I am absolutely delighted to be contrasting this review to my last one for a number of reasons, because in most of the ways River City Girls failed, Neon Abyss manages to make playing it not only tolerable, but enjoyable. Granted, they are not similar games, with one being a fighting game and the other being a side scrolling rogue-lite. But what I mean is that Neon Abyss sets out to build a game that I’d want to keep revisiting over and over, and they passed that test with ease.
Neon Abyss opens with Hades asking the player to defeat the new titans, who have stolen some of Hades’ powers and taken over the human world through corporations. So the player picks a mercenary to enter the titular neon abyss to slog though a set of dungeon and boss fights, leading to a showdown with one of the titans.
Each defeated titan unlocks another target to hunt down, and defeating the regular bosses also unlocks alternate forms of the fight. For example, defeating Tok, the god of social media, unlocks Tik, and beating Sung, the god of Screens grants access to later fights with Sam.
There’s a McTucky boss fight with parody forms of Ronald and the Colonel (and McFamily, adding one for Wendy as well.) There’s a god of pills, a god of guns, a god of idol singers, a god of plushies, and a god of makeup. There’s one for crypto currency, gambling, and yes, even influencers like Pewdie. Which is part of what makes every run feel fresh and interesting. The order of bosses to be found in the early floors of each dungeon are random, but each one and their variants forms are fun to shoot it out with.
Within a few fights, the game turns ridiculously meta by breaking the fourth wall. The game developer comes to Hades to complain about the game needing more features to keep players coming back. Hades complains to his secretary that he’s got a limited budget to do anything with, and each time she suggests a new plan to make the developer’s wishes possible. Then she and Hades hire you, the player, to get out there and earn your keep for their sake. The cheek.
Here is where stuff gets grindy, but if you got on board for the loop through the first three titan fights, the grind won’t be an issue. Each new development requires taking twenty Abyss Gems from the later stage bosses. The earlier fights drop a different currency, Faith Gems, which are used to unlock new rooms and features in the game. So the Abyss Gems are meant to encourage sticking through every run, even if one of them has turned into a slog with a bad build. I can’t say that incentive always works, as I have sometimes bailed on runs. The option to return to the bar is right there in the menu, so if I’m not feeling a run, I’m okay with giving it up. Besides, the next run will probably be better anyway. (Seriously, bad runs are rare, so the RNG here seems to favor fun over fuckery.)
I haven’t gotten around to the controls yet, but before I do, I want to contrast this game with River City Girls. That previous slog-fest gave no option for remapping buttons, but Neon Abyss allows it right from the start. Which is funny because when the tutorial put the most important functions on the triggers, I said, “Oh, no, that’s not how I like it.” I changed everything, only to move to the next screen where the tutorial explained that my character shoots with the right analog stick. Which would make using the face buttons tricky, yes? Yes. So I reset the controls, and aside from tweaking how to jump down between platforms, I found the rest was mostly smooth sailing. My only issue was more with my controller’s loose analog sensors, so sometimes trying to find the right angle to shoot from took a little fiddling and a bit of swearing.
In the same topic of accessibility, there’s an easy mode, and swapping difficulties can be done at the starting menu, or it can be done in the bar between runs. Raising the difficulty makes some obvious changes in enemy health and speed, increasing the size and speed of their projectiles too. Beyond tailoring how hard you want the game, you also get features like aim assist and adding a dotted line indicating the trajectory of grenades. Also, any feature you unlock that isn’t working for you can be turned off while still keeping the features you do like. This is a game that wants you to have a good time, and it’s willing to compromise to meet you in your comfort zone.
Now there are some caveats to all of this, most of it having to do with the DLC. As far as the base game goes, the only issue to be aware of is that the more runs you make, the harder the game gets, even at the easiest level. This is a gradual creep in power scale, which I think helps ease players into learning to play smarter rather than harder, and this is fine.
The DLC characters and their included boss, Chronos, though…I don’t like him or them. The DLC characters all feel kind of clumsy, and maybe it’s just a quirk of RNG, but it always feels to me like they are given less resources to work with. With the base game characters, I can usually eke out enough coins to buy a new gun in the first shop, or if I like my starting gun, to grab an extra key or grenade. But with the DLC characters, I can get all the way to the third floor of any run and still not have enough to buy a gun, let alone the pricier power-ups that go for around 70 coins.
Then there’s Chronos, with his massive health bar, exponentially larger than any other boss, combined with a veritable visual vomit of attacks. It’s not just that too much is going on to discern attack patterns. This dude is throwing out so much stuff all at once that at first, I didn’t even see the platforms in the background to jump on. But even once I did see them and have some idea of where to jump, the screen was so full of projectiles that it was impossible to dodge anything. Hell, I couldn’t even tell if my own bullets were connecting because there was just too much stuff on screen to sort out what was mine or his. Feh.
I uninstalled the DLC, and I was surprised to learn the combined DLC represents a nerf for the whole game. Some characters like Anna got more severe downgrades, but all the base game characters were suddenly able to find more money, making trips to the first floor shop less…frugal. On a few runs, I was even able to buy the gun from the first shop AND a seventy coin item. With the DLC, that would have been impossible.
I’m conflicted about that, too. I mean, I didn’t exactly struggle to reach the titans at the end of many runs with the DLC installed. But the game turning stingy on a whim? Why? Was it some reaction to Hardcore Gamers saying it was too easy? I don’t know.
It’s a minor lament, given that I was having fun with the game right from the start. It’s just that I’m having even more fun now that I have a bigger budget to buy guns and gadgets. In both cases, I’d give Neon Abyss an enthusiastic 5 stars and recommend it for fans of platforming Mario-like games and twin stick rogue-lites.