Phantom Breaker Battle Grounds Ultimate Review – The Ultimate Button-Mashing Showdown!

by Jim Smale · April 22, 2025

Our Phantom Breaker Battle Grounds Ultimate Review brings fast-paced, retro-inspired brawling action to the forefront, delivering a chaotic yet satisfying beat-’em-up experience. But does it live up to its “Ultimate” title, or is it just another nostalgia-driven fighter? Dive into our in-depth review to uncover its strengths, weaknesses, and whether it’s worth adding to your collection.

Phantom Breaker Battle Grounds Ultimate Review Pros:

Decent pixel art graphics.
1.56GB download size.
Platinum trophy.
You get the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5 versions of the game.
English and Japanese voice choice.
In-game manual for attacks, combos, and explanation of mechanics.
You can remap the controls; each player (up to four) can customise and remap their controls.
14 playable characters.
Two ways to play – online and local.
Four game modes – story, arcade, Co op mode, and battlegrounds mode.
Story mode has four characters to choose from, and you can set their color and game difficulties (easy/normal/hard/nightmare/nightmare plus).
Side-scroller beat ’em up gameplay.
It is a 2D side scroller, but you can press a button to go up to another lane within the level.
Full combo counter.
Enemies drop gems, food, and coins.
Arcade presentation.
The end of the level breakdown shows the score and expenses earned.
Cutesy backdrops.
A wide variety of enemies from thugs to businessmen, bike riders, flying drones, and more.
End of stage boss fights.
Skill tree and stats for each character that you put earned skill points into.
Breakable objects that can drop food for health.
Profile card can be customised, and it shows on the screen.
Unlock and use new powers and abilities.
Level up between levels in the story mode.
Bonus mini-games in between certain levels in the story mode.
Each character has their own ending.
Online leaderboards.
You get a rank for PvE and PvP.
Four-player local multiplayer and Co op support, but up to 8 players online.
These bonus guys with sacks show up and act like the goblins in Golden Axe, whereby hitting them, they drop huge loot and food.
The rank of each character you level up carries over to each game mode.
Full stats breakdown.
Battle Grounds mode is a four-player multiplayer mode.
Co op mode is a group of you against the CPU.
Arcade mode is a case of finishing the story as fast as possible.
The profile card has an unlockable character, frame, calling card, badge 1 to 6, and a continuous. You unlock them by doing the requirements listed on each unlock.
A lot of replay value for the unlocks and customisation.
The combat is very deep with throws, guards, and cancels all part of it.
You can revive Fallen co op partners.
Two arcade mode types – score attack and time attack.
Impressive on-screen enemy count, especially on the higher difficulties.
Build up your special buy attacking enemies and use your superpowers.

Phantom Breaker Battle Grounds Ultimate Review Cons:

You get no tutorial help, just the manual.
The combat is very button-mashy.
Jumping between the lanes is not that responsive, and it takes some getting used to.
Difficulty spikes are common.
The Story mode is really repetitive; the same layout loops over and over.
No way to rewatch cutscenes and character endings.
The music did not suit the gameplay and was surprisingly bland and uneventful.
When challenging the harder difficulties, I soon realised how hard it was to block and dodge enemy attacks, as so much is going on and you cannot see tells.
Combo counter resets very quickly.
The dropped items and loot don’t hang around long.
In solo play, you only get one life regardless of the mode.
Fighting any airborne enemies is a huge stressful pain in the ass experience.
In arcade mode, you don’t get any exp if you die, regardless of how far you got.