![]() No plan survives contact with the enemy, but your mechs will stick resolutely to one anyway, firing another four shots at an already dead target. There's less need to account for every possible direction a target could go, but the volume of enemy fire makes reckless play suicidal even before considering the strategic map layer. Phantom Brigade gives you foreknowledge of the enemy's moves (as opposed to Frozen Synapse, where you also had to second guess and gamble on their behaviour), so it feels like you should decide quickly, but where I found it a little too easy two years ago, combat is now fairly punishing. Half the point of real-time, turn-based hybrids is to test your ability to coordinate and counteract. These orders fill in on a timeline at the bottom of the screen which, if hovered over, displays little phantoms on the field to demonstrate what everyone will be doing at any given movement, and where your rifleman and your shotgunner are going to run into each other, oops. Each turn, you plan exactly where they go and who to shoot at, drawing various lines on the map for movement and targeting. ![]() It's tempting to add "it's big stompy mechs innit" to that, but only a few hours in I was thinking of them as robots, so slavishly obedient are they to the timeline you set out. I am enjoying it a lot, despite some frustration. The result is a game that's taken me absolutely ages, but whose numbers suggest I'm supposed to be blasting through without a care. There's probably a metaphor in there somewhere about writing, video editing, or catering. In practice, behind those few seconds are an eternity of theorising, testing, and tweaking. You finish your turn by hitting a button that makes everyone go at once for a few explosive moments. That time is divided into five-second chunks during which you're shown what the enemy will do, and must use that to coordinate your own mechs, placing their orders on a visible timeline. According to its internal clock, battles usually take less than a minute. I'm still not entirely sure if I'm playing Phantom Brigade right. Phantom Brigade review: entertaining mech battles carry a toothless campaign​ These guys in robots
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