While at this year's Anime Expo I had the chance to check out two games from Gumi; the second game you'll hear about later today, but for now let's focus on Phantom of the Kill. Phantom of the Kill is very different from typical mobile games. In a way it represents the new breed of mobile games and it's clear that gumi understands that to be truly successful in the mobile area you need to put in the work on a game just as if you would a console or PC release. Phantom of the Kill's intricacy begins with the story which follows a group of assassins that have lost their memories. They're actually weapons that have taken on a human form, but not before they were scattered all over. The different pieces are trying to essentially come together and regain their memories which makes battles interesting. If you loose then someone else gets your memories, but if you win then you get their memories.

The game itself is a strategy RPG, but built for mobile. Like most RPG's you move the characters in your party (which can be rather large) and they each have a grid that they can move within on their turn. The turns are actually interesting because you can start by moving anyone in your part in any order that you want.

Personally the aspect I liked was the fragments of these "weapons" aka the assassins and that you can collect the same one and combine them to unlock memories, but then also improve them.

The battle system shifts the characters into a "super cute" mode which gives fans the best of both worlds. As you can see on this article the character design is great and kind of touches on all the female tropes associated with anime, manga and Japanese video games. There's more to the battles though as there's a paper, rocks, scissors style of combat in which certain weapons do better against enemy match ups.

Overall the game doesn't seem like it would require you to constantly play and that you could pop in and out. There are in game purchases, but as most developers are finding you can't just expect everyone to buy their way up so the developers were aware of that and made an experience that could still be fun even if you're not buying. The game is set to release this year and frankly looks pretty fun.

If all of this isn't enough for you then you should know that Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii was the editorial supervisor for the opening movie for the game. At any rate, check it out and the screenshots on this article. Otherwise all you need to know is that it'll be out on iOS and Android platforms.

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