Me 2 months ago as I reread the entirety of Hunter x Hunter: “wow it’s strange that no one has actually made Greed Island into a full 3D video game”

This video game that has multiplayer that’s more fun than anything any anime arena fighter within the past 20 years could ever dream of being:

Personally the only negatives are the repetitive single player campaign that awkward is a mesh of a tutorial for the multiplayer and a legitimate effort to have something and idk 20 years of technological advancement with 3D and collectible-based video game software that seems obvious to us now because we are here looking back but also this game is still fun TODAY it is still good (and it was so good the people who made this game played it for fun on their damn break) and that says a lot

Even 20 years later and learning about the current meta it feels like the structure of this game’s balancing with the systems in place are so strong that there’s still enjoyment. When making your own “deck” you use in the game there are so many tradeoffs and small things when you get onto the field, obviously a sequel would be phenomenal and like I said some things in hindsight can be added and make life easier but it’s astounding how a game that existed before far more money-magnet-aligned not-fighting-or-shooting competitive online games existed can even remotely have a competitive scene at all with variety

Phantom Dust good, Phantom Dust free, you should try Phantom Dust

Phantom dust is definitely a cool game. If you've ever wanted to play Magic The Gathering in one of The Matrix sequels, or if you would imagine yourself throwing fireballs and the like as a kid while playing TCGs, I absolutely recommend giving it a shot. You'll be able to look past the art style's shortcomings and the gameplay's finicky-ness and just have a good time, at least for a while. But with a campaign this long (around 15-20 hours) and only 4 or 5 battle arenas to keep it going, 80% of battles being 2 on 2, and control decks existing (my bane since I played MTG in high school), I just kinda felt like I'd gotten everything I wanted out of this game.

Backing up a bit, Phantom Dust is an Xbox (the original xbox) game from a Japanese subset of Microsoft Game Studios, and was headed by Yukio Futatsugi, of Panzer Dragoon fame (tho my personal fav game he's worked on is The Good Life). It's kind of a 3D arena battler, but instead of being based on fighting game rules, it's based on TCGs, particularly MTG. The "skills" you use (read: cards you play) come out kind of like moves in a very slow and deliberate character action game, and overall it feels like it hits the balance of card games and action games right in the center. Oh how I wish it fell to one side or the other.

You see, I'm kinda shit at both action games (what's a block button lol) and card games, but the looseness of action games and the slow turn-based... ness of card games usually lets be play beyond my skill level in both genres. Here though, I'm outclassed by the basic AI in reaction time, can't dodge like a lazy boy (instead needing to use actual defensive skills), and don't really have the time to consider my moves like I would wanna. None of these are really issues with the game mind you, though I do think a bit of looseness would help the feel of the game a bit. Instead, this is an explanation as to why I've retried any battle in this game against something other than a basic damage deck more times than I fought most Souls bosses. I just don't have the reactions or the adaptability in the way I play typically play card games to deal with the missions.

On that note, the single player campaign is made up of 114 missions. These missions get repetitive like, 20 missions in. You're always battling one of only a couple enemy types in one of a few arenas, and the fact that the game is 3D and not just a 2D tabletop like MTG Arena is makes this grate a bit on me. There's just something stale about it once you're like 7 hours in. I wish you could pick and choose which missions you wanted to do for each chapter, maybe needing to do a total of 50%-75% of the available ones, but instead you need to do them All, in Order, even though most Do Not Affect The Story.

The style and flavor this game has is fantastic, don't get me wrong. Well, maybe the main characters' faces are kind of... gross looking, but besides that everything comes together with a really cool energy. All dilapidated buildings and early 00s crunchy af DnB. Like I said, think The Matrix sequels. I just wish the gameplay itself wasn't so completely not my speed, literally. Still, it's free on Xbox no matter who you are, so I definitely rec you give it a shot.

also for clarity's sake I did get re-interested in it right now because of the recent Nick Robinson video, but promptly afterwards I found out he is a capital C Creep, so just a PSA for anyone else who's gotten that vid recommended to them: stay away from Nick Robinson stuff, he's gross

meditação sobre criação e memórias, estilosíssimo, repetitivo, melancólico, te tutorializa até o último capítulo e de um jeito bem escola pública mesmo (hora de aprender a usar essa skill, mas você mesmo tem que ir lá botar ela no seu inventário! e ele fica em outra área do mapa!). o legal é que tudo isso acaba tendo um ar litúrgico (depois de todas as missões ir falar com todo mundo pra descobrir a próxima sem nenhuma indicação, acabar descobrindo mais sobre os personagens nessa - ir olhar a loja que vai ter um pacotinho de skills aleatórios novo - ir andar por todas as salas da base) e isso se reflete na lição final: ainda que Deus estivesse morto mesmo, o testamento dele é todo o futuro, e o futuro é brilhante!

Since the HD remaster of Phantom Dust is currently free on PC, it's an easy proposition to give it a try at least. The game is a 3D action battle game, with the key draw to it being that it uses card game mechanics for its combat. The implementation of these mechanics is very well done and fun, with tons of possibility for depth and variation as the player becomes more skilled.

I played the campaign for several hours, past the stage where you can start building your own "decks", and I feel I can comfortably shelve the game where I stopped. The reason is that, although it's an enjoyable game, there are a few key weak points to its design from a modern perspective. The enemy AI often is not very aggressive, leading to battles mainly playing out in familiar cycles of hovering around the area where your "cards" spawn and repeating some simple strategies. The multiplayer aspect of the game would obviously change that a lot, but for the campaign there could at least have been the possibility of somewhat randomizing the spawn points of cards in order to keep you on the move and engaged with navigating the arena.

It's a fun game and a great idea, but one that was ahead of its time. It would really soar with a modern sequel of some sort.