Review: Jump Into The NEON ABYSS With Guns Ready
Here it is again readers, another roguelike game this year. Neon Abyss handles the genre very well and offers good replayability and entertainment. It is a side scrolling/dungeon-exploring game at its core with many generous upgrades, weapons, and modifiers to make each “run” feel like an adventure. This game does have its missteps and could use more out of game progress and slightly more intuitive controls, but overall Neon Abyss is a pretty good experience.
Let’s talk about the core gameplay. I enjoyed the randomized dungeons and their room variety at first. But after the first few times playing, the environments repeat themselves very often, including room layout and enemies groupings. There are lots of branching rooms with a variety of sizes and things to do, but I would have wanted more especially because the aesthetic of the environments are quite mediocre. Secret rooms, a wide variety of enemy types, mostly good bosses, and lots of customizable upgrades will keep any side-scrolling fan well entertained for a good number of hours. The major issue with the game in general is that the jump button on the PlayStation controller is a trigger, L2 to be specific. This feels really odd when compared to most platforming games (or any game for that matter). But because of the need to constantly aim and shoot with the right stick, it is understandable and just fine once a player can adjust. There is a remapping feature on PS4, but it won’t allow players to change the jump button for some reason, but they can change just about everything else.
The next major section to talk about is its roguelike features. The length of the run is pretty standard, maybe a little short. The levels increase at a good rate and the game gives plenty of loot and upgrades to improve your character, making you feel like quite the overpowered being by the end of the run. If anything, there is a bit of excess loot and it would’ve been nice if players could pick up weapons and change it in the inventory throughout each run instead of having to leave your current weapon behind. The out of game progress is a lot slower than I think most people would desire. The upgrades and progression out of game can be a little lackluster, especially for the time necessary to get those upgrades. But with different characters, different difficulties, and lots of loot and gear to keep players well equipped to fight people, it is a pretty good roguelike game.
Some of the last things are less noticeable, but impressive and add to the overall quality of the game. One of the things that really helps this game stand out is the neon hellscape but those are put in. Even though the levels may be a little bare and pretty repetitive, the player, weapons, upgrades, enemies and effects are all really vibrant and well animated. It makes sense to have a pretty barebone environment when so much else is happening, but some variety and a little more flavor would have been well appreciated. Another really cool feature is the seed feature. When players are going through a run, they will have a special code attached to that run. Players can share that code with anyone and then they can play through the exact same dungeon set up, items, rooms, and bosses. This acts as a great community feature and adds replayability.
Neon Abyss is a really fun game and a strong entry in the roguelike lineup. Its lack of meaningful out of game progress is unfortunate, but the extra features and a wide variety of weapons, gear, and modifications go a long way.
