Warriors: Abyss Review for XBOX
Warriors: Abyss is touted as an isometric ‘’Hack n Slash’’ Roguelite set within the Dynasty Warriors world.
The premise is you take command of historic and masterful warriors by challenging countless swarms of enemies. Through victory and defeat, traverse the merciless trials of hell.
The game boasts 100+ heroes to play and ally with, summon warriors to help in battle, 16 billion group formations, four levels of hell, different weapons and moves sets for each hero, tactical choices and randomly generated buff system.
Accessibility
With regards to accessibility, the developers have added in a small number of options, such enemy health gauges and button remapping options. Audio options are basic, and no visual options exist. So if you have auditory, motor or visual issues, you may very well struggle.
Gameplay
To say Warriors: Abyss intrigued me, is an understatement. In all essence I couldn’t work out if this was genius or a cash grab, and after playing it non stop, I’m going with the former…
I’m very picky when it comes to ‘’Hack n Slash’’ Roguelites, for example, Dead Cells or Hades, I just couldn’t vibe with. I found the repetition too boring and something that just got lost on me. That’s not to say all Roguelites is an issue for me, Trinty Fusion was a superb one that I still spend time playing and enjoying, but I do count myself in single digits when clicking with them.
And I can tell you now, this game did click with me. The game starts off with you being summoned to hell to help out the current King Enma, which each successor takes the name and mantle of. The current one, being a young boy who is well over a few hundred years old has lost control to an ancient old enemy called Gouma and needs you and other heroes in taking in back.
The gameplay loop is simple but very effective, and is really about layers of buffing yourself and your squad as you progress smashing through hundreds of deadly minions. You enter the hell, get as far along within the four levels, forming alliances with unlocked heroes to help you. With each defeat however, you loose the built up character level, and any heroes recruited, with only the Karma currency you picked up along the way, being kept. This Karma currency is how to purchase more fellow heroes to use either as a new main protagonist on your next run, or as support in your squad based group. Sounds simple enough, but it’s how its implemented that is quite tactical and thought provoking.
Every level has eight phases, with the final one being a boss level with sometimes mini-bosses being thrown in for good measure. Using a combo of normal and strong attacks, you build up energy to unleash your special Musou attack, which is perfect for destroying a huge number of enemies in one go.
Most phases, will see you choose to form an alliance from one of three randomised unlocked heroes. They then join your squad, increasing your squads battle power and letting you summon them as a finisher attack, or as part of a heavy combo. Heroes also have their own unlock ability conditions, which normally means having several specific heroes in your party to allow them to provide special attack when summoned.
Getting to 6 summons in your party also unlocks the ability to unleash an Assemble attack, which involves all your in your party using their special attacks for a period of time. To do this, like your Musou attack, you will need to fill a Yellow Assemble gauge above the party. Once done this can be activated at any time and are by far the most visually stunning. Now if you combine this with you Mosou attack, you will trigger a devastating Formation attack, similar to that of a nuclear bomb going off. This is perfect for dropping bosses health by a huge amount or even one shotting them!
But how does this work, well each hero posses its own stats, emblems, conditions for summoning skills, unique tactics and attacks. This may sound a lot to understand, but actually once you get used to it, it quickly becomes easy to work with. The biggest item to understand is the Emblems, as everything hinges on them and they play a huge role in gameplay. There are 11 emblems ranging from ability types like speed, strength, wisdom etc to attribute type ones like flame, ice and slay. These feed into everything, and at first, may look complicated.
Each hero you form an alliance with your chosen protagonist, has a collection on specific emblems. Combining these, picking up individual ones, choosing tactical formations, and collecting heroes, each increases your characters abilities. The more you collect, the more it raises that particular tier, unlocking temporary buffs, moves and abilities that will provide you with a better survival rate.
Once an alliance has been formed you get to choose from three randomised routes taking you to the next phase. Some of these will provide extra currency, health, heroes, and missions, that requires careful thought before choosing. However before you do, it is wise to check your summons under the banner flag which allows you to move around your heroes within a particular formation, in a bid to increase your power.
