In 2009, Demon’s Souls set a new standard for what gamers have defined as a difficult game. From Cuphead  to one of the many Dark Souls clones that have been released since, many comparisons have been made to the Souls series for difficulty. As much as I hate to continue using the stagnant term, Phantom Trigger ranks up there with one of the previously mentioned games.

Phantom Trigger features the intertwined stories of Stan, a man dealing with some medical issues and is seeking alternative treatment opposed to standard medicine, and the Outsider, a being who is working their way through a strange limbo-ish world, filled with enemies, traps, and NPCs that offer only vague responses. The game wastes no time putting you in the thick of it, facing off with a number of enemies with Stan’s story peppered in occasionally when certain points are reached. I found the story to be equal parts frustrating and intriguing, as I really wanted to try to solve the mystery of how the two characters were connected.

The game starts you off on the hard setting, which isn’t much different than the normal setting that I dropped it down to pretty early into the adventure. While the initial levels are not overly challenging, the game quickly reaches the game over screen within the first couple of hours. The Outsider has a number of attacks: a light, hard, and ranged attack that allows you to pull enemies toward you, as well as a dodge that must be used flawlessly to dispatch the various creatures the game throws at you. Failure to do so will result in a swift death and often times a significant amount of backtracking, as the checkpoints are usually spaced out quite awkwardly. You’ll often be stuck in small areas where enemies respawn frequently and seem to ignore the fact you are dodging or dashing away, resulting in unfair hits becoming the norm. On more than one occasion, I’d complete one of these segments to only have a similar one occur seconds later, just before a proper checkpoint. Outside of the combat, there isn’t much else to see here gameplay-wise other than a few fairly easy puzzles, which only require the player to hit certain items in a sequence using specific color coded attacks.

The overall presentation is where the game shines, however, the character models are really where the visuals shine. The enemies are well rendered and convey a sense of horror despite the minimal details. It reminds me of a darker version of Toe Jam and Earl with its flat Metroidvania style layout. I found this to be particularly refreshing, as these games usually opt for the side scrolling format. It’s pretty well polished, although I did experience a few issues with it freezing mid game, which seemed to be more prevalent when streaming or dealing with a large group of enemies.

If you choose, you can bring in a second Outsider via couch co-op, which works as a drop in/drop out system. While this makes dealing with the waves of enemies slightly more manageable, you share a single life bar meaning if either player dies its game over. Additionally, there is a Mixer interactive component that can be turned on; I streamed the title for quite a bit with a number of viewers, but I did not notice much of a change in gameplay. Much like the rest of the game, there is a lack of player direction, which may have been intentional to give it that Souls feel. While I can respect this, I find it to be a major turn off.

Phantom Trigger is by no means a bad game, it’s just super difficult and definitely won’t be for everyone. If you’re up for a challenge and want an interesting story, I would recommend giving the title a go. I just hope you can survive better than I did.

6 out of 10

Pros

• Creepy Enemies
• Intriguing Story
• Interesting Writing
• Combat

Cons

• Combat
• Extreme Difficulty
• Lack of Player Direction

Phantom Trigger was developed by Bread Team and published by tinyBuild. It launched on PC and Switch in 2017, and then PS4 and XB1 on April 20th, 2018 for $14.99. The game was provided to us for review on XB1. If you’d like to see more of Phantom Trigger, check out the official site.

 

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