Recent reviews by Phantom Monty

People aren't kidding when they say this is a game of the year candidate. I am floored by the creativity with the teamwork needed to get through so many varied and creative obstacles. This is a very original story that suits itself well with its game design. It has great voice over work and it has impressive cinematic gameplay moments. The game does a good job of balancing death between players to limit frustration with failures.

I been playing it with my youngest daughter and she loves it a lot too. She does pretty well in understanding the teamwork needed in puzzle elements and the design of many of them are smartly designed. I highly recommend this game to play co-op.

This is the most engaging turn-based RPG I have ever played. It is crazy how it turned the Yakuza series combat into a great format for such a genre. It has actually been a long time since I played the Yakuza series so I can't reference them too much but plan on going back to them. I never finished them. I will say though, this game does a lot of things incredibly well, especially with its comedic antics. I never laughed so much because of a video game intentionally being funny. That in itself wins this games as highly recommended.
The side quests are all unique and it is the focus of the comedy while it tells a serious dramatic main story.

It does a good job of being open world like a GTA game but not overwhelming. It hits a sweet spot of giving you a lot in a dense amount of space with so many side quests and mini games. With all the lights and their colors, some areas look very cool looking and brings the space alive, especially with many NPCs walking around the city. The graphics are not incredible but are nice enough. The animation in the cutscenes are stiff. They are not as natural looking as most modern game. They are clearly using the same engine to run the Yakuza games.

It has a Persona like relationship system to enhance the relationships with your characters that can open up new attack abilities in combat and those relationships have their own stories that help develop those characters and make them more memorable. The Pound Mate System is like a hilarious take of Final Fantasy's Summons. A lot of them are ridiculous but funny. I am frankly shocked a waited so long to mark this game off my backlog.

If you still haven't played this game, do it now!

This game plays well. The story and acting is incredible. The cinematic gameplay moments are fun and the shooting mechanics work well enough. Cover doesn't always conceal you well though. The game is surprisingly short but that is actually nice breath of fresh air. Tommy's love interest is actually an attractive classy looking woman compared to most women in modern games. The biggest problem is the crashes. It happened to me plenty of times. Luckily the checkpoint save system is bearable. Its a good game with characters you bond with during your criminal activities. It is a fun ride that feels much like a Italian mafia movie.

This is a very creative game. It can get surprisingly scary. I highly recommend it. Games like this with so many innovative gameplay mechanics deserve to sell well!

This was and is a passion project for the developers. It is great and will continue to be great. This is the kind of game we expect! These games are far and few in today's generation.

If you like the Persona series, you will like this game. It has the same gameplay design managing progress with character development and leveling up through dungeons. It does it incredibly well and makes numbingly hard to decide what to tackle first and that could be your own attributes to enhance your tolerance, courage, and so on. The cast stands out as pretty memorable and the storytelling is top notch.

The graphics are gorgeous with the art style. It has the flair as done with Persona 5. The music is great and a high point. The combat is incredible and the boss battles are not cookie cutter of any past games. They are incredibly unique and takes a bit of strategy to beat. They have weakness and ways to tackle that make it designed very well.

I highly recommend this game and want this game to sell will. I want more games like this. Persona and Metaphor are incredibly unique and nothing else is like these games. It is also only Atlus producing them this style of RPG. It deserves to sell very well.

This game has bosses around every corner it seems and it is great but don't be a dumbass like me and find out after frustration with the bosses countless deaths later that you can heal yourself with the left bumper button on the controller.

Gameplay A
Graphics A+
Art Style A
Music B

For Christ Sake! Fix the grenade in the hole bug already!!!

This game is a completely underrated. Its level design structure to backtrack is done exceptionally well and its curse function is incredibly unique that adds to the environment and combat mechanics. The game is loaded with an insane amount of items, including simply rings that have multiple strengths and weaknesses. The enemy variety is pretty large, and the game oozes with scary atmosphere, especially when you get cursed, and as you are heavily cursed the music and environment changes.

The melee combat isn't its strong suit but I find it suitable, notably it being a horror game. The game also allows you to use spells which come with with negatively boost your curse meter. Once the curse better is filled, your life will drain. The game has a different weapons that have their own strengths. In this game you can bleed out or get poisoned and you can utilize that to with your own tools. The game has its own level up system which encourages you to kill to get fingers, organs, and such to level up.

The story is somewhat interesting but I haven't followed it too closely. The game is simply fun to play and explore. The soundtrack is definitely eerie which suits the game incredibly well and while I haven't finished it, there is a new game plus mode and multiple ends for this game. It is a game I can see myself playing through a second time to some degree. It is somewhat of a permadeath game, you will lose items but there are ways to keep items in multiple playthroughs. Main bosses of course will be beat and you will keep the keys you had in your last playthrough so not everything is done from scratch again.

Very highly, highly recommended for fans of atmospheric games, fans of horror games, fans of metroidvania, and fans of simply good games.

I don't know where to go. I beat the bosses necessary when I regularly played the game around two years ago. I am back and while I can't find where to go. I am still enjoying Elden Ring. Seriously, where do I go?

Update: Started the DLC and enjoying it so far. It took me forever just to find out how to get to Mohg. This just cements more how awesome Elden Ring is. The discover in this game is incredible. It is partly why I don't use guides but know I missed content via achievements.