BlazBlue: Clone Phantasma Review

BlazBlue Clone Phantasma 3DS Screen 2

Whenever a video game franchise decides to take a beloved series and recreates it into a new genre, it occasionally ends bad and leaves the player feeling sour, while wondering what went wrong? BlazBlue: Clone Phantasma is unfortunately to no exception. Although the BlazBlue video games are exceptional 2D fighters, this particular title takes what works and throws it out the window. It does so, by creating a mini-arena brawler that becomes repetitive and stale within minutes but how does this happen? Find out in my review.

BlazBlue: Clone Phantasma is an interesting gaming experience at first. It allows the player to select one character from a diverse roster of 10 and then quickly throws them into a battle-arena. Once it’s go-time, the gamer must then eliminate a certain amount of enemies in order to progress through the game while trying not to die. This is particularly sad because the rest of the video game happens to be more of the same and becomes quite repetitive very quickly. There really isn’t much more the player can do other than hack and slash foes during the course of levels throughout the main story.

To be fair, this title does try to remedy its repetitiveness by implementing item pick-ups, which may boost your characters speed or increase the rate at which your fighter can perform combos but still remains tedious and rather unimpressive. Clone Phantasma also offers a challenge mode for gamers looking to shell out tons of damage as often as they can. In a nut-shell, this is simply a time-attack mode and doesn’t differentiate itself from the main story other than the fact that this particular mode records how long your character can stay alive. That’s it.

BlazBlue Clone Phantasma 3DS Screen 4

Controlling characters is an easy task to accomplish while using the Nintendo 3DS circle pad and destroying enemies can be easily achieved, as well. That is because the video games A.I seems to be mindless and hardly attacks the player at all. They just stand there and wait for you to destroy them. The heat only gets turned up during boss battles, which in fact happens to be the only occurrence of a real challenge within the video game. Bosses tend to be a little tougher when compared to regular baddies, considering the fact that you must defeat bosses 3 times before completing the round, all while trying to avoid multiple enemy A.I attacks.

This video game has an amazing sound track and it could be said, that this happens to be the titles bread and butter. Although the sound of distorted guitars and electrifying solos bring musical bliss to my ears, the musical soundtrack could barely become perceivable due to the fact, that the fighter’s war cry can tend to become overly projected, along with the in-game sound effects that manage drain out the heavy-metal music. The BlazBlue franchise is known to have an incredible sound of music that pumps the players up and generates an intense gaming atmosphere. Clone Phantasma however, includes these traits but to the extent of a lower rate which happens to be unfortunate and something I wanted more of.

BlazBlue Clone Phantasma 3DS Screen 3

BlazBlue: Clone Phantasma looks and feels outdated. In fact, the video game can be compared to and best described visually, as a Ps One title from the 90’s. Characters in this video game look shorter and seem heavier than past games of the franchise, as if the developers wanted the characters to look cute rather than intimidating. The environment in which you battle in is regretfully forgettable, with the exception on a particular stage that involves a train that can assist you in eliminating or damaging enemies.

BlazBlue: Clone Phantasma, is a less than fair video game that is attached to an amazing title from a beloved franchise. It takes a 2D fighter and tosses it into a brawling universe but fails to deliver a palatable experience from every aspect of the video game. Although the title itself happens to be fairly inexpensive, which is roughly $5.99 (US); the flaws within this video game simply do not justify the purchase, nor does it seem to be worth spending time on, as well.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo 3DS code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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