Phantom Spark Review

I’ve always loved the fast, futuristic racers and the feeling of getting in the zen-like flow state; the track-side detail and other racers blend into a blur as my sole focus is on the few meters in front of me and my craft. When it goes well, it’s a great feeling, and one Phantom Spark aims to achieve at every turn – and does so quite successfully in my eyes.

Phantom Spark features three domain, each with ten main courses helmed by a unique character. They provide a bit of exposition, but to be honest it’s all light and throwaway enough to just skip by. We unlock each new track by beating the previous one, and along the way also access harder challenge levels that really test our skills.

Each track begins with a flyover of a few key areas, though this is more to show of the lovely art style than anything. Rather than being counted down and starting at the whistle, we can start the race whenever we’re ready, our Spark craft raising off the floor and shooting off. It’s a small but welcome touch, sticking with the games chill-out feel. The characters of each area occasionally pop up oo congratulate a good corner or fast checkpoint, and regularly reiterate that there’s no penalty for failure so just give it a go and try again if you crash.

The actual racing blends this tantric approach with some blisteringly fast movement and challenging course designs. There’s no need to worry about upgrades, differentials, weight, or any of that gubbins. Instead, our craft just gradually gains speed as long as we hold the accelerator down. Reaching the the top end of the speed indicator at the bottom of the screen sees our craft moving at eye-watering speed, and it’s in these moments that zen-like feel comes into play. Weaving around a corner before blitzing down the straight and over a jump feels rewarding, as does just saving ourselves from grinding along a wall and preserving our speed.

Courses feature all manner of tight turns, jumps, boosters, split paths and more, so occasionally we need to pump the brakes or let off the accelerator. While necessary to properly corner, it’s always disheartening to see our speed meter start to tumble, and there’s a real need to get it going back in the right direction.

Optimising paths to keep that speed up is Phantom Spark‘s bread and butter. Each course is played at least twice, with the first run being a solo effort to simply learn the in’s and out’s. Beat that, and we’re challenged by the area’s character. In this, we get not only their ghostly craft as a guide and challenger, but our own ghost from the trial run. It’s another smart idea that help with refining our attack, watching where we went wrong as well as where the AI goes to try and better our own racing line. We need to at least beat the AI racer to proceed but take as many cracks at it as we like. There were many times, especially in the latter courses, where I felt as though I was on the home stretch only for the AI to suddenly speed past me. Studying their routes made it possible to beat them, even if actually pulling it off stills requires quick reflexes and skill.

We don’t have to move onto a new track once we’ve beaten them though. There are extra challenges to request from them that give us faster ghosts to learn from, as well as three medals to unlock for beating par times on each. These feed into unlocking cosmetic changes to the craft only, though I must admit to not really noticing between which design I had on after a few seconds as I was solely focussed on the race at hand.

Online leaderboards feature here, though personally I’ve never been one to get all that invested in these outside of challenging friends. It’s a nice touch for those that do want to try and prove their mettle, but if that doesn’t float your boat either then Phantom Spark is still a fun, albeit slight, game. Local splitscreen might be more appealing if you have someone at home to challenge.

Conclusion

Solo players will definitely find some challenging fun here, and I have found myself trying to beat a few of my own times, but I’m not sure how much I’ll return to it over time to test my skills. Some of the tracks I cannot see how I can go any faster, and unless some of my online pals pick it up and get into it the online random leaderboards aren’t enough to keep me coming back.