How far do you get through that title before you realise you’re not going to finish without stopping? I always start strong and then stumble at Phantasma and usually say Extended accidently. What’s the fun if you can say the name of a game easily or if you know from the title how many there are? Japan has a fine heritage when it comes to video games. Especially when you look at the console sector it’s fair to say Japan was in no small way responsible for the shape of the industry today. But as with most things there’s a need to modernise, change and push forward when the time is right. Chrono Phantasma is very Japanese in just about every possible way. Plus it’s a fighting game so expect sparks, energy balls and/or beams and piles of over excited voice acting.
The first glaringly obvious case of heel dragging is the fact that the original version of Chrono Phantasma was released on arcades in Japan way way back in November 2012. The arcade market still runs strong in Japan so that’s understandable but I seriously thought we’d got over this ridiculously staggered release date system. A PS3 version hit Japan in 2013 but western versions only hit in 2014. Now it’s 2016 and the PS4 version has reared it’s weighted, sluggish, lazy head. It’s one of the parts of playing Japanese titles I do not miss. There’s a sting to playing a game with the knowledge that not only is it essentially 4 years old but that you’re PS4 will be sat there using miniscule amounts of all that lovely power.
Before I go any further I suppose it’s time to declare ignorance, something I find myself doing far, far too often. But I’m not what you would call a big BlazBlue fan so knew very little about the franchise going into this other than it’s a 2D fighter. And that just about sums it all up to be honest. There’s the usually array of characters ranging from the unsubtle ‘baddies’ to the heroes and the outright crazy with a few teabag sized skirts thrown in for good measure. Extra content for this console friendly version adds a career mode which lets you get to know the characters a little as you concentrate on destroying your enemies.
Other than that and a few menu tweaks there isn’t a whole lot in the way of extra content and ‘Extend’ really just means isn’t on an arcade machine. I could see how making people buy a fully sized arcade machine may have hindered sales a little so fair enough on that one. Having a menu and a limited single player section really shouldn’t warrant extra words in a title but hey, when in Rome.
The character roster is solid offering you 26 characters that I’m reliably informed make a return from Continuum Shift. Thank goodness. Lord knows I would have missed (pauses to glance at Wikipedia) Bullet or…Yuuki. Even with no prior knowledge the characters are good fun to play through and learn with a limited but noticeable variation on offer for each. Without anything too earth shattering the usual archetypes make a show along with a few creative designs too.
The actual narrative of the story mode is a complete loss for anyone like me experiencing BlazBlue for the first time. The gameplay is fine but don’t expect to know who’s who, what’s what, where’s where, when’s when and especially what the hell that thing is. From what I managed to piece together with extra research and a few cut scenes providing some exposition from the previous games the story is actually surprisingly good for a fighting game. I suppose you could argue that the fact I wasn’t able to understand without prior knowledge is a good thing really – at a stretch.
Outside of the narrative Chrono Phantasma is surprisingly accessible. There is a very nice tutorial that actually helps you learn the game which is rare in fighting games and even rarer in arcade titles. The controls are responsive too so when something goes wrong you tend to feel like it was a mistake that was your fault rather than just bad luck or playing against someone with the ability to ‘count frames’ ala Street Fighter. Chrono Phantasma is a well implemented fighter that works with you to create fun and avoids the trap of becoming elitist and off-limits. Although inherently this may leave a gap for hardcore players I suspect they will likely stick with their chosen title as is.
My favourite fighting game has always been Tekken which is really the only one I play any more than casually. Absolutely the reason for that is the characters. The best example is my love for learning the fine details of Lei Wulong’s different stances and creating my own devastating combos. There’s nothing like changed stances to confuse your opponent. Chrono Phantasma does little that can provide this level of depth and so even with some solid characters the roster is what ultimately lets you down eventually. Chrono Phantasma really plays surprisingly like a story based game.
Some dated but fairly good-looking visuals with nice audio. Then everything is fleshed out with an excellent tutorial and a strangely good story mode – although the narrative excludes newcomers. Chrono Phantasma Extend goes quite a long way to throwing off a few of those horribly dated features and surprised me with providing a very well refined fighter. A better roster and a little more accessibility for new players would have gone a long way towards improving my experience. It’s a bit of a shame to tell such a great story and make it enjoyable only by a relatively small group of gamers.
