Phantom Gear: Facing the Force
Even the most battle hardened heroes need enemies to blast, and Phantom Gear’s protagonist, Josephine, will be no different. After all, what kind of game would an action platformer be without any foes to shoot at? Thankfully, Josephine is only clashing with a single organization within the game’s story, the Ocular Force, and it’s up to her to recover a piece of an energy source that can be the solution to their world’s problems.
However, the Ocular Force is no slouch in their numbers, and there are plenty of mooks that Josephine has to face. Today, we’ll be taking a look at all these disposable bags of flesh and hunkering constructs of metal that Josephine has to deal with if she ever hopes to take back from them what they stole.
Minions
The most common enemy in the game, they are vaguely humanoid walking around while wearing distinctive masks, and their job is simple: stop Josephine in her tracks. Unfortunately they do this job in the most ineffective way possible, which is to say that all they do is simply walk around the level until they see Josephine within their line of sight. When they do, they’d shoot two bullets at her before resuming their walk. It’s hilarious when they just miss their shots at Josephine before moving on with their lives.
Of course, it wouldn’t be long before these Minions receive an upgrade. There will be Minions who drive around in a sleek one person cradle with a wheel around it, and this vehicle is fast and tough. It’s actually formidable enough for you to seriously consider just dodging it instead of trying to destroy it before it collides with you.
Aside from the Minion Wheel, you’d also encounter Minions holding a shield in front of them, and while these Minions are tougher, they’re still basically Minions, and somehow, when Minions are not riding atop anything, they suddenly become lazier in their efforts to stop Josephine, reverting back to their behaviour of shooting two bullets at her before going back to chilling with their shield.
Constructs
Seems like technology will always be tougher enemies than flesh bags, and these seemingly unmanned constructs of metal are definitely some of the most annoying enemies in the game while also maintaining their deadliness.
First, we have the Drone, and these guys are definitely annoying. They fly around in an erratic pattern, and meeting them head on will cause them to fire at you with lasers that are quite hard to dodge. And with how they hover around the sky instead of just staying grounded, they are also very hard to hit back without putting yourself at danger of being rammed by them.
Then we have this intimidating Tank, and even though it walks absolutely slowly, it’ll eat up most of your shots before you can even put a dent on it. The worst enemy in a fast paced platformer are meat shields, and this monstrosity delivers the toughness in spades.
Finally, we have Cannons, who travel at a medium speed, stopping only to shoot two cannonballs at Josephine. However, unlike most enemies who only fire at a straight line, the Cannon will throw a wrench at your dodge patterns by shooting in an arc instead. We hope you’re ready for two balls of metal suddenly flying towards you at high speeds, because they will hurt.
Oh, did I begin the last entry by saying “finally”? That was meant for mobile constructs, as we have two other enemies made of metal to worry about. We have this Turret who that is invulnerable from afar, and once it detects you anywhere near it, it will suddenly pop out from the ground and shoot missiles at you, and these projectiles will come at you fast.
If that doesn’t seem too worrying, get a load of this Mini-Turret. As the name implies, it’s quite small, and while it will be easier to dodge its shots, it also is quite difficult to hit. Sure, you can just dodge everything it throws at you, but it’s personally quite satisfying to see your enemies blown to smithereens.
Your Worst Nightmare
Aside from bosses, those are all the enemies that you would be facing within the game’s world. And while this may seem like a meager amount of baddies that you would have to study, the excellent level design lends itself well to throwing you into situations where you have to think fast lest you eat a load of bullets from any of these guys. There will be plenty of situations where you will be forced to think fast, such as going into a tight corridor with a Turret greeting you at the far end of it or an area full of deadly spikes with a Drone flying around it.
All this talk about facing these enemies simply just makes me more excited about finally being able to play the final build of Phantom Gear. The fast paced gameplay, unique worlds, and absolutely beautiful boss battles always draw me in, making me return to the demo copy that I currently have. So if you’re quite at the same level of excitement as I am, why don’t you head on over to Phantom Gear’s Kickstarter page and see the project in all its retro goodness. And watch out for future blogs talking more about the games’ levels and bosses in detail and more retro gaming goodness at https://megacatstudios.com.
