The upcoming anime fighter Phantom Breaker: Omnia has started producing Dev Diaries, chronicling not just the history of Phantom Breaker: Omnia, but that of the franchise itself as a whole.
The dev diary is written by Sakari P, the producer of the Phantom Breaker series. The first diary is more of a history lesson on the Phantom Breaker IP, as he chronicles how the game went from Xbox exclusive to a cross-platform release.
“The ‘Phantom Breaker’ series was first introduced in 2011 with a game sharing the same title, developed exclusively for the Xbox 360. At the time, we were in discussions with a certain overseas publisher that was going to distribute the game for us”, he says.
“There were some crossed wires in communication with our partner, however, and the international version of Phantom Breaker was shelved. Personally, I was shocked by this tragedy and remained determined to somehow get this game out in front of the world using my own bare hands”.
He goes on to say that he would fix this wrong with the release of Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds. The game is a spinoff that got a simultaneous release, the first of its kind for the series.
“Luckily, “Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds” turned out to be an explosive hit, which led to ports on multiple other platforms as well as a massive update to the game. And, it still does quite well, even to this day. I cannot express how thankful I am for the support this game has received.”, he says.
Sakari would later return to the original Phantom Breaker, trying to re-release it as Phantom Breaker: Extra. However, he says they could not support it in the long run due to “budgetary constraints”.
According to Sakari, he would later discuss his problems with Phantom Breaker: Extra with one of the founders of Rocket Panda Games, and they agreed on releasing the game with even more features as Phantom Breaker: Omnia.
“In that early, whisky-scented beginning, we talked about creating a remastered version of Phantom Breaker: Extra, but after several meetings–in which I explained the world of Phantom Breaker to RPG’s CEO–one thing led to another, which ultimately resulted in some key thoughts for the game” he says. The key thoughts are as follows:
- Including Phantom Breaker: Extra’s “Situation Battle Mode” as well as the original Phantom Breaker’s story, fully voiced in English!
- Having access to the original stories would then help fans understand the relationship between Phantom Breaker / Phantom Breaker: Extra and Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds.
- Introducing new characters who were originally slated to make an appearance later in the game’s story.
- Letting fans see past illustrations that survived in the archives over the years.
Sakari says this was to help overseas fans who did not get to try the original Phantom Breaker, allowing them to fully grasp the almost decade-old game’s history.
He closes out the dev diary with gratitude for yet another chance to get fans attention with Phantom Breaker: Omnia, hoping that his game does well.