The reboot of X-COM redefined the strategy-RPG landscape. Many of the things it did before have been done in other games, but the specific combination of gameplay mechanics and style have created an entire genre of spiritual copies. This ranges from X-COM in the Wild West-style games to the utterly bizarre combination of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. Despite this, however, there is still plenty of room for the genre to grow. Phantom Doctrine showcases how much room there is for the genre to develop, but it's also a great example of how tough it can be to hit all the marks that X-COM does so successfully.

Phantom Doctrine is set during the Cold War. Players take on the role of either a KGB or CIA agent who discovers that a mysterious third organization is manipulating the world for its own gain. This forces them into a tangled web of conspiracies and mysteries, and they must find a way to root out the dangerous threat to world security before it eliminates them. It's a standard but engaging story that leverages the Cold War paranoia and sense of danger.  The plot doesn't redefine the genre, but there are so few Cold War espionage titles in general that it's easy to enjoy.

The Cold War styling is the focus of the metagame in Phantom Doctrine. You spend a good chunk of your time at your secret base, where you can manipulate the world to protect yourself and discover the conspiracy that's plaguing the world. You can do this by hiring, upgrading and equipping agents, spending money to gain intel, sending agents into the field to complete missions, and even researching brainwashing techniques that allow you to do everything from breaking an enemy's will to turning them into a secret double agent.

It's a fun metagame that I found to be more engaging than X-COM's similar style. There's always something to do. Is there an agent at risk of being discovered by enemy forces? Forge them a passport and a new identity. Do you know that something big is going down? Spend some time preparing so when you go into missions, you have snipers for backup. The coolest part is probably the conspiracy board, where you have to form bizarre Alex Jones-style connections between various code names using intel that you've gathered. Gather enough to form a logical chain between seemingly random and unrelated things, and you advance the plot. It's basic, but it feels so tone-appropriate that it doesn't matter.

Phantom Doctrine's combat system is basically X-COM. It has the same grid-based movement, the same Overwatch mechanic, etc. One thing I really appreciate is that the game moves away from X-COM's annoying random damage numbers. Instead, every character has an Awareness meter, which is sort of a shared resource that both fuels special abilities and represents your ability to avoid damage. If your Awareness is low, you will take damage. However, the same goes in reverse, and manipulating enemy Awareness to assure damage is infinitely more fun than having a perfectly planned shot ruined because your trained sniper somehow missed.

Phantom Doctrine's missions stand out due to their heavy emphasis on stealth. Unlike X-COM, where stealth is pretty much impossible, Phantom Doctrine gives the players a lot of tools for sneaking around. It's possible to finish entire missions without ever getting into a conflict. You can even go in disguise and walk through dangerous areas in relative safety. This is both a benefit and a flaw. The positive is that well-executed stealth is fun and captures the espionage feeling of the game. It's a blast when you succeed on a mission through wits and ingenuity instead of gunplay — at least the first dozen times. The flaw is that after a while, stealth gets a bit dull. It slows down the pacing of missions, and the challenge of stealth never really scales linearly.

To be honest, this is true of most of Phantom Doctrine. The combat is interesting but quickly becomes repetitive.  Once you figure out a few of the winning tactics, basically every fight and every encounter play out the same way. There are some attempts to add variety to the mission lineup, but they don't do much to change how you play the game. There are some cool gimmicks, such as the ability to plant a mole in enemy forces who swaps over to your side. There isn't a real reason to go through all that trouble. Stealth can be incredibly overpowered with the right lineup of skills, and that can make it oddly disappointing, the tension draining in favor of repetitiveness.

The result is a game that drags. When you're experiencing the high points of Phantom Doctrine, it's exciting and fun. When you're trying to kill yet another nameless enemy agent or slowly sneaking through yet another bland mission, it loses its appeal. The campaign is easily 40-50 hours long, but faster pacing and a 25-hour campaign would've made it a game that's worth repeat playthroughs. X-COM's pacing is fast enough that you rarely go very far before a new exciting twist is revealed. Phantom Doctrine has the habit of dragging out the downtime longer than necessary.

Visually, Doctrine looks nice for a title made by a smaller developer. It doesn't look quite as nice as X-COM 2, but it leverages the art style and atmosphere very well to create a game that is dripping with Cold War aesthetics. The loading times are a bit extreme, unfortunately, but it doesn't drag down the game too much. The voice acting is mediocre. I wasn't very impressed by it, and it lessened the impact of some of the story scenes. Overall, it's fine and does its job well.

Phantom Doctrine's biggest issue is that it compares unfavorably to X-COM. That doesn't make it a bad game, but it emphasizes X-COM's tight design. With Phantom Doctrine, you end up feeling like everything's a touch too unfocused. The metagame is interesting but messy. The combat is filled with interesting ideas but weaker execution. A lot of this may sound really negative, but I had fun with Phantom Doctrine. Fans of X-COM-style games will absolutely find it to be worth playing; it just has so much potential that it's easy to zero in on the little things that it does wrong. Hopefully, for a sequel, the developer can polish up the flaws to create a true competitor to Firaxis's sci-fi adventure.

Score: 7.5/10