Cease me in the event you’ve heard this pitch earlier than: a warrior is summoned to a different world to combat hordes of enemies within the identify of a deity usurped by an evil pressure. Yeah… however whereas its story and its boss fights is likely to be phoned in, Warriors: Abyss nonetheless manages to confidently put the “1v1000” spin of its Dynasty Warriors roots onto the tried and true room-to-room roguelite template of video games like Hades, and that’s one thing I haven’t seen fairly as many occasions earlier than. Mixed with probably the most intensive rosters of characters I’ve seen on this style, a easy but impactful improve system, and display screen-filling particular assaults, this new roguelite managed to get a minimum of a good variety of these good previous “only one extra run” hooks in me earlier than its story trailed off.
Undoubtedly, the 100-character roster is the strongest a part of Abyss as a result of they perform as each playable characters and as summonable upgrades who be part of your hero as you go. With a number of characters rounded up from Samurai Warriors and Warriors Orochi, that features characters like Nobunaga Oda and Goemon Ishikawa to hitch forces with iconic Dynasty Warriors characters Zhao Yun, Cao Cao, Solar Jian and dozens extra. After taking up a 3rd of them for a spin, I’ve gravitated in direction of characters with particular talents or ones I’ve favored in previous video games: Guan Yu, Liu Bei, and particularly Lu Bu, who makes defeated enemies explode and deal harm to different enemies close by. Whereas every run by no means actually felt all that totally different from the final, even when venturing exterior my favorites, I nonetheless loved the sensation of when my construct got here collectively to deal huge harm or overwhelm my enemies with a number of standing results.
Sadly, the story by no means did. I typically struggled to attach with it because of the method each dialog doled out after defeating a boss is proscribed to largely monologues from the ousted ruler of the underworld.
Regardless of Warriors: Abyss having a forged of 100 playable characters, or possibly slightly due to that, none of them get an opportunity to shine. Each alternative for dialogue offers choices that both say the identical factor two methods or lead to a really comparable response, so there aren’t any attention-grabbing choices to make and the characters are interchangeable. The outlets and random occasions that happen throughout runs are additionally devoid of different characters, so even these had been wasted alternatives so as to add a little bit little bit of persona to the story.
After the minimal setup you might be despatched out to clear 4 levels, every consisting of eight rooms and ending with a harder however uninspired boss battle. There’s an ogre, a skeletal griffin, and different supernatural issues and whereas that is extra inventive than we sometimes get in a Warriors sport they by no means managed to wow me. The principle problem, although, is that even when they’d wild visible designs each boss battle would nonetheless play out the identical method, with telegraphed assaults and rechargeable obstacles to be damaged earlier than you possibly can harm their well being bar. You don’t should look very onerous to search out isometric motion video games with bosses which are extra exterior the field than this.
Downing one for the primary time triggers a really quick dialog in regards to the lore, however that is about it, and none of those chats had been revelatory or supplied any conclusion – together with the ultimate one. It primarily simply ends with a “You gained!” like an arcade sport from the Nineteen Eighties.
Nevertheless, the large evil continues to be right here, and we’d like you to proceed preventing till it is eradicated. And that is anticipated, because the nature of roguelites is to clear a number of runs earlier than getting some grander decision. However at this level I’ve performed for over 40 hours and accomplished over 30 runs with 20 totally different characters, every of which taking 45 minutes to an hour, and there’s no finish in sight and even any trace I’m making progress towards it.
Fortunately, the massive roster of characters and entertaining fight saved the repeated runs gratifying, even when the story wasn’t there. Each time you beat a room you have got the chance to recruit somebody into certainly one of your six slots, they usually work one thing like boons in Hades besides you possibly can swap individuals out and in between rooms as soon as they’re in your stock. There are additionally 30 totally different unlockable formations to select from that add depth to your choices, like empowering characters positioned in odd-numbered slots or enhancing your primary hero’s stats primarily based on what number of of a sure elemental emblem you’ve collected that run.
By altering who I performed as and which warriors I used to be recruiting to help me on every run, there’s sufficient selection to maintain issues attention-grabbing. Whereas every character makes use of comparable sufficient variations for fundamental combos that studying to play a brand new one is simple, all of them include a set of traits that match their backgrounds; combos of emblems for stats or components like Power, Velocity, Hearth or Ice; a particular assault they use when summoned as an ally; and eventually a passive buff providing issues like summoning further characters, growing the assault energy of their particular transfer, or buffing your primary warrior’s emblems or traits. Additionally they have unlockable distinctive weapons that give everlasting buffs to their proprietor and act as one thing to chase past the story.
Abyss additionally does an important job of changing the standard Dynasty Warriors fight into one thing extra flashy to suit the extra fantasy-primarily based setting. Each character has their varied regular and cost assault combos, and new summoning assaults, these fundamental strikes feed the Assemble bar that powers the brand new assemble assault at a fast and satisfying tempo. And in the event you execute a musou transfer whereas it’s energetic, it unleashes a room-clearing explosion that by no means didn’t get me out of a tough scenario or put a bow on high of a battle.
In observe, although, the 100 warriors don’t combat all that otherwise. Exterior of some characters with distinctive particular assaults, most deal certainly one of 5 elemental harm varieties by creating zones of AoE harm, summoning tornadoes that pull enemies in, or conjure elemental blades from the bottom. A choose few grant buffs or inflict debuffs, and that is just some of the choices accessible. However although summoning assaults and sure passives are repeated throughout the roster with solely slight variations, there’s sufficient selection there that I discovered I might simply create some degree of synergy whatever the warriors I had accessible on a run.
There are some inventive combos you possibly can pull off. And, as soon as you’ve got recruited six heroes, you unlock the Assemble Assault, which is as highly effective as it’s cool trying.
That mentioned, Abyss swings its issue pendulum from pretty tough to too simple relying in your progress by way of the meta-development between runs. Your first few runs of any roguelite are supposed to be almost insurmountable: you deal low harm to bosses and take quite a bit till you construct up your assault and protection stats. Wanting on the development tree for character unlocks, that’s fairly fast and simple to do as you choose a path and unlock your favourite characters or characters with the popular everlasting stat bonuses. As a Lu Bu fan, I made a beeline for him whereas unlocking different close by characters that supplied good bonuses and located the tide of battle shortly shifted in my favor.
There are many different nice characters to unlock alongside the best way. Some include further talents, like Nobunaga, who beneficial properties a short lived energy up enabling extra assaults after utilizing a particular combo. And characters achieve cumulative ranges the extra you play them; each 50 ranges, they achieve everlasting bonuses to their assault and protection, that means that with sufficient effort and time even characters with out particular traits can achieve sufficient energy to deal with probably the most tough challenges.
However, talking of these tough challenges, even the 5 problem runs disenchanted me in the long run: my solely reward for engaging in this supposed nice feat was alternate costumes for a few characters – not even the one I’d performed with. I’d have even settled for unlocking some good lore to flesh the story out, however whereas there are some diary entries and memoirs within the collections menu, even that failed to maneuver the needle of curiosity for me. I suppose there may be all the time the possibility that the story could also be resolved, or a minimum of have extra revealed, after finishing it with 30 totally different characters or extra, however at this level I haven’t got my hopes up.
I’ll say that this final thing for it, although: Warriors: Abyss has given me a brand new perspective from which to experiment with characters that I’d left out in the principle Dynasty Warriors video games. Enjoying with the likes of Zhang Liao and Sima Yi right here has me fascinated by giving them extra consideration the following time they seem in a mainline sport. So I can a minimum of thank it for broadening my Dynasty Warriors horizons!