I am astonished that I haven't blogged about this one yet.  This is by far one of my favorite games from the last generation.

Phantom Dust

This one holds a real soft spot in my heart as it combines everything that I find AWESOME.

I'm a big fan of the Matrix series, and I must say, this game reminds me ALOT of the Matrix for some reason, prolly cuz of the environment and the way you attack.

Before I begin rambling, I'll attempt to structure this blog for your convenience.

Story

Now I warn you, I love the story of this game and one of the HUGE aspects of this game is the story.  If you have ANY inkling to buy this game, I suggest you skip over this section as I am gonna spoil some big plot points and ruin the impact it will have when they are finally revealed in the game. So...last warning

**SPOILER ALERTS ALL AROUND**

So the game starts with a retelling of the events that lead up to the beginnings of the game.  One day, a mysterious dust appeared, blanketing the earth, wiping out most of civilization, mutating those who didn't make it and erasing the memories of those who survive.  However, while the dust took from most, to some, it gave something new.  The ability to transform their will into energy.  Those few are called Espers.  The world is more or less reduced to rubble thanks to the dust, cities have collapsed with a monsterous crater being formed, unknowing how.  There is one last refuge for survivors hidden underground (all of this starting to sound like the Matrix? ^^ )  From here, the Espers venture out into the world to search for the Ruins, the only burning memory survivors have left, so they figure if they can find it, it will lead to their salvation.

On one of the searches, the Espers decide to look in the crater for clues, and above it, suspended on bridges, they find two capsules.  Upon opening them, you and another are found, almost in a cyrogenic state.  Somehow, the other survivor can remember his name, Edgar, and as luck would have it, he has a locket around his neck with a photo of a girl.  Anything that could link back to the past, before this tragedy happened, is seen as of the utmost importance.  You and Edgar begin searching the world for clues, or memory boxes, containers which record and maintain information from their surroundings form before the dust.

Eventually you two stumble upon the girl in Edgar's locket, Freia, an independant Esper who lives on the surface world.  She pleads with you to stop your search.  Edgar, feeling a connection with her due to his locket, agrees and joins her, leaving you to return underground and tell the others.  The next time you meet with Edgar he seems like a completely different person, saying that Freia has told him that she knows of things before the dust, and that you betrayed him during that time.  He then attacks you and becomes the games antagonist.  Eventually Freia attacks you, and upon defeating her she drops the memory box that taught her of life before thedust.

**MONSTEROUS SPOILER ALERT TIME**

The memory box shows Edgar as an astronaut, on the first mission to the event horizon of a black hole.  Upon his return, he found that Earth had been decimated.  Due to his travel at relativistic speeds in order to withstand the force of the black hole, his time on the ship was only 3 days, but in Earth's standards, he had been gone for 10,000 years.  In that time, mankind had destroyed itself with some great war, leaving in its wake the ruins of mankind and that mysterious dust, likely fallout from some futuristic weaponry.

In Edgar's time left on Earth, alone with his thoughts, he found that he had gained psychic powers thanks to the dust.  With this, he created Freia and yourself, his girlfiend and best friend at the time of his departure.  After you two, the rest of the world began to follow.  The ruins were implanted as burning memories into everyones mind becase that was the last place Edgar was with Freia before he left.  Even though life is seemingly back to normal, Edgar becomes disallusioned with the worlds current state and sought to destroy it and end his suffering.  The protagonist had to stop Edgar from committing such an act, and with both possessing a great amount of power, they clashed, creating the massive crater and rendering them unconcious.  Freia put them into the capsules to protect them.

Upon finally defeating Edgar, you learn from another memory box that 10 years after Edgar had returned to Earth his body began to break down and was unable to handle the contaminative nature of the dust.  He created a replica of himself to carry on his vision, but due to his subdued state, his creation was a pessimistic shadow of his former self, driving it to go insane and eventually plot to destroy the world.  Upon learning this, the shadow Edgar can't come to terms with himself that he isn't real, and disintigrates.  It is unknown why the protagonist is able to sustain himself, as he is aware of his non-existance as well.  He goes on to carry out Edgar's wish, and recreates the world as it should be.

Gameplay

Before I get into the combat, know that there is a hubworld in a sense.  In between battles you traverse the last refuge, talking to survivors, taking on quests for them, learning new abilities etc.  The refuge is very cool, reminds me alot of Zion from the Matrix.  Basically a run down, abandoned facility, filled with all kinds of technology, giving the game a very steampunk-ish feel.

Combat is what this game is all about at its heart, but its pretty unique I want to say.  Its real time combat, in designated levels, so there is no free roam but the levels are pretty damn big.  You attack by using your telekinetic powers.  Forming swords out of thin air to attack with, throwing fireballs/lases, creating shields out of the rubble on which you stand, flight, healing, etc.  Anything you can think of for combat, this game has.  Sounds pretty standard right? Nope.  The game is actually a card battle game in a sense.  You have a *deck* of powers, with 5 types of powers, Psycho, Optical, Nature, Ki and Faith.  In order to use your abilities, you must accumulate Power, which is a 6th *type*.  You can only have 2 types of powers per deck (not counting Power)  and can only have 4 skills equipped at a time.

Your deck will materialize itself as 3 floating orbs at your starting location on each map.  Once you collect the orbs as skills, new ones will appear there within 20-30 seconds.  Some skills are one time uses, meaning, use it and it will be gone from your arsenal, while others will stay until you decide to replace them.  Its up to you how to build your deck and how to strategize, making the game very different depending on which types you specialize with.

The environments are highly destructible.  For example, if you gain the Jump ability (sends you 30 feet into the air) you will then plummet back to the ground, creating a tiny crater as you land, damaging the opponent if you land on/near them.  Floors can be broken through, bridges collapsed, walls destroyed, etc.  Its truly an awesome experience sending a fireball screaming at the opponent, knocking them to their feet and causing the floor to give way from their impact, further damaging them.

Finally, possibly the selling point of the game, is that it has multiplayer over Xbox Live!  Granted, there is a small amount of lag on hit detection, as you can see in the video I posted above this section, but its minute and other than that the experience is seemless.  Combine all of these things with the fact that it released with a 19.99 price point and you have a great game on your hands.  (not to mention this is compatible with 360 now!!)

Put simply, this game is AWESOME and I highly suggest it to anybody who enjoys a game with fun and innovative combat.