Phantom Fury Review - Bowling Bombs Away

Ah, Ion Fury. It's a game I remember as fondly as my time with Dusk, Amid Evil, and other modern-day boomer shooters. Certainly, if there was a hall of fame for such games, Ion Fury's Shelly Harrison would deserve a spot. Years later, we're now getting a new, action-packed shooter with Harrison once more as our hero: introducing, Phantom Fury.

Unlike Ion Fury, which utilized a modified version of the classic Build Engine, Phantom Fury pays homage to late 90s and early 2000s shooters with its more open level design and high-fidelity graphics. If Ion Fury paid homage to legendary titles such as Duke Nukem and Shadow Warrior, Phantom Fury looks to do the same for Half-Life, Deus Ex (2000), and Quake II.

A New Look for the Bombshell Herself -- Phantom Fury's Got Style

Ion Fury was a gorgeous game, with a graphical style so faithful to its forefathers, that one could mistake it as a much older game. Phantom Fury follows that similar trend by leaning into a wonderful, low-poly style. The result is, once more, an experience that feels undeniably retro, but there's a nice coat of modern polish to keep everything looking crisp and clear.

Lighting, for example, is done exceptionally well in Phantom Fury. The brighter environments are radiant and filled with great color to give off a slightly cartoonish look. However, there are plenty of dark and decrepit corridors and dysfunctional facilities to explore, with only little bits of light from the various tech illuminating your path.

These techniques are ones only a modern game could pull off, but the retro charm is still there all the same. There's always an excitement to retro shooters, when you're exploring. These games thrive off of unique and appealing level design, and Phantom Fury has a nice mix of areas.

Key Cards Galore in Phantom Fury

Expect to shoot your way through desert labs a la Black Mesa, giant military bases, and even back to the streets of Chicago in Phantom Fury. While you will not be left unsatisfied with the variety here, I ran into a few issues with the level design overall.

First and foremost, some levels cause a pretty significant dip in frame rate, depending on whether you're in outside areas or not. There are a lot of different elements likely contributing to this load, like a staggering amount of enemies and, as I mentioned, post-processing effects and shadows.

Other than the sheer graphical load some levels require, though, I found myself having a difficult time finding where to go. There aren't enough clear indicators for players that yes, this is your next objective and you need to move forward by going down this path. Much of my time in levels was meandering around after combat, not necessarily knowing where to go next.

Like any other classic shooter, key cards are often an object you need to move forward, and it can be very tricky to spot these. You might also need to turn a valve or press a button here or there, but again, this isn't denoted very clearly, so some accessibility features or better visual cues in this regard would be appreciated.

However, I can also appreciate the design choice to make your path forward a bit more ambiguous. Often, you'll need to crawl through grates or access computers to learn passwords in order to proceed. These little immersive sim elements help make Phantom Fury stand out among other shooters. When you know where you're going, Phantom Fury's a wonderful time.

Conversely, the last few levels were a bit disappointing and felt a bit rushed. The immersive sim elements are ditched in favor of a straight-up, mindless shooter. You'll fight waves and waves of enemies with little break between. And look, I love the gunplay, but solving some light puzzles and interacting with the environment was, for the most part, fun in earlier levels.

What We're All Here For -- Phantom Fury's Guns

Though you have these exploratory elements sprinkled through Phantom Fury, the real crème de la crème is Phantom Fury's gunplay. With an arsenal full of familiar and brand-new weapons, Slipgate Ironwork's expertise in the field of first-person shooters was not wasted in this game.

The arsenal is quite robust, with a wide array of pistols, shotguns, explosives, and more to choose from. Returning weapons from Ion Fury were wonderful to see. That game's roster of guns and other gizmos was nothing short of perfection, so to see the return of such classics like the bowling bomb and Loverboy was incredibly satisfying.

Shelly Harrison is synonymous with her iconic revolver, the Loverboy, with its ridiculously large cylinder and ability to lock on and target multiple enemies in succession. Other fan favorites like the SMG Penetrator and Ion Bow function exactly like they did in Ion Fury.

Though, Splitgate aimed to diversify the roster a bit by including weapons of their own, including a brand-new pistol, assault rifle, and more. While I loved to use the returning weapons from Ion Fury, these new weapons are equally satisfying and I used them often.

The feedback from these weapons are insanely good, with the base pistol having a wonderful shooting animation and sound to accompany it. It packs a surprising punch, as do all the other new weapons in Phantom Fury's roster.  Not a single weapon felt unsatisfying to use, which is the best compliment FPS can receive.

To mix things up a bit more, you have the ability to upgrade weapons at kiosks found throughout levels. This alters the way weapons behave and adds even more variation to a great arsenal. You can also do the same for your suit and bionic arm (though I rarely used it), so there's a good sense of progression as you make your way through these levels.

In terms of enemy variety, you'll see a lot of the same foes throughout. Zombies, goons with guns, and mutants abound. Still, it's diverse enough that gunplay doesn't ever feel stale, even if those last few levels I mentioned feel a bit like a slog.

Phantom Fury Review | Final Thoughts

I didn't even touch on the dozens upon dozens of interactable objects within the game world. You can mess around with so many different mundane objects "just because," but even more impressive are fully functional pinball and arcade machines, air hockey, bowling, and much more. The end result shows a lot of love and care was put into Phantom Fury.

While it's an ambitious game to include all these elements, Phantom Fury buckles under the weight of its ambitions. It's an incredibly fun game when it needs to be, but the bugs I encountered certainly marred the experience. There were more than a few softlocks, bugs, and glitches on top of the unpredictable performance.

Phantom Fury isn't without flaws -- mostly on the technical side of things -- but I definitely enjoyed going through the campaign. With some fixes and perhaps a DLC expansion in the same vein as the fantastic Ion Fury: Aftershock, I have no doubt Phantom Fury will go from a good game to a great one.

Phantom Fury was reviewed on PC with a code provided by the publisher over roughly 11 hours of gameplay. All screenshots in this review were taken by the reviewer during gameplay.