14 DAY TRIAL // The developers of the original XCOM conquered Kickstarter with a tall order: to revolutionize, or at least revitalize the stale waters of the turn based tactical genre. The result was Phoenix Point, a game that disappointed so many fans two years ago when it was launched to PC. Now equipped with all the DLCs released since hopes to conquer the world of console gamers.
When it was launched as one of the first Epic Games Store exclusives, Phoenix Point was a mess. It was unfinished, it was full of bugs, with a bad level design, balancing issues that left the fans of the genre with a very bad aftertaste. Not only it could not compete with XCOM 2, but the fresh ideas brought on the table were implemented so poorly that it raised serious questions about the mastery of the creators. Two years later, the launch of the Behemoth Edition turns those questions into certainty.
And it is a same really because Phoenix Point has so much potential, and it bears the qualities of a great game. The Behemoth Edition does not include only the DLCs released since, but also the patches released since the launch of the PC version, an extended tutorial and the hope for redemption. Since I want to spare you from the trauma the game offers, we can start with the conclusion the developers did not learn anything from their past mistakes.
This sad but true fact is most relevant during the dog fight like battles that allow you to dust off the weaponry of your troop carriers. The system is bad, poorly explained, downright ugly and does not bring any extra engagement to the gameplay. Moreover, during these sections the PS4 version’s interface is showing the controls using the buttons from an Xbox controller. You have A instead of X and B instead of square. This obvious but that shows that the developers either did not care or were too much in a hassle to properly test the game is just the tip of the iceberg.
There are so many severe bugs starting from random crashes to the random inability to save the game that Phoenix Point Behemoth Edition seems almost unplayable, and surely unenjoyable. The experience is ruined not just by the bugs, but also by the bad porting, the console version’s control scheme feeling unnatural even after some long hours of gameplay. The menus were clearly conceived for PC and navigating them is over the hand.
The camera movement is clunky at best when it comes to change among the different layers of a level even when it is supposed to work according to the original design. Most of the time one of the bugs will make the camera control impossible, and even if you adapt to them, there are still numerous game breaking bugs that will require you to restart the levels. A pain in the but already, but if we add the unending loading time on a PS4, you can be sure that you will lose your appetite for the game sooner rather than later.
Even if played on a PS5, the loading times are often over a minute. There is no 4K resolution yet and no optimization for the current gen of consoles, so there aren’t too many improvements when it comes to running the game on a PlayStation 5 console. And even if the next-gen patch comes out some time, we cannot hope for a miracle, because Behemoth Edition proves that the developers have given up altogether on balancing the game.
This is more than obvious when you chose to launch a game with all the 4 DLCs activated. Yes, they add plenty of content and new mission types and things that should make you jump up and down excitedly, unless until you figure out that no one thought about how this DLCs will work together.
The different gameplay elements do not get along well and destroy any hope for a balanced gameplay experience. And this is a symptom that characterizes the entire Phoenix Point Behemoth Edition experience: a ton of ideas mixed together without anyone asking if it makes sense to put them together. It is a game that feels extremely rushed, put together by people suffering from ADD with a complete disregard for optimization or quality assurance.
Conclusion
For the time being, this is a bad port of a PC game that has been struggling since it was launched. Even if you are a die-hard fan of the XCOM like games, you better stay away from this one.
Preview code provided by the publisher.
