ABYSS ODYSSEY
There is a lesson to be learned this week readers, don't buy a game just because you think the logo looks cool and you like the name. That might be putting the cart in front of the horse in terms of telegraphing the direction this review is going to go but hey sometimes you have to roll with what you got.
Abyss Odyssey is an adventure platformer (from the makers of Zeno Clash) with a quite a few things going on. First of all it is a rouge-like, if you die you start again at the beginning, with only a few things carrying over from run to run. There are multiple characters, but they are trapped behind an hidden unlock system. Lore of world you are in is dropped by the enemies as you defeat a new one for the first time. The music is one of the highlights, both fitting and pleasing. Items and item upgrades are par for the course for this style of game. It even has co-op play, though I did not subject anyone to that.
There is a style to the art direction of Abyss Odyssey that I really like, probably what drew me to it via the games logo in the beginning. It's distinct and what is there is very well done. A mix of 2D and 3D (very Trine like) styles that I can see had a lot of effort put into crafting them. Unfortunately this is where Abyss Odyssey also runs out of steam (pun?) and quickly too.
Lack of content.
Everything that is in the game looks nice. But you see it all over and over and over. There are too few background and foreground designs. The enemy variety is massively lacking for a game in the rouge-like genre where you will be going at them again and again. The leveling system doesn't feel rewarding. You can capture enemy souls to be able to transform into them, which is cool in concept, but none of them feel that great to play. You see the same few items and weapons at the shops run after run. By the end of the third hour I had not seen anything new in quite some time. Games with procedural content need to have lots of the later to make the former worth while.
I do have to give Abyss Odyssey props for having a good tutorial which clearly shows you how to play and how the combat works, teaching the combo system and your to use your special attacks. Honestly it is one of the best things about the game and I wish more games of this ilk would do a tutorial like theirs.
Unfortunately learning all the things the tutorial teaches doesn't help with Abysss Odyssey's biggest issue with the controls : "it doesn't work in a smooth way" (to quote James May). The sword strikes, the dashes, the blocking...all of it feels clunky and jerky. Yes you can execute the combos that it teaches in the tutorial, but at no point did it feel good to do so. And the platforming fairs no better and the jumping feels...gross? Is that a word I can use in that context? Yes, I think I shall. The jumping feels gross.
Maybe Abyss Odyssey would reward me if I spent more hours playing, learning it's subtle nuances and getting elbow deep into the various systems. But I just don't want to, I really don't want to play it anymore. So I am not going to. I still like the logo though.
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