The Phantom Review (PC)

When comic book columnist Lee Falk set out to bring The Phantom to newspapers back in 1936, it wasn’t all about establishing a figurehead for the crime-fighting comic book strip; it was about elevating the medium to entice vast swaths of readers into the world of striking hero-led adventures and bringing the action to a new light. It wasn’t all that long after the debut of the comic strip that other prestigious entities began to infuse their own strengths into the mixture, with future iterations accrediting the likes of Stan Lee and Peter David, amongst several Marvel, DC Comics, and Moonstone Books alumni. To this end, the plum-sporting hero is something of an acclaimed, albeit near-century-old staple in the industry. And so, it seems only natural that Art Of Play Interactive would continue to expand on its legacy with a spiritual revival—a beat ‘em up video game, rather fittingly.

The Phantom doesn’t beat around the bush with its primary intention: to pull materials directly from the source, and to essentially breathe new life into the mix by combining a modern beat ‘em up combat system with an extraordinary collection of panels that are highly reminiscent of Lee Falk’s original designs. The story, too, pays tribute to the original work, with the ever-famous Skull Cave, jungle of Begalla, and the Singh Brotherhood all returning to the panel to don their respective stripes and colors for an action-packed adventure of brutal hand-to-hand battles, globe-trotting revelations, and heroic camaraderie.

To answer the question of whether or not The Phantom is worth the price of admission, let’s go ahead and peel away to the initial foldout. Care to read along with us? Then let’s dial it back to 1936.

Back to Bengalla

The Phantom takes a leaf out of a traditional side-scrolling beat ‘em up brawler book by implementing a familiar conveyor belt system comprised of fourteen levels, each of which adopt an array of unique enemies to sift through, weapons to unlock, companions to deploy, and challenging obstacles to overcome. It’s a challenging game, I’ll give it that, as each hit that you take delivers more damage than the average brawler. The Phantom, too, isn’t prone to shedding fatal stab wounds or bullet holes like it’s a natural reaction. To this end, The Phantom leans a lot on calculated decisions and pre-battle tactical actions; it isn’t the sort of side-scrolling endeavor that you could quite easily stroll up to and squash with a few button prompts and a bit of mindless button mashing. But that’s fine, because if I had wanted a walk in the park, I’d have revisited Shredder’s Revenge.

The game itself plays out in a similar way as you might expect: the player moves from one panel to the next, crushes some ragtag band of seemingly elite enemies, and then uses a combination of special attacks and items to eradicate the given problem before moving on to the following setting. There are treacherous jungles to explore, carnivorous mountains to climb, cascading waterfalls to grovel in, bustling cities to wreak havoc on, and a huge amount of dynamic settlements to fight through. There are only a handful of stages, mind you, so while there is a lot of content etched into the overlay, the actual journey itself isn’t massively long; you could probably sweep it under the rug in a few hours, depending on how much you want to spend scanning each portion with a fine-tooth comb.

A Fitting Continuation

There isn’t a great deal of story to unravel here, I’ll say that much. While it is canon, it isn’t what you would call memorable. In short, it sees the titular hero and partner Diana trotting across the likes of India, Africa, New York, Switzerland, and Australia, alternating between two objectives: thwarting the protagonist’s arch-nemesis, the Singh Brotherhood, and scouting the far corners of the aforementioned locations in search of their wayward son. These plot points, while not entirely captivating, are often balanced out with “full-screen cut scenes and captivating in-game visuals.” Well, I say that, when in reality, these cut scenes don’t go much further than a few throwaway panels and static images. But that isn’t to say that the visuals are poor; on the contrary, The Phantom brings some of the cleanest comic book-inspired graphical elements we’ve seen in years.

While it’s no secret that The Phantom has some pretty great audiovisual components and a lot of depth in its enemy and level designs, it does fall short in several other areas, particularly in the gameplay aspect. As I said earlier, the game can be awfully challenging, with hit boxes, HP counters, and bullet sponges being completely out of proportion. It’s a frustrating game even at the best of times, and it also doesn’t help that certain moves and animations are frequently met with janky transitions and half-baked gestures, either. But I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, because at the end of the day, The Phantom is an incredibly beautiful tribute to the late comic writer. It’s just that, well, its combat isn’t quite nearly as good as it could’ve been.

Verdict

The Phantom captures the beating heart of the source material with picture-perfect transparency between its world and that of its comic book counterpart. It’s like feeding directly from the mouth of the acclaimed saga, or immersing yourself into a page torn straight from one of its most prolific chapters. And sure, while you could argue that it doesn’t exceed the graphical quality standards of a lot of modern beat ‘em up titles, lest we forget that The Phantom is knocking on nigh-on century-old wood. The fact that the developers have remained true to that classic design, lore, and locations, as well as, rather remarkably at that, still gone on to produce an excellent and faithful gameplay experience is what makes it all the most impressive for both returning fans of the comics and the genre alike.

Admittedly, The Phantom isn’t the lengthiest piece of work in the folder, what with the game being made up of just fourteen stages. And yet, with so much depth in its visual effects, dynamic environments, and faithful cutaways, I find that it’s an easy one to recommend. There’s a splendid opportunity to relive the golden years of one of the world’s most renowned comic books here, and for that reason alone, I find it to be more of an interactive time capsule than a petty attempt to incentivize a microscopic fragment of mere nostalgia fodder. It isn’t that at all; it’s a fantastic successor for the kindling of old, and to give credit where it’s due, Art Of Play has done a phenomenal job of keeping it alive. Sure, the gameplay is a little hit and miss, but it’s still a great deal of fun — eighty percent of the time.