Phantom Abyss Reviews

fun game

bad game

TL;DR: this game was good during pre-release, but horrible balancing, the resulting bad level design, and dry progression have made it one of the worst games I have played in a while (which is really saying something because I tried playing "Werewolf the Apocalypse: Earthblood" just last week). This game was great during pre-release, which I played through Xbox game pass. There was a lot of room for different play styles, the rooms didn't feel like they were too filled with traps, and even at their hardest the temple guardians felt fair. You could progress through temples at your pace most of the time, and you got to experience the amazing feel of the platforming at your pace. You had time to stop and think. Now after release I am incredibly disappointed. Every temple is crammed with modifiers. The adventure mode temples all have a minimum of two that vary in difficulty and fun-factor. The average fun-factor of the modifiers is 0. You don't get time to stop and think because at best the modifiers have cranked the guardian AI up to max and you don't get to stand still. There are modifiers that make it so you can't stand still, modifiers that make it so your vision flickers in and out ever 45 seconds, modifiers that make it so your dash hurts you. On top of all of that: the mode that phantom abyss became popular (the one where only one person ever can beat any given temple) starts cramming modifier after modifier on you every time you enter a new floor. No fun. All of that would be fine if it weren't for two things: trap density and guardian aggression. Even in the pre-release, trap density could get annoying, particularly at the higher difficulties. Rooms that are crammed on nearly every tile with trap after trap after trap are fine when you're given time to stand still and process what you are looking at. Somehow, the devs have managed to crank the trap density up significantly in the full release. It is now extremely rare to find yourself standing in a spot where you are completely safe from traps even at the lower difficulties, making the entire game feel like a mario maker level made by a five year old that thinks spamming an endless amount of enemies makes for a good gameplay experience. Mario maker levels that feel like this are excusable because they're made by children. This game was made by a team of adults over the course of years, making the density of traps inexcusable. To make matters worse, nearly every temple has a modifier on it that cranks the guardian AI up to max. This Is. Not. Fun. The Guardian that chases you chases as fast as you can run, the guardian that shoots laser beams almost never stops shooting. The guardian that shoots poison gas? forget it. I mentioned the "child's Mario maker-esque trap spam" problem earlier, now imagine that but every square inch of safe space is constantly being bombarded with poison gas. This same guardian can ALSO spawn IMMEDIATELY IN FRONT OF YOUR EXIT DOOR making it impossible for you to enter the next room without taking large amounts of damage. it is literally impossible to stand still in any temple because of the overly-aggressive guardian AI. It's also worth asking: if the guardians are constantly cranked up to max difficulty, doesn't that mean that max is the only difficulty? And as a reminder, you are also dealing with extremely annoying modifiers at the same time as you are dealing with absurd levels of trap cram and overly difficult guardian AI. Good luck dealing with poison gas being everywhere when you are also constantly slipping on ice. "Difficulty" (if you can even really call it that) aside, what about progression? As you progress through story dungeons you get to unlock new types of whip that give you different abilities. All of these whips give you permanent versions of abilities you can also acquire from statues inside of temples at the end of each level. This is generally a good and fun mechanic. HOWEVER: in the pre-release there were abilities that you could only get from statues in the dungeon. These were powerful buffs like extending your grapple distance, increasing your heart count, or even giving you a powerful dash ability (which has now been made a permanent ability). All of those powerful buffs have been removed from the statues and are now given to you as a purchasable permanent buff. The sense of progression is good, but it has the consequence of making the statue abilities a lot less interesting. It no longer feels like you can build-craft as you go in delightful roguelike fashion, and leaves the skill statues feeling dry, boring, and pointless. The resulting product is a bland and boring tragedy of a title at best, and a horribly designed, unbalanced, and infuriating experience at worst. If you played during pre-release and you're wondering what the ending is like then don't bother. Look up a video and move on. This game isn't worth your money or your time. It doesn't get better and it doesn't get more fun. I'm disappointed. This game needs an extreme rebalance. It is an extreme shame that I have to give this a thumbs down because I loved this game so much during pre-release. I typically do not write such lengthy reviews of games and I don't typically leave reviews of things in general, but the degree to which this game is now bad and unenjoyable has driven me to take the time to write this.

Don't bother. It used to be a fun game now it's just blocked doors and glitched runs. The beta version was better. There are a lot of curses that are just to annoying triple guardians shooting every 3 seconds is to much. I really did enjoy playing it's an addicting game to play but I just finally hit my limit and uninstalled.

A real treat of a game no doubt. You have a mix of dungeon running through randomly generated dungeons with all kinds of loot to find on the way and traps to avoid or fall to. The best part is the asynchronous multiplayer which you will see a lot of other players ghosts and it all feels natural. You see where others fail and you see where most players take the same route but then you will notice some other interesting ways to get around something. You unlocks relics at the end of each run and this allows you to progress the "story" but there is also different whips to unlocks and perks and skills to obtain. There is a lot of great dungeon running and exploring to have in Phantom Abyss and the lobbies will only grow as more players play down the line because it adds their runs to the system and you get to follow more and more ghosts.

Abandonware. Fun concept could ve been worked better. Currently theres is gamebreaking bug that make most temples a dead end with a closed door Not recommend for the reasons above