Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate Hands-On Preview: You can play as a truck

A side-scrolling beat 'em up can feel like a bit of a lost art nowadays. A product that benefitted most from arcades and local gameplay, they can still prove to be a lot of chaotic fun nowadays, and it's a shame we don't see more of them, or it's a shame we don't see more like Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate.

I didn't really know what to expect when I stepped into the booth for this game. It was my last appointment at Gamescom, and one of a handful of pure hands-on gameplay sessions. I had no familiarity with the franchise, nor with the characters or even the anime that some of the characters were based on. But, as soon as the controller was put in my hands and we dropped into the pretty, pixelated streets of Tokyo, I knew what the objective was. Start punching.

As with most side-scrolling beat 'em ups, you'll tackle a series of enemies as you stride through a level with light attacks, heavy attacks, and special attacks. Of course, to be most effective you'll have to chain these into combos. All the while in Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate, you're building up your meter, which you can use to absolutely decimate a group of enemies with a powerful attack.

With the three players we had during the demo, it proved to be that perfect kind of beat 'em up chaos where you're not quite sure where you are until you see an enemy fly across the screen from your general direction. It was a lovely bit of button-mashing fun, though it is worth noting we were playing on an easier mode and at the start of the game you're given access to absolutely every ability under the sun. So, it was an understandably easy experience, but if you're not just wanting to relax on some couch co-op, you can turn up the difficulty to put your battling skills to the test.

Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate comes with a fair few big changes from the base game. As well as updated visuals and gameplay, the villainous characters in the game will also be playable. Unfortunately they weren't unlocked for the preview build, but it definitely feels like a good dose of nostalgia when you can see a massive list of unlockable characters raring to go. A personal favourite was certainly the truck, as I just can't imagine how you would even play that thing. It takes up about a third of the screen.

Gameplay is fast and frenetic in Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate. As with a lot of beat 'em ups, you're not given many moments of respite before you're off to the next area of the level, battering the next group of enemies. As the combat is really easy to pick up, though, I never felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff happening at any one time. You hit hard and can take a fair few hits as well, meaning you don't have to be a perfect combo machine in order to get by. The pixelated backdrops and character models blend a great mix of nostalgia with a modern flair as well, popping with vibrant colours and stand-out designs.

I am by no means the person most qualified to speak on Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate. But, from what I got to play at Gamescom this beat 'em up was a straightforward bit of button-mashing fun. The type of game we all think we played in our youth but brought up to modern gameplay standards, it was a great time to get to know this game and franchise in this upcoming remake.