I know discussing a game's graphics and sound components heavily strays from my usual style but they are clearly the its most striking elements. However, that doesn't mean its gameplay is poor. On the contrary, Phantom Dust is a great-playing game. Accepting missions from your fellow compatriots underground, you accompany another Esper (or more) to the surface where you must dole out some pain to the poor fools trying to make your life difficult. When you first arrive you have no attacks. Rather, there are dust capsules that you can capture, each of which allows you to obtain a different skill that's best used at either long, medium, or short distances (there are also defensive skills that work by these rules).

Combat in Phantom Dust is a cat and mouse game by which you chase after an enemy waiting for your targeting reticule to glow a certain color (green is long range, yellow is mid range, and red is close range) so you can let them have it. This is enjoyable to a point, but eventually the game degenerates into matches where you're standing on one side of the arena, your opponent on the other, and you're just firing and dodging attacks until one of you has the you-know-whats to actually charge and kill your foe. The game's single-player mode isn't as bad because the AI moves quite often, but in one-on-one multiplayer (there is Xbox Live support for up to four players at one time), that happens quite frequently.

Another neat aspect to the gameplay is the ability to earn cash from battles and use it to purchase new skills from the underground shop. From there, you're able to form multiple arsenals of skills. You can only take one arsenal at a time into battle, and while you can designate which skills comprise it you cannot dictate their order of appearance, so once the fight begins it's all a matter of luck. Not only is this ability unique because you won't know what your opponents are using, but since each skill requires a set amount of something called Aura to use, Phantom Dust has a card battle element to its gameplay, and the merging of this with its real-time 3D combat produces quite an explosive and yet strategic experience.

Once you've tired of the single-player campaign, hopping onto Xbox Live will definitely reenergize you. You're able to engage in Battle Royal and Tag Team (up to four) and one-on-one, and there are numerous rules that can be adjusted, so while you don't have many gameplay modes, the amount of tinkering you can do guarantees that you won't be continuously playing the same style of match. As for making a connection to the service and actually playing Phantom Dust, the game runs very smoothly.

In terms of complaints I only have three, none of which should keep you from buying the game, but serve to bore and irritate after playing it for several hours. I've already mentioned that the game's combat has a tendency to become repetitious, and a reason for that is the lack of arena variety. Since the game only has a handful of environments you'll see them quite often, and it's only a matter of time before watching the same pillars collapse gets old. Lastly, while you're supposed to have full control over the game's camera, there are times when it'll work against you, but those are few and far between.

Phantom Dust is a slick action adventure game whose flaws don't dampen the overall gameplay experience. It excels not only in artistic design but its battle system as well, where in order to succeed you'll need to give some thought to which skills will serve you best rather than mindlessly mashing buttons and using the same old attacks. Unfortunately, when I looked past the environmental destruction there was nothing about the combat that really wowed me, hence the game's still very respectable final score. If the game retailed for $49.99 I'd still buy it, but Majesco's decision to release it at the very affordable price of $19.99 makes Phantom Dust a steal.