If you love Norse mythology and RPGs, Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard is a game that may interest you. Developed and published by NetMarble, Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard is a mobile game that mixes elements of your classic RPG game with Norse mythology. Oh yes, NetMarble is bringing a new game to your devices that may or may not have you face glued tothem. If you find yourself leaning towards mobile gaming, what with its ease of access and portability, you may want to consider adding Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard to your home screen to play.

According to NetMarble, Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard will come with some great features. There are supposed to be over 60 stages, over 100+ Phantoms, 6 Chapter Bosses and 3 Dungeon Bosses, and 5 different playable Heroes. With so much, it is assured that gameplay will vary per each player. You can customize your party with the Phantoms you collect and you can play as any of the Heroes to change up their stats. Plus, there are other aspects of the gameplay like Rune creation and evolving that changes stats so that you can play the game that you want.

Aside from just what is advertised, Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard also gives players a chance to summon new Phantoms every 12 hours. If you happen to log on every day, you get a bonus item, too. If you keep playing, you just might be able to unlock achievements which will give you great rewards. It’s clear that NetMarble is a company that knows the type of things players are looking for in a game.

Astrid is a pure hearted girl who has not been sullied by the world yet. She was raised by her grandfather after losing her mother and was isolated from the world. However, Astrid is beckoned to find out the truth behind her mother’s life before her and her relationship with the god Odin. She did not know it before but Astrid is meant for great things.

In Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard, players will play as Astrid and the other heroes to fight against the forces of evil that are trying to create havoc in Midgard. Along the way, Astrid will collect Phantoms to help her on her journey. Whether it’s to save the world or to find out the secrets of her mother’s past, only Astrid has the power to do it all.

The story of Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard is a rather simple story, although it is supposed to have a lot of intrigues. Astrid’s mother is a Valkyrie but what happened to her? The game goes through a series of flashbacks so that the only way for you to find out is to keep playing. While you can go through Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard without really paying attention to the story, it’s still fun to read it as it gives Astrid some purpose. Other than that, it’s not really a plot that will grab you.

Now, let’s get into the meat of this review: the gameplay. Let’s start off with the graphics. Utilizing an iPhone to play the early access version of Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard, the game displayed quite beautifully on the screen. Gone are the days when phone games had the worst displays. The game displays quite clearly and quite frankly, we did not experience much lag unless we were in an area with minimal phone service. The game design themselves are quite basic, yet visually pretty. Characters have a rather blocky appearance, but not like Minecraft. However, there is a great deal of care taken into the details of the Phantoms so that they vary in appearance so as not to confuse players.

Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard has 6 different chapters, which lead to different worlds. In each of these chapters are several sub-chapters that you will have to go through to reach the big boss. Of course, there are sub “bosses” in each subchapter in the meantime. Once you have defeated a sub boss, you are able to go back and just fight against the sub boss instead of having to clear each subchapter every time you want to fight a sub boss, which is a nice feature if you are interested in farming.

The game mechanics for Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard are quite simple like your basic side scroller. You slide your finger on the left side of the screen to get Astrid to move forward, backward, up, or down and the right side has a button that allows you to jump as needed. When Astrid is able to perform an action like picking up a lever or go through a portal, you merely have to stand where an action icon is and tap the icon (or basic area where your character is). You will have to maneuver your way through obstacles to find the portal that will lead you to the boss in each subchapter.

Despite being a side scrolling game, Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard also features battling where you and your party of Phantoms fight against other Phantoms. Turns are decided with the use of a mobility meter indicated at the top of the screen. When it is your turn, you can pick a skill to use and against who it will be used on. The basics of battle are explained on video, however, the tutorials are so basic that you barely get any real understanding of what each move is expected to do until later when you are taught how to enhance skills and you can actually find out what the explanations for each skill are.

There will be times during battle where bubbles float down from the mobility meter and you can apply a buff to your party members that may make them temporarily stronger or faster, or block attacks. Debuff bubbles will also float down that you can apply to your enemies. Despite the use of a mobility meter, this is merely some “fancy” turn based battle system. An added feature to the battle mode is the use of auto-mode which allows your characters to fight without your interference (great for farming) and being able to speed up the battles in 2x so that you don’t have to sit there and wait for each attack to be carried out.

An interesting feature of the game is the fact that you restart each battle with your HP and MP filled, even if you take damage or use MP in previous fights. This means that it’s really easy to just take a whole subchapter down in one go rather than forcing you back to farming. This is rather unusual but makes the game easier to get into since you don’t have to know too much about RPG combat to keep going forward.

Later in the game, more features will unlock such as runecrafting, which will help make the game more complicated. This gives Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard more entertainment value as you can continue to play and grind in hopes of gathering materials for any of the things you need. You can also collect Phantom souls to attain new phantoms, use to level up your current Phantoms, and obtain new playable heroes. The Phantom's collection of souls reminds us a lot of playing sonic as you capture them as you run through each sub-chapter.

You can also collect gold and gems. Gems are utilized more for bonus things like speeding up rune making. Gold has a rather limited use as it’s used to make runes or upgrade your skill-set, but even then, the number you make greatly outweighs the amount utilized. Gems and gold appear to be utilized as the currencies for the game and while you are able to purchase gold, gems, and Phantom souls, neither are very hard to attain in the game.

Like many mobile games, you need something that allows you to perform in-game actions. In Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard, this “something” comes in the form of stamina. Stamina is regenerated every 20 minutes and the higher level you are, the more you are able to stock up on. While every 20 minutes is a long time, we never found ourselves in need of stamina unless we were just spending our time grinding, but even then, you get more stamina when you level up, which tends to happen quite often.

A nice feature of Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard is its ability to make friends in the game. You can add friends via Facebook or find friends in game. These friends can be handy since they can send you 1 stamina daily for when you need it. However, since this game is in early access, we basically had no friends to exchange stamina with. Still, it’s a nice feature that is reminiscent of old Facebook game applications or even today’s Disney Tsum Tsums. You can even utilize the in channel chat to talk to others like an older styled game, however again, we found ourselves all alone here.

And now comes the important part: our thoughts on Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard. The game itself is quite enjoyable and very easy to adapt to. There’s a lot of different features involved that keep the gameplay interesting. The story itself is not that interesting, but it helps keep you engaged enough to propel your gameplay further if you need motivation.

Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard is really simple for the casual gamer and doesn’t require much of a time investment since you don’t really have to learn that much to play the game.

In terms of negatives about Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard, it really all comes down to what you want out of it. The game is just too easy for anyone who really wants to get into it. Easy games are nice if you just want to focus on the story, but here, there’s not that much meat to the story to get invested in. If you like collecting things like gold, you can do that but it’s much too easy.

If say, you are a student who doesn’t have much time to play games while at school, you can leave the phone somewhere and battle bosses nonstop while set on [Auto] and you simply have to press [Retry] every little while. This makes grinding super easy and you pick up gems, coins, and various other materials along the way. Simply put, Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard is just too easy.

Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard is not yet out for the public, but NetMarble is clearly taking great strides to ensure that gamers will get a fun RPG available at their fingertips. While Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard is not exactly mind blowing nor is it going to change the world of gaming, it has plenty of entertainment value for those waiting and will be a great game to introduce new gamers to the world of RPGs. If you are expecting Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard to be the next Final Fantasy mobile game, you will be sorely disappointed, but if you want a game that will entertain you like any other RPG might without too much commitment, Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard may suit your needs.

For those out there who are familiar with mobile gaming and mobile RPGs, do you think this game interests you? Is there anyone out there who is anticipating the release of Phantomgate: Episode of Midgard? Please share all of your thoughts in the comments below and look forward to future gaming updates!