Phantasmat: Curse of the Mist – Review

Ever since Eipix took over the Phantasmat franchise, the series has gone through many ups and downs. While some installments were solid, a handful were pretty rough. Following the glory of the previous installment Insidious Dreams, Curse of the Mist plunges the Phantasmat name to a new low. During a bonfire night on your camping trip, your friends have gone missing in the mist and you were abducted by a creepy man. You woke up in an ominous mansion, where you were free to roam about. Can you find your friends, confront the madman, and escape from this prison?

Phantasmat: Curse of the Mist must be one of the slowest and most unexciting Eipix games ever. Throughout the game, the storyline went nowhere and lost our interest with just one chapter in. The characters failed to establish any emotional connections with us and frankly, we did not care whether the protagonist survives or dies. It feels as if Curse of the Mist strives to be a haunted house-themed game without the “haunted” part. As a result, the plot turns out to be unnecessarily convoluted and pointless.

Eipix is usually adept at creating vivid visuals, but they even disappoint this time around. The quality of the graphics in Phantasmat: Curse of the Mist is indeed decent. However, there is something unnatural and stiff about the visuals, especially with the cutscenes. Thus, we found it hard to get engaged in a world that feels as artificially-generated as this one.

Phantasmat: Curse of the Mist goes slightly beyond expectations with its gameplay. While the adventure, the tasks, and the hidden object scenes are nothing to write home about, the puzzles are rather fascinating. The level of difficulty of these puzzles is above what we are used to from Eipix, some are particularly complex and creative, and almost all of them are appropriate for the situation happening in the game.

We managed to complete the main game within three hours, which is below the standard 4-hour length for a premium HOPA. The bonus chapter acts as a prologue to the main storyline, nothing exciting. Other features in the Collector’s Edition are the usual; a strategy guide, wallpapers, videos, concept art, soundtracks, achievements, collectibles, replayable hidden object scenes, replayable puzzles, bonus Match 3 games, a souvenir room.

Phantasmat: Curse of the Mist is as flat and lifeless as can be and there isn’t even an acclaim-worthy production to save it.