In Abyssus, you find yourself shipwrecked and have to find something to defend yourself with. How, why, when, and where you are become unimportant as you find a weapon that looks like someone combined a chain gun with a rifle. You’ll find more weapons that look as volatile as they are strange, and even more peculiar and ominous sights as you brave the depths of Abyssus.
Abyssus
Developer: DoubleMoose Games
Price: $24.99 (15% discount during launch week)
Platform: PC (reviewed)
MonsterVine was supplied with a Steam code for review
Abyssus is a roguelite where you and up to three of your friends can take on golems, frogmen, the undead, and other supernatural threats as you descend deeper into an unknown sea. Your customizable divers look quite silly, which is a bit of a shame with how intricate, detailed, and eerie the enemies and levels are. As you plumb the depths, you’ll be granted godlike powers as a result of Aspects. Aspects vary in purpose and function, but each provides what should be an interesting choice to bolster your ability, secondary fire, or primary fire. Do you choose the blessing of Lighting, which sends shocking bolts and calls down lightning on your enemies, with each blessing also increasing your critical chance? Maybe Frost is more your style, giving you the capability to freeze enemies, turning enemies into popsicles that emit a frozen nova upon dying, while better equipping you to fight bosses. Perhaps your thoughts are more akin to “When in Rome”, and you choose an Aspect of Tentacles to provide safety in numbers, plus, these tentacles have plenty of paraphernalia to throw. I had fun experimenting with the different Aspects, even ones I’d normally ignore, like Barrier in games like these, and they all try to do something unique with gorgeous UI effects and animations. Abyssus doesn’t succeed in this area, but I do appreciate just how varied and interesting establishing a build is.
Customization doesn’t stop there, with weapons having primary and secondary mods and a choice between five abilities as well. Despite wearing an atmospheric diving suit, your brinepunk is quite mobile with a double jump and a dash that can be used in the air. You’ll need all these tools and more to take on the many different denizens of the deep that want you dead. And dead, you’ll be — a lot. While death is a normal part of a roguelite game, I found myself frustrated at Abyssus for a couple of different reasons, foremost being that the game is determined to kill you at first. While I’m not a perfect player, it became very clear I needed to take what meager offerings of Soul Fragments (the game’s meta-progression) and engage in key talents to make any progress, despite knowing mechanically what I needed to do. Abyssus is not the meanest game I’ve seen in this regard, but at a point, it almost felt like I was playing an old-school RPG where my only objective was to grind until I could finally face my next roadblock. Even then, I found the bosses were more a test of attrition than an actual challenge or skill, with so many of them making you play “the floor is lava”. Keep in mind, this is also a first-person shooter, so your attention cannot be on the floor, as not moving is a death sentence. I eventually found that producing as many turrets and tentacles as humanly possible to be a winning strategy. While I do not hold this entirely against Abyssus, I do think a discussion needs to be had around roguelite experiences that refuse to let the player progress, not from a lack of skill, but because they haven’t died enough yet.
Why Abyssus Struggles to Balance Fun and Progression
I also think Abyssus is a bit too stingy with its unlocks, and the “order” of unlocks is strange as well. The second weapon players will most likely unlock is a shotgun, which doesn’t do that much, especially against the first zone’s flying enemies. FPSes aren’t just about mastering one gun, and many players have different preferences — so it’s extremely odd that Abyssus forces you to start with just the Engine Rifle, having to search or defeat bosses to unlock other weapons.
I’m also not a fan of how, even in the first area, you run into enemies that can spawn other enemies, and how often spawning in enemies is used, especially when destroying pylons. The objective to destroy the pylons themselves is in groups of three, despite them only appearing one after another, almost feels like they don’t want players to see that they’re spawning in more enemies in the cacophony of battle. I would not be so critical of this aspect if DoubleMoose Games did not promise “hand-crafted levels” and I didn’t have to repeat them so much, but here we are.
The Final Word
Abyssus is another roguelite that could be balanced much, much better. While I’m sure a friend group could have fun as is, the sheer amount of gameplay-related things (weapons, mods) that must be unlocked could lose players’ interest before they even get to them. There is also an enhanced difficulty setting, which I’m not sure how players will tackle unless there are some extremely powerful hidden charms. The awesome aesthetic (minus the player characters) would’ve made for a great adventure into the depths, provided there were fewer jokes, but maybe a game about colonizing an ancient Aztec/Mesoamerican-inspired civilization shouldn’t think too hard about what it’s actually saying.
MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
