Neon Abyss Review

"Streams of Neon"

Campaign

July 20, 2020 at 7:39pm
By Jason Stettner

This is a rather fast paced and intense rogue-like action platformer with a focus towards on the run gunning. It’s also soaked in a gritty neon style being aesthetically pleasing and just quite gripping. You’re moving through the Abyss which is a sort of random dungeon. With each playthrough you get a seed at the end to replay it, or to share with others so that they can check out that particular run.

You start each run within a fancy bar area which offers some customization. You can adjust difficulty, talk to the bartender about upgrades and even kick it on the dance floor if you’d like to. The layout of these dungeon situations are constantly different, and you’ll never be sure what you’re stepping into unless you of course get an ability that provides the insight.

At the end, or well randomly within each dungeon level you’ll battle against a boss. Once that boss is beaten, you’ll move onto the next area tier and continue the same process. It’s all about battling, gaining some skills and then trying it again. With that, I would have like more of a sense of progression. You do get some bonuses through the upgrade system, but these were somewhat sillier in what they provide for your journey.

Gameplay

The environments and layout continuously felt fresh with each play. I really was surprised when I’d enter a room and see something unique. There was a decent selection of enemies, and even surprise rooms. Sometimes just chests, others with a minor puzzle and perhaps even some with stone work that needed to be destroyed. There were special artifact rooms with boosting items, shops to purchase from and even gambling doors where you spent coins to see if you might get in.

It’s quite a variety, and in general this helped make things feel fresh each time I had a go at the game. The mechanics are fairly straight forward with a twin stick shooter style of play. You get some additional abilities, the use of grenades and you can even hatch some assistant creatures to battle with. I really liked the visuals, and the beat of the music that carried them.

The world was soaked in dripping neon action as you decimated enemies and faced off against some fairly tough bosses. I really liked the visual style they went with, it was very unique and great to view in action while spraying bullets across the screen to eliminate all of the foes that cluttered it. The enemies also had a good variety in their look, and attacking style which was nice. I did feel that the bosses got slightly repetitive after a number of tries, but they’re still very cool and unique to battle against as you progress.

The Conclusion

Neon Abyss is a great rogue-like platformer with blazing fast gameplay and some really neat aesthetics that keep this experience fresh. It’s quite fun to play, and it felt distinct with each playthrough I attempted. I do wish there was a better sense of progression however, as upgrades just seem to be silly things such as unlocking mini-games or side secret rooms.

I liked the hatching mechanic, that was unique yet perhaps could have been made clearer in regards to the handling of them. It was really neat when you got cool abilities going on, especially with the visual effