Phantom Spark is a phenomenally replayable time trial game

Simple and easy are two very different things, no matter how it may look from the outside. Anyone can dip a brush in paint and drag it across a canvas, but to create a painting you can be proud of requires skills honed through incredible amounts of practice. Most art is about turning a simple idea into a complicated expression, and while the end result usually says more than “look at me!”, racing is a notable exception. Each track is a new challenge for the racer, requiring them to apply their skill and style to paint the perfect line from start to finish, and few racers can demonstrate this better than Phantom Sparks.

Constant pursuit of perfection in racing

The world of Phantom Sparks is divided into three areas, each overseen by a champion who is always up for a new challenge in his time trial races. As a newcomer, you'll be taken under the wing of instructor Fwinti, whose easy-going nature makes her best suited to teach you the basics of racing. Admittedly, the basics are simple, as you pilot a floating speedster whose entire set of controls is acceleration, braking and steering. No turbo boost, no powerslide, no frills. If you want to take the top spot, there's only one way, and no tricks to make it easier: you must master speed and momentum through the corners of each course.

Related

Three tracks full of time trial happiness in the Phantom Spark demo

Phantom Spark is a time trial game with hover vehicles like in Wipeout, but the racing challenge is more similar to Trackmania.

Most of these tracks are generous with turns and obstacles. The tracks are wide enough that hitting a wall is only a problem on the longer or sharper turns, and the track design gives ample warning of the rare bottlenecks or pillars. The goal of the tracks is not to trick the player, but to get them to perform as best as they can, and while later tracks can get twisty and gravity-defying, the path always feels fair for vehicle handling. Admittedly, track features like grass that slows the ship, waterways that provide a speed boost, and mud-like sections that provide looser steering require a bit of planning to deal with properly, but the races are short enough that it's not hard to remember and adapt to them during the number of replays required to win silver.

This ranking/medal system is where Phantom Sparks starts to show its teeth. Friendly and forgiving are two different things, and if you want a Silver rank, the tracks aren't very forgiving. The generosity of the wider courses doesn't matter when you have to hold the best possible line to maintain momentum, and sacrifice as little speed as possible in the right place to avoid that painful collision with a wall. The ship's thrust gets the race off to a good start, but boost pads and downhills add to that, and don't let up until you let off the throttle. Top speed can be incredibly high if you can maintain it, and maintaining that speed will be necessary to get past Silver and even get a single Gold rank in any of the races.

The Ghost Racers are technically friends

Fortunately Phantom Sparks is as willing to teach its techniques as it is to demand of them to set a decent time. While all races are time trials from start to finish, each one features a number of ghosts to race against who, if you pay attention, will reveal new approaches to the corners and jumps that can shave seconds off your track time. The first race when unlocking a new track is all alone, no ghosts or other pressure other than seeing the track and getting a feel for its corners, but it's not properly unlocked until you've played it a second time and beat the track master. This can be either easy or brutally hard depending on how well the first run went, but there's always room for improvement and the game actively wants to show you how.

Once a track is unlocked, the champion will come back with a better time and challenge you again, but competing again is optional. The real challenger is yourself, as the ghost of your best run will always be there to show how much better you played last time while making it look easy. Just because you know you sweat blood to cross the finish line doesn't mean there isn't a better one, and a win measured in hundredths or even thousandths of a second is still a win. Any of Phantom SparksThe thirty courses of are a challenge in themselves and it may take dozens of instant restarts to achieve a run worth completing and creating that newer, tougher spirit.

Concluding remarks:

Phantom Sparks is a phenomenally replayable time trial with a relaxed atmosphere that perfectly fits the “try, try, try again” nature of the quest for a better run. The challenge lies not in brutal enemies or overly complicated courses, but in how it slowly eases the player into the quest for perfection, making the perfect run seem achievable no matter how many seconds you have to knock off the clock. Admittedly, the world building and characters are let down by the lack of a true ending, at least one that I found after beating all the courses and going back to improve the best times, but it's so easy to drop in and out for a quick game that you can hardly blame it for that. The racing feel with its near-perfect controls makes the quest for mastery easy, while the leaderboards for each course show that there's always a way to do better. The simplicity of Phantom SparksThe controls and short, easy-to-remember tracks are a welcome entry point to this racing monster, where the pursuit of a better time eventually reveals a skill ceiling that is much higher than it has any right to be.

Phantom Sparks

Verified version: PC

5.0/5

Race to get better. Race to improve yourself. Race to understand that improving your best time by a few hundredths of a second can feel like a victory.

Platform(s)

Released

Publisher)

ESRB

Per

• Fast fiber fasting
• Beautiful, quiet surroundings
• Constant encouragement to do better

Disadvantages

• Swipe along the wall in a curve and thwart a run
• I wonder what kind of monster was played back then, and oh yes, you did