Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate Review
Experience chibi 2D pixellated beat-’em-up chaos in Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate.
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate. Rocket Panda Games
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate from Rocket Panda Games is a beat-’em-up spin-off of the 2D fighting game series Phantom Breaker. The series originated in 2011, and Rocket Panda Games acquired the IP in 2022 when they released Phantom Breaker: Omnia. Battle Grounds Ultimate is a ground-up remake of Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds, initially released in 2013 by 5pb. / MAGES.
The beat-’em-up gameplay in Battle Grounds Ultimate takes place on two planes—foreground and background—that characters and enemies can switch between at will. It’s an interesting departure from classic beat-’em-up design in games like Final Fight or Double Dragon, featuring a 2.5D ground plane. Levels scroll left or right, and changes are purely cosmetic as you advance; aside from the different window dressing, levels just have increasingly powerful and more numerous enemies.
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate. Rocket Panda Games
The fighting mechanics aren’t revolutionary. Characters have weak, medium, and hard attacks; they can also throw enemies, jump, block, and perform a special that varies based on the direction you push. Pushing two attack buttons or the special button simultaneously unleashes a super special or an overdrive mode that drains an energy bar, which you refill by hitting enemies.
The four characters playable in the game’s Story mode gain experience independently that you can use to boost power, defense, and speed stats, or unlock more skills like double jumps, parries, and combos. There are more advanced mechanics, such as guard cancelling, but I didn't set out to master any of those because my playstyle carried me through two difficulty modes without issue. Even so, the gameplay felt good and crunchy; hitting enemies carried a sense of impact crucial to making a game like this work.
I played through the game’s story mode with two characters, first in normal mode and then in hard mode. Even playing solo, normal mode is fairly easy. I wasn’t challenged until my second playthrough. Stat gains carry over between each time through the game, but I started with fresh stats on the second character for hard mode.
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds features chunky pixel art, making it feel like an old-school arcade beat-up. The chibi characters are small, which the game uses to its advantage to put tons of enemies on the screen and make the large enemies feel more imposing. At times, the difference in quality between the character sprites and the environments is a bit stark. Adding background animation would have improved things; the static backgrounds feel lifeless.
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate. Rocket Panda Games
Battle Grounds Ultimate includes local and online co-op and versus modes. Up to four players can play together locally, while online co-op and versus allow six and eight players, respectively. A total of 38 characters can be unlocked to play in these modes. Online multiplayer supports crossplay.
The game’s threadbare story was incomprehensible to me, I assume because this is my first introduction to the series, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying my time with it at all. Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate is a solid beat-’em-up with plenty to offer, especially with its multiplayer modes, which I look forward to exploring more thoroughly.
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate is available now on PC (Steam / Epic), PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One / Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
Overall Score: 7/10
Played on: Steam Deck
