Warriors: Abyss Review
Warriors: Abyss
Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Developer: Koei Tecmo
Genre:
PEGI: 16
Comments:
Combining the classic Warriors gameplay with the roguelike levels of hits like Hades, Warriors: Abyss is one of those “huh” moments that make so much sense on paper.
Is it something anybody has ever asked for? Not that I’ve seen. But it’s impossible not to see the potential when it’s pitched right in front of you. Perhaps that’s why it’s a classic shadow drop game. The “available now” announcement meant nobody had to sit through months of trailers and previews. They, like me, just reached into their pocket and paid without thinking. The idea is just that strong.
Luckily so is the game itself. And while it’s not the perfect experience, it undeniably delivers on what it set out to do. There’s the potential for dozens of hours of fun here, and a bargain for the £19.99 price tag.
I say that as a 20+ year fan of the Warriors franchise, a series that’s traditionally been a bit like Marmite. Is it rose-tinted glasses? In this case, I think not.
Journeying into the Abyss
The set-up is simple. Pick a character – there are dozens to choose from – and bash your way through four worlds of levels. You must simply kill a target number of enemies, starting at 30 and going up to 1,000 as you progress. Along the way, you’ll unlock new skills and stat boosts, including the ability to summon other heroes to help clear an area. The choices you make can improve your chances of beating the big boss, and more importantly can turn your character into the 1 Vs 1000 monster they truly are. That means giant explosions, huge elemental attacks and hundreds of hell’s undead destroyed in a single move.
Warriors: Abyss does all this and it does it well. You never feel weak, but the increase in speed and damage as you progress feels incredibly satisfying. You go from easily deploying dozens of minions to utterly devastating entire armies.
That’s not to say it’s easy. In fact, the difficulty in Abyss rarely comes from being overwhelmed. It comes from silly mistakes. It comes from evading at the wrong time and not being able to get away from a follow-up attack. Big purple spheres mark special enemy moves, and if you get caught, that’s on you. Every time you die, you’ll know it’s because you made a mistake. And you’ll want to jump right back in and try again.
I should mention here that this enthusiasm to replay surprised me a little. The opening of the game is extremely slow, and very wordy. Your first playthrough will be frequently interrupted by a story that is both uncompelling and adamant to overstay its welcome. This goes away very quickly, but doesn’t leave the best of impressions.
Warriors Assemble
Anybody who knows the genre knows that the first playthrough is hardly indicative of the rest, and yet they couldn’t have presented that in a worse way. Systems upon systems are explained in unneeded detail. With nearly 20 hours plugged into it, there are still things I’m sure I don’t know, partly because of the bulk of explanations and partly because of the quality. But don’t worry: the point is to bash stuff. Everything else you’ll pick up as you go.
There’s both a huge amount of content and not enough. On the one hand, there is a ridiculous amount of characters to choose from. This is a crossover between the Dynasty and Samurai Warriors franchises, and everybody is represented. Each plays very differently, especially when fully levelled. More are being added monthly.
On the other hand, Abyss has four worlds, each made up of eight phases. There isn’t much variation in the design – dark, brown – and while there are other enemies, the solution is to bash them until they die. In the later levels, where these enemies are most frequent, you unlock powers to destroy their shields and health like they’re nothing. In the end, they’re not functionally different from the regular fodder.
After each run you unlock new characters and bonuses. These often come with decent and permanent stat upgrades for every character. The more you play, the more powerful you get. These are arguably a little too easy to unlock. I’m at the point where I’ve nearly unlocked everything, and I’m wondering how much longer I have with a game I don’t feel I’m done with.
Ultimately, I don’t think I could finish this the 100+ times it would take to earn the little ‘complete’ trophy next to every character’s name. This is a game that’s in desperate need of some additional worlds. Maybe some traps or enemy types specific to each. There’s a huge amount of room to improve the variety here, and I’m excited to see more. I hope Koei adds the necessary content. This would truly be a must-play.
Graphics and Sound
This is a strong game, visually. For what it is, anyway. The level design, while not exactly setting the world on fire in terms of biomes, does the job it needs to do. Where it really shines is in the bigger moves, where you see explosions and lights and mayhem. It feels a special kind of chaotic that you don’t usually see in games. The Assemble move sees you summoning all your support warriors at once in a cacophony of colour and spectacle, and it really hits home the level of chaos on screen.
Frame rate enthusiasts may be disappointed by a seemingly common bug that makes the 120fps mode unusable on PC, but the 60fps mode is good enough.
Sound is also fairly decent, bringing in the musical hits from both series. The characters speak Japanese, which is fine. New characters give a rousing war cry and each time the meaning is completely lost on me. Would I pick additional story interruptions? No. But something here is lost in non-translation.
There is a strange bug that seems to make the music exceptionally quiet at times. Hopefully this and the framerate can be fixed in the future.
Warriors: Abyss Review – Conclusion
Warriors: Abyss has everything going for it. In the short term, that is. It’s highly enjoyable, very replayable. It has a seemingly infinite amount of characters to check out. More are on the way. The price is correct, with the easily ignorable option of buying a bunch of costumes if you choose to. The shadow drop at a PlayStation event gave it a level of momentum I’m not sure it would have had otherwise, and it was a good enough game to stick that occasionally messy landing.
Now, the real interest is in how it develops. This has an awful lot of potential. How will it grow?
Trailer
Article By Mat Growcott
Mat Growcott has been a long-time member of the gaming press. He's written two books and a web series, and doesn't have nearly enough time to play the games he writes about.
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