As a fan of beat em ups, I have played my fair share of games in the genre. The majority of them are just time wasting fun, but some of them I won't ever stop playing. Streets of Rage 4, TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, and even the original coin-op Turtles game had me obsessed for the longest time. The latest was Phantom Breaker Battle Grounds Ultimate, and though I'm late to the party, I might be a little addicted.
Duff already gave you his thoughts and feelings about the game, so I won't drag this out. I wasn't privy to the previous games, and didn't know there was a fighting game series based on it. There are 48 characters in this game. Some are different variants of the same character. The boss is also here, and you can even be a truck. Yes, you can be a truck. The replay value here, is the fact that you have to level up all the characters individually. And if you take them online to battle, all your levels go with it. It's pointless to be in a 8 player battle royal with a level 1 character, when someone is at 100. This is a disadvantage, and you don't want to be at a disadvantage, do you? No. You don't.
The last thing that makes this beat em up different, is the game is played on two playing fields. While you have to push a button to navigate between the lanes, pushing up makes you jump, instead of helping you navigate the battleground. While you can avoid physical attacks by changing lanes, you can't always avoid supers. You block damage by tapping nothing at all, and sometimes get a perfect block. This is great for your overpowered foes, who are relentless, or have been playing this game forever. Either way, the best way to play this game, is in the harder difficulties. Nightmare mode where the screen just fills up with enemies, is organized chaos, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
If you're a fan of the series, you should definitely check it out. If you're a fan of mindless fun for hours, you should also check it out. Lobby making was seamless, and you can get through the game in no time flat, depending on how many people you gather. If you're a fan of the genre, you should definitely grab this. But now, I want to know where the other games are. And yes, I changed the dialogue audio to Japanese. What kind of a monster do you think I am?
