Little over a week ago, the survival horror game Phantasmal went live on Steam. Creator Joe Chang describes it as a horror game where no two play-throughs are the same, where every level is randomized and you can never fully rely on your previous experiences to guide you through it. Phantasmal draws from fond memories created by classics like Dead Space and Silent Hill, even going so far as to include a Sanity meter linked to your health, where spending too long in the dark starts to have a negative affect on your character, blurring your vision. After all, you know what they say about staring into the abyss right? If you’d like to know more about the actual plot and content of the game, check out our previous coverage from 2014, because right now I’d like to talk about its reception amongst the people who are actually paying for it. How’s Phantasmal holding up?
Its Steam Status is ‘Mostly Positive’ with 147 reviews as of today, 34 of which are negative. But the positive isn’t enough to outweigh the negative, unfortunately. Lackluster combat and an incredibly buggy system seem to be the main complaints and the latter is a perfectly valid critique for a game that’s charging 15 dollars and has had since 2015 to fix the issue. Destructoid breaks it down in incredible detail, but for those seeking a short summary we’ll be turning back to the reviews left by people who spent the money on the product.
Requested a refund after an hour of gameplay. Great concept, horrible execution. PS2 style graphics (the pictures above really try hard to hide that.) Difficult to play because of the horrible controls and level design, and even harder to enjoy.
