Phantaruk
Review
In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream... Again.
by Quinn Levandoski
reviewed on PC
Lost in Space... Again
Awaking with fuzzy eyes, crouched down on a dirty metal floor, Your journey in Phantaruk begins in medias res of some sort of catastrophe aboard a derelict space ship. Its not clear what exactly is going on, but between the alarms sounding, bloody walls, and broken equipment its clear that it isnt good. Ill admit that I had to roll my eyes a bit when I first started the game. Its not like theres anything wrong with the setting, but a mysteriously messed up spaceship with grungy grey walls seems to be to indie horror games what WW2 was to first person shooters of the mid 2000s. But hey, if a games good I suppose it doesnt really matter- its just got a longer way to go to make itself memorable.
Phantaruk doesnt waste much time with exposition before throwing you into the thick of it. As you stumble out of what appears to be a stasis or test tube, youre immediately given instructions to head to another part of the ship. An easy enough task, but youre also warned by the alarm system to Avoid contact with infected subjects. Immediately with this first instruction, and indeed with much of the rest of the game, its not really clear why youre doing what you're doing and going where youre going. Id often find myself unsure what the point was of heading somewhere, unlike more focused horror games which create a concrete objective for which the main character is navigating their dangerous terrain. It didnt help that most of the environments in the game stay as relatively boring and cliche as the beginning. Again, its not that things are particularly ugly or or the artistic direction is bad. Its just that Ive played a hundred games that have looked exactly like this, which makes things feel stale- especially when its the case for most of the entire game.
A Tale of Gods and Monsters
That being said, for as relatively bland as I found the environment, I actually did like the narrative that unfolds over the course of the game. Theres plenty to discover. Who, or what, exactly are you, and why were you on the ship to start with? What exactly happened to the crew? What is the titular monster, Phantaruk, and why is he reigning hell on these poor people? Most of these questions are answered through data pads and aural diaries, and theyre intriguing enough that it largely kept my interest. The voice acting for the audio logs is pretty solid, and adds gravitas to the outbreak of the current predicament. Early in the game youll learn a bit about the creature Phantaruk, A deity scrapped together from the pieces of discarded religions. Is it really a god? A demon? An alien, or perhaps a science project gone wrong? Thats for you to figure out, but its a pretty foreboding piece of prose either way.
Phantaruks gameplay will be familiar to anyone whos played the fantastic Alien: Isolation. As you traverse the ship to do various things, youll constantly have to worry about the whereabouts of Phantaruk itself. Its not not nearly as deep of a system as the xenomorph in the aforementioned, but its effective nonetheless. It largely sticks to a predetermined walk path, but can sometimes pop up in places you dont expect-largely when entering a new sub-section of the ship. I felt that there were few inconsistencies in the monsters detection, but for the most part things worked pretty well. If I have a gripe with the system, itd have to be that when you get close to Phantaruk the music swells and a visual distortion is added to the screen. It works to add tension, but the distortion effects the middle of the screen enough that it can be hard to see things that you need to see to effectively escape. If it stuck more to the peripherals itd be much less of an annoyance.
Map Design Woes
After playing Phantaruk for some time, it becomes clear that there are some fairly annoying issues with the games map design. In a game largely focused on stealth and avoidance, a player needs to be able to know where theyre going and how they can utilize the environment to their advantage, and this often isnt the case here. I got turned around quite a few times because theres no map, no objective markers, most of the hallways look pretty much the same, and many paths loop back on themselves. I totally dug trying to sneak around and avoid Phantaruk, but it becomes a chore when I had to replay sections because I have no idea where a certain room or object is. Thats not adding challenge to the game, its poor map design. Good maps in games like this may make the players think or analyze to figure out where to go, but there are subtle hints to keep it from becoming guesswork. Its not just navigation either, sometimes its not clear what exactly youre even looking for. Towards the beginning of the game, for example, I finally cleared a large area only to find out that I needed an ID card to progress. There wasnt any indication where one of these cards might be found, and I hadnt been told earlier to be on the lookout for one. This made me spend a bunch more time tracking one down, which wasnt a ton of fun. This becomes worse considering the games toxin gameplay element, which makes you find antidote syringes every so many minutes or succumb to toxins building in your body. Its actually a pretty a cool system that adds pressure to progress, but doesnt meld well with confusing navigation.
Foreboding or Forgettable?
Theres a really cool game with some interesting concepts buried somewhere in Phantaruk, but its hidden under some unfortunate negatives that kept me from having as much fun as I was really close to having. Despite not being the case, Phantaruk feels like a game still in beta, needed some more time, attention, and polish. I like the concept quite a bit, and there are a few other games out there that prove it can be done extremely well, but there are just too many issue here holding back the things the game does well for it to be an easy recommend.
6.5
fun score
Pros
Interesting narrative, predator/prey gameplay is largely effective
Cons
Largely forgettable setting, some seemingly pointless objectives, poor level design.