There just isn't enough going on in Phantom Brigade
(originally posted March 13, 2023)
I've freed somewhere between 8-10 provinces at this point (25 hours) and I feel like I've seen literally everything the game could possibly throw at me. Really turned around from how positive I was feeling at the very start.
The interchangeable pilots have no growth or skill differences, so I don't particularly care about the random narrative events involving them. The story is literally just "they took it from us, and now we have to take it back", so I don't have any investment in that part either. It's just pure mech tactics, which isn't necessarily a problem, but, well...
Look, the moment to moment gameplay is pretty good, but not so good that I'm willing to do it just for its sake. There's basically no diversity in objectives; as much as the game will call out how this time you need to move fast to get the loot or this time you're trying to flush out an entrenched enemy or whatnot, you're always just going to defeat all enemy hostiles and win by default. Why would I spend 3-6 rounds making sure to claim the supply caches when I can obliterate five enemy hostiles in 2?
Battles don't generally last longer than that. My mech lineup is a high-speed scout with a shield / assault rifle, a high-boost Axe/SMG, and then two big honking guys who both just boost to a vantage point in the first round and obliterate things at range with their Heavy Vulcans. I have everyone specced out with high concussion damage to get more salvage and I have not had any major issues with this strategy for the past 8-ish hours.
Is it partly my fault for sticking with a cheese strategy? Probably. But the game doesn't incentivize me doing otherwise. The reward for battles is just more mech pieces, 80% of which will get dismantled into the resource pile for the slate of not-terribly-interesting base upgrades. Oh boy, my sensor radius is bigger? Huzzah.
Just a real shame, you know?
UPDATE: I got annoyed enough about this that I wrote a short story
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