The Slacker's Guide has posted a new review of Rake in Grass' Phantasia II, a ball and paddle game in the tradition of Breakout. Building upon established foundations the game adds a few twists to the familiar genre with color matching, three different game modes, and a save feature.

From the review:

The joy of the title arrives in its gameplay. Rake In Grass did its homework and realized that they were working with a veteran genre to say the least. It would have been easy to wrap a standard shareware game around the classic Breakout style and have it claim a certain amount of attention, yet wind up melting into the background of games that have done the same. Phantasia II actually takes the original idea and makes it better. Amazing graphics, good sound, highly amusing in-game jokes, digitized screams of falling dwarves and an excellent use of color help make the game appealing while some genuinely new ideas add to the title.

First and foremost, Phantasia II is a color-matching game. Fire the ball up towards a layer of bricks and it'll turn to match that color. Hit the same color of bricks again off the rebound and a chain reaction will occur, taking out nearby identically colored bricks. Hit a different color of brick and you'll be able to wipe out that brick, but only a single brick will be wiped out and the ball will change into the color of the brick it just hit. It's this underlying principle that guides the game. From there, the rest is wide open.

It's the small things that make this game work. A ball's ricochet angle can be adjusted on the fly by clicking the left or right mouse button to change the angle of the paddle and thus open more directions to hit it in rather than hope for the right angle with brick and paddle games of yesteryear.

The Slacker's Guide: Phantasia II

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