A lost Magitec rpg returns

Ancient Phantasma is one of the last rpgs made by Magitec and for several years it was unavailable in english. It can be seen as the cumulation of many concepts that Magitec has attempted over the course of their games.

Story: Ancient Phantasma has two story arcs defined by the leader of each group, Dean and Fleet.

Dean’s story gives us the backstory of two heroes along with a witch defeating the Demon Lord 300 years before the game begins. Dean and two other characters are the next generation of the two heroes and it revolves around them trying to figure out why there’s a resurgence of stronger monsters. As the story goes on, it’s revealed that something unexpected is going on and it’s up to Dean and Co to stop things.

Fleet’s arc happens sometime after Dean’s and the world is in a bad place due to how Dean’s story ends. The plot is more straight forward than Dean’s but, it was enjoyable for the most part. There is a good and bad ending depending on how the final boss fight goes(it’s a 2 vs 1 fight) and both lead to NG+

Gameplay/Battle System: Ancient Phantasma builds on Grace of L’etoile’s battle system with a 3 party members in battle vs up to five enemies. Instead of MP, you have SP which is shared amongst the entire party with the strongest skills costing up to 50 sp(out of 100). There are skill gems and accessories to reduce your SP costs, and there is a accessory that raises the max sp by 10 for each one equipped(up to a max of 160 sp). Normal attacks have a timing system that allows up to 3 attacks(with a max of 5 with two accessories). Skills are equipped via skill gems and having multiple of the same gem equipped gives you a stronger version of that skill.

The game slowly gives you gems with most extra copies of a gem not showing up until Fleet’s arc. Some gem combinations allows two characters to use a combination skill, these skills use more SP than either skill individually but they usually give you better targetting options. Note that the skill gems have to be on separate characters such as Stinging Gale(Character A) + Break Rush(Character B) = Cross Slash. Each character starts with a few gem slots open but, they get a new slot every 3-4 levels up to a maximum of 12 slots.

Each character has “secret techniques” which run off of the LP gauge(Fleet’s characters have two secret techniques vs Dean’s one). These techniques are incredibly powerful which is why the LP gauge refills much slower than the SP gauge however you can buy an item from the IAP shop which refills the gauge to max.

Dungeons are your standard magitec fare with winding paths alongside random encounters. Chests are color coded, green=consumables, blue=equipment/gems, and red=key items. As usual, there are damage floors but, they’re less prevalent early on compared to Chrome Wolf and Covenant of Solitude.

There are a few side quest with most being available in Dean’s Arc but, you get the rewards for doing them in Fleet’s Arc. The most important one is Dean’s first which requires you to give 10,000 gold to a NPC before finishing his arc, doing so results in the NPC opening up the game’s only Skill Gem shop during Fleet’s arc which has every skill gem aside from the two IAP gems.

IAP Shop: The IAP shop is fairly small with two optional area keys, two skill gems(multiple can be bought), some accessories, consumables and Stat crystals. Most IAP items aside from the keys, crystals and one consumable can be found in the game as you progress. The Stat Crystals are refunded to your inventory after clearing Dean’s arc and are refunded again upon starting NG+ with a max of 999 of each crystal in your inventory. The IAP dungeons contain some accessories, consumables and skill gems but, no weapons and armor(a lesson they learned from Soul Historica).

Arena: There is an arena that is first visited during Dean’s arc with the rewards from each of the three courses being IAP points(first time only). During Fleet’s arc, you can visit the arena once you get your fourth party member and they unlock new challenge fights which reward first time completion with some IAP items.

Length: Ancient Phantasma is on the longer side of most Magitec rpgs, I finished the game at 14 hours and 34 minutes after completing both IAP dungeons when they unlocked and completing all six sections of the arena.

Note: During Dean’s arc, Dean is asked about what weapon a character should be trained with. The choice results in that character being playable in Fleet’s arc with one equipment type or another. Specifically that character will have the same equipment type as Flei or Krucia.