partner, but they can do the same to you. Which is frustrating when they just keep running into the fray as you send bombs at your enemies, or when you try to remove abilities and get caught in the crossfire.

I’ve made it to chapter 4 and this game is definitely starting to drag a little bit. Besides the boss fights at the end of each chapter the missions are becoming way too repetitive. I’ve beaten 43 missions in total out of the 106 needed to beat the game, and I may have a hard time finishing it before the end of the month. I do want to nitpick this game a little bit because there are definitely a few things that kinda annoy me. Granted these aren’t game breaking issues, just quality of life aspects that I wish were different. For starters it’s kinda annoying that you have to use a terminal to edit/review power ups and arsenal. When instead they could have just created a menu that is accessible through one of the many unused buttons while in the underground. I also don’t like that some text boxes are dependent on a character finishing an animation before being able to close it and walk away, especially when you’re trying to find out who to talk to for you next mission. Which brings me to my next issue. I hate having to wander around to find the next mission to progress the story, I get that they want you to talk to NPC’s for story building, but when they have limited dialogue and just repeat themselves over and over (for the most part) it doesn’t really add a whole lot, and also some of their missions I feel should have just been side quests that are optional. I don’t see how a lasagna recipe is paramount to the story at hand. I really wish they would have just had a hub that would update with new missions as you progress.

Man, do I feel this comment. Been texting with Rich and this is one of those games that's just so "meh" it's hard to find the inspiration to actually play it. In a way, you'd rather play a game that was just bad because there is less sentiment of missed potential. 

Many frustrating missions and one thrown controller later, I’ve made it to chapter 6. I don’t want to be too negative but there were a couple missions in chapter 5 that were just ridiculous. It seems that the difficulty of the later missions is all over the place. Some take no effort and others you’ll have to repeat 8-10 times. I feel like I’m stuck in this loop of wanting to quit and wanting to keep playing, I feel like I’ve come to far to quit now but I’m a couple bad missions away from just dropping it.

[img width=498 height=378]https://c.tenor.com/ML7uNV85RmEAAAAC/spongebob-cod-modern-warfare.gif[/img]

LMAO

Are you playing the XBOX One version and if so does the option to skip missions persist through the whole game?

I’m playing the OG Xbox version which apparently doesn’t have the option to skip missions? (Or its never given me the option)

Edit: I just finished chapter 6 which wasn’t that bad. I was able to clear most missions on my first try. The introduction of environmental skills really makes things easier especially with the Fatigue skill which basically makes it so aura doesn’t regenerate if you are moving. Considering enemy AI is constantly moving they essentially handicap themselves. Granted it effects your partner too, but in all honesty they don’t contribute that much anyways

2nd Edit: I got through chapter 7 fairly quickly as well, with only a few minor hick ups. I've made it to the final boss fight which has two sections. I've made it to the 2nd section of the final boss fight but keep dying. Luckily, you can restart from the beginning of 2nd section (However, you can't leave and come back, so I'm basically keeping my xbox running until I give it another shot. I need to see if there is a walkthrough out there somewhere for this battle.

I don't think I've touched this game since my last comment. I enjoyed what I played well enough, but I can definitely see the issues you guys mentioned becoming a problem down the line. I'm going to try to get back to this one and finish it though, although I can pretty much guarantee it won't be before the end of the month.

Put in a couple more attempts and I was able to defeat the boss and finish the game. With how frustrated this game made me at times it felt great to hit the final blow and watch the credits roll. Overall I think this was an OK game, the combat system was interesting and I liked how they added new elements to it late in the game just to add some more freshness to it. I also kinda like how it is very much luck based. You never know what’ll spawn which is why it’s important you set yourself up with a decent Arsenal to where no matter what shows up you should be able to come out victorious. Honestly I feel like this game could have been better had the focused on the quality of life issues I mentioned before. The game is plenty long and while the missions are short there are quite a few that just don’t seem important at all to the story and would have made sense to just make them optional side missions that you could do for more credits and skills. While I won’t go to deep into to not spoil the kinda surprise ending, I like the overall story especially how this game basically starts you with nothing but as you progress it slowly shows you what happened to earth and how everything ended up the way it did. With all of that being said Phantom Dust is an okay game with a fun combat system and an interesting story that could have been a lot better had they tried to focus on more quality missions instead of just pumping it full of repetitive missions against repetitive enemies and boring mission details that offer very little to the overall story at hand.

[img width=700 height=525]https://i.imgur.com/H5EwDni.jpg[/img]
[img width=700 height=525]https://i.imgur.com/v1gVADt.jpg[/img]

Stubbes, my hat is off to you for finishing this game!

The more I play it, the more I hate it. Even when you get a good cluster of missions in a row (and don't have to find the right npc), you have to face the problem of actually playing the game. I already said this and so did Stubbes, player accuracy is probably less than 25% where enemy accuracy is pretty much perfect. Any power with "piece of" in the name might as well just be called "piece of shit" because it's guaranteed to be ineffective. Friendly and enemy AI are both garbage (even when I'm just trying to die and skip the level it is a pain to get the enemy to attack me quickly).

I took an impromptu day off from work today and as I attempt to play this game I'm thinking I'd rather be at work. 

Just watched all the cutscenes on youtube. I'll be dabbling in the game up until the next podcast recording but I don't care if I finish it now. Really cool story.

QUESTION OF THE MONTH

@thesinglebanana
 and I want to know:

What was a game that wasn’t what you expected that you HATED?

Get your answers in this week to get read on the show!