Formations are often brought from King’s cauldrons with Tears of blood, a run-only currency. These provide even more specific effects and bonus stats for the team, and can be a game changer when used against bosses. In the early stages, I would recommend using Enma’s recommendations, to place your heroes in the most optimum power. However later on, doing it yourself and checking your abilities is the best option, as Enma choice only ever focuses on power, and not combing abilities attributes, which actually may aid you better in boss battles.
The weakiest part of the game I found, was actually the bosses, which you arrive at once you have completed 8 phases. These heavy hitters can one shot you due to their area of effect attacks if you are not careful, but definitely slow down the pace of the game. They often have two phases which they cycle through, the first being solo, and the second summoning waves of minions to harass you, as you avoid their attacks.
Graphics
Visually in game this looks gorgeous with its bright, colourful visual effects going nuts when your Musou is triggered. But the true feast is when you mix up the many different types of emblems, which not only allow for harder enemies to be taken down with ease, but visually striking. The contrast of the background screen going black and white allowing you to focus on the visually striking colours being showcased, as the abilities are being pulled off, is something to behold.
The story and hero selection is told with graphical stills, which is clearly a design choice. Whilst I would have preferred a fully 3d telling, it doesn’t put me off from engaging with the story in any way.
In-game characters model however are gorgeous, and each character is well designed and smooth to watch. Doing runs through the game are incentivised with their being over a 100 characters from the Dynasty and Samurai Warriors franchises to unlock. Each unlock also provides your protagonist with permeant buffs, which are then applied to any character you choose to play with. Some characters even have different skins to choose, which again raises the games visual options. They just released another load of skins this week, so there is plenty to choose from when you fighting your way through enemies.
Mission have a chance to provide new weapons, which in turn often provide new attacks and new character buffs. However due to some awful RnG these are extremely rare and will need grinding out for, however, just like the different skin types, these are another welcome visual treat. The dev’s have confirmed a fix on this issue though so depending on when you play this, this item may not be an issue.
Environments however are the weakest part of the visuals, with the palettes being used over and over again, just from a different orientation. I would prefer that a few more different environments be added, as it soon can seem repetitive, which thankfully the gameplay mostly helps you ignore.
Overall framerate and stability was good in all of my gameplay, and I didn’t see any blooming, drops or tearing.
Sound
The game is fully voiced, however they are not in English and you will need to have subtitles on to understand. This may put some off, but for me this wasn’t an issue and even lend itself to a more authentic experience knowing how bad some translations can be.
The music is just superb as it brings musical hits from the series to help amplify the action on screen, but will pull back, when more calmer zones come into play. A blend of flute, piano and guitar push the gameplay, though it can be a little quiet at times.
The games sound effects, do a good job of conveying the vast array of attacks on offer, with each hit fully connecting in a weighty way. New characters even give a rousing war cry at the start of each phase, would I appreciated more than I realised.
My recommendation here would be a good quality headset to really enjoy the big formation attacks in all their glory.
Verdict
This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Warriors: Abyss is a "Great purchase’’.
The aim of the game to is optimise your builds and get to the end boss in the most efficient and fun way possible. For me, that is exactly what this game did, as it was fun, energetic and addictive in getting new characters and building a better build with each attempt. That said its character skins are truly overpriced and I would not recommend you purchasing them.
The game is currently priced on Xbox at £19.99 or approx. $25 and depending on skill and patience would give you about 20+ hours worth of gameplay. Once the story is complete however, there is still a huge amount of replay ability with a higher difficulty modes, heroes to unlock and finding all the collectibles available, which will easily push you for at least another 10+hours of content.
With a tone of characters, weapons, music, pictures, formations to unlock, this will keep many a Roguelites fan, and Dynasty and Samurai Warriors fans, busy for quite awhile. Simple to pick up, and addictive to master, this came out of the blue and one I’m truly a fan of.