This review is for the IGMC 2014 version.

Please note as the game currently stands there is a game breaking bug at the end of the third dungeon.

This game apparently has no introduction; you basically start by single handily storming a castle and dissing every enemy you come across because it seems that you are that much of a badass, hero that all evil should quake at the mere mention of your name.


Pride cometh before a fall...or a wakeup call.

There are a couple of simple puzzles at the beginning, light torches, pull levers all of which reward you with magically appearing chests, there is also a really quite clever little response to the normal RPG trope of exploring everything that should be obvious if you paid attention, I missed it but once I triggered it the oversight was obvious. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Once you defeat the dark king and find the princess, the true story begins, and we get a series of cut scenes outlining a relatively happy village life with a single father looking after his four children as best he can since their mother died two years previously. Into this slightly sorrowful but still bucolic scene evil in its most enticing form extends its hand and kidnaps the children, dragging them into the underworld.


Stranger Danger

The reason behind this kidnapping is unclear at the outset, but becomes more obvious as the story progresses, this is pretty much a dungeon crawl with most of the action taking place in the Underworld as Oswald and his companions seek to rescue the children and the forest and village where Oswald recruits his companions for the quest, Krakus the Goblin Chief who brings his bombs and brute strength to the party and Agatha the village Priestess who adds much needed healing, the foursome is rounded out by Stein, the shaman who lives on the outskirts of Oswald's village and is a long-time friend of the family.

The graphics in the game are all RTP and whilst there isn't anything outstanding about their usage there are very few problems either. There is a sense of reality I quite liked in their use. A pet peeve of mine is lack of continuity, and that applies in every aspect. In mapping it's usually made manifest in houses exterior not matching the interior, or outdoor scenes where the environment changes with no transition in colour or look, whilst this game does have instances of that, it also has taken into account the life story of its protagonist. Oswald lives with his four children so his house has five bedrooms, a large refectory style kitchen table and a huge bathroom (which also doubles as a heal-all). Each of the children's rooms has a little something to differentiate them, with the added somewhat stereotypically, pink bedspreads and made beds for the girls and plain unmade ones for the boys. I appreciate the attention to detail in what is essentially a dungeon crawl. In addition the underworld maps have an efficient use of space since you can see sections that you can't get to right away but must teleport back and forth through each ring to cover an entire section and retrieve the children.


Automated coffin ferry, no Charon required.

Whilst the graphics are all RTP, the music is not. It's used well in most places, though the sudden drops to silence for dramatic effect doesn't actually work as well as I believe the developer intended. Most of the pieces are suited to their environment, light in the opening sequences, a little faster paced after the children are taken, and of course chaotic and dark in the Underworld. Whilst each of the Underworld rings is a different environment the music changes to match as you search

Monsters are all visible and they spawn with map changes so either avoidance or grinding is an option dependant on your play type, though there are occasionally hidden chests that only appear when you have cleared a map of monsters. The battles themselves are all front view turned based with no customisation that I could detect and with the exception of a few battlers from the Tyler Warren pack, they are standard as well. There isn't much in the way of strategy required in the battles, though resource management can be a little tricky as for a decent portion of the game you are travelling with just two party members neither of whom is a healer. Since you have to transition some spaces a few times to get everywhere the battles can get tedious after a while so I went from grind to avoid pretty quickly. The battles do need to be upped a little in regard to difficulty as even with a staggered party size by half way through the first dungeon I was one rounding most enemies and even though there was a leap in difficulty with each new section there was also an increase in party so there really was never a stage that the battles felt particularly challenging. Other than the optional bosses, but they are always geared to maximum difficulty.

To help combat the above I would suggest to the developer that they remove the monster spawning in areas where dodging is well nigh impossible, such as narrow corridors with columns that impede flow and leave them in other spaces with a more open plan, like the open fields of the frigid world. This will enable people who wish to grind to do so and those who want to get the job done without constant easy battles to also do so.


Kill me, kill me now.

Puzzles abound in this game, but unfortunately most of them fall into either the ambiguous in their results category, or the traverse the same space multiple times to accomplish one. Both of which can get a little tedious. I do like the fact that flicking wall switches in one part of a dungeon level will open up another and for the first section you search, the Frigid Island, it seems to work pretty well. However in the later sections there are multiple barriers presented and finding and flicking a switch could possibly remove any of them. This means you then have to go back through all the areas where you have run across a barrier to check if that was the one that was removed, and since the monsters spawn each time you exit and enter a map a lot of time is spent fighting or dodging monsters only to find that it wasn't the first or second gate you found that was removed it was the third. The most tedious example of the multiple traverses has to be in the top of the pyramid with a complex of 4 rooms, each containing one flick switch that can only be reached by traversing at least two of the rooms, and no indication which order is required to flick the switches to accomplish the goal. So you move back and forth until you find one that sticks, then to another only to find it's not the right one in the sequence and you have to move on, each time having to go back and forth through small monster filled chambers. It's becomes not fun, fast.

There is an interesting choice in regard to equipment; everything other than a weapon is classed as an accessory, even a traditional item like shields. This enables players a bit of customisation in they can follow the traditional shield/armour/headgear/accessory line or they can choose to equip 3 pairs of gloves (for their 6 hands) and a ring (for all those fingers). I do like the flexibility it offers, but it does beg the question if you are going to supply traditional armour choices such as shields and robes, why not just keep the slot names and make the items able to be equipped anywhere?

However there is a clever little addition when it comes to equipment, almost every piece has an additional parameter listed in the description, this bonus is used to increase base stats at levelling up as long as you have the item equipped at the time, so always make sure your equipment slots are full and use this addition to boost those stats in which you have a low baseline, or that you want to concentrate on for growth. It does take a bit of juggling when you are close to a new level to use this to its full potential but adds a bit of fun to game play.


Now that's cool....though fourth wall breaking

Overall A Phantom's Children is a dungeon crawl with a dark but well told and explored storyline attached, it's more than you would normally get in a standard game of this type so I appreciate the effort on the part of the developer. Indeed if it wasn't for the fact all the battles take place in one place I wouldn't put this in the dungeon crawl category at all, it simply has too much of a story for that narrow definition. The battles do need to be balanced, as they become uncomplicated and repetitive quickly, some of the mapping could do with a polish, and those switch puzzles need to indicate what they opened. This game isn't going to stick in the mind as one of the classics, but it's an honest effort with some nifty game play additions and a feel good vibe.

It's just a shame about the game breakers (otherwise this would have been a 3).

Bis veer un treff!*

*Goblin for until we meet again