PHANTOM GALAXIES Preview

PHANTOM GALAXIES is a spaceship dogfighter combined with a mech-action game, primarily taking place across the vast reaches of space, spanning multiple galaxies and star systems. You take the place of a newly recruited Space Ranger with the goal of defending the system, fighting to defend the order from all the pirates that seek to harm it.

PHANTOM GALAXIES is launching into Early Access, which is sadly very apparent. There's a lot of noticeable jank in all the areas of the game: animations often lack fluidity, collisions on many parts of the world are very bizarre, and I often found myself stuck inside the collision boxes of many parts of the environment, leading to my very swift death more times than felt reasonable. Voice acting often felt like it lacked any form of personality, and the world is a little empty so far, with most of my gameplay feeling incredibly focused on just going from point to point with little care for what was in between. Performance was also relatively spotty, nothing game-breaking, but a lot of noticeable stuttering. While this may seem incredibly negative, I can definitely sense a lot of potential for PHANTOM GALAXIES, and most of its issues can easily be ironed out throughout its early access period, but they were far too apparent to not mention.

Now that the negativity is out of the way, we can get into the real meat of the game, which does have some incredibly fun and interesting mechanics. Most of your time will be spent flying around and engaging with the game's combat systems. This is split into two modes: Ship, and Mech. The ship form has far more manoeuvrability but feels much harder to control efficiently and lacks the simplicity of offence, while the mech form feels much more like a traditional third-person action game in space. There are currently four different classes of mech, all with different stats, abilities, and playstyles: Assault, Lancer, Buster, and Breacher. These can be further customised by purchasing new weapons and gear. Completing bounties, which are essentially side quests, rewards currencies that can be spent at trade posts for better equipment. Combat currently feels a little weak, especially on the ground. Enemy density is lacking, and weapons don't feel very weighty, while grounded movement feels pretty rough. Walk speeds are way too slow while boosting is incredibly slippery and difficult to change directions.

The story that I managed to experience was also relatively bare-bones but worked well enough for the game. Most of the story initially felt like busy work, going from point A to point B, occasionally fighting some pirates here and there, with very little in the way of actual plot development in the early stages. It definitely feels like it's building up towards some deeper mysteries and plots, but early on, it doesn't do anything to draw me into the narrative.

PHANTOM GALAXIES is, without a doubt, in a rough spot in its Early Access release, but it's nothing that it can't come back from. There is a lot of potential in many of its systems, but as of right now, it definitely lacks depth and polish. For fans of mech and space shooters, it's definitely worth keeping an eye on as it develops further.