Full review on my website: https://www.nepikigaming.com/reviews/phantom-breaker-battle-grounds/

''Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds had the great idea to combine Fighting game mechanics with the Beat ’em up genre and it worked very well. Combos feel satisfying to execute, and it looks flashy all around with a good amount of different characters to play as. However, it does suck that half of the in-depth combat is something you most likely won’t experience during a single playthrough due to two separate skill trees that desire a long investment (and also having levels above 50 locked behind DLC which is stupid). This would have been fine, but the game doesn’t have much content to offer beyond the campaign and harder difficulties. I definitely enjoyed going through these colourful stages with a wide variety of different enemies the first time, but I could not be bothered to do it more than once simply because nothing changes… ever. And since this is a review specifically of the Steam version, I’m also very disappointed that the developers have not bothered to update the game with features from the new releases.''

Chibi beat-em-up with a variety of characters designed around replayability and coop in mind. Phanton Breaker Battlegrounds avoids it's predecesor by only maintaining the name and focuses on the endless hordes of enemies to your mercy. The combat is very enjoyable and fluid (except on nightmare) and allows you to become a machine as you level up and evolve your character throughout the one hour campaign. This game is a treat to play on occasions due to it's engaging combat that encourages chaining combos from enemy to enemy and building your meter to focus on tougher enemies.

My main griped with this game are the PVP and Nightmare difficulty entirely. PVP is lame and unintuitive due to the poor balancing in neutral. It becomes a spam fest of ranged moves, prioritizing meter over neutral, and camping on other lanes. However, it such a small part of the game that it can mostly be ignored. Nightmare mode cannot; the hardest difficulty varies wildly from pissingly easy to unnecessarily hard due to super armor and the player's block being completely ignored. Nightmare mode can be enjoyed through enough effort of understanding the mechanics, but Hard is a much better balanced mode over all especially against the bosses whose meter charges significantly faster than the player's and they will not hesistate to use it at any opportunity.

The music and visuals are swell and varied. All the characters are animated very well with many expressions and details in their moves making it very sastifying to fight the enemies. Besides Demonsphere, every stage is distinct and enjoyable. As a single player experience I can reccomend this game up to Nightmare and that's ignoring the Co-op capabilities. Phantom Breaker: Battle Ground is good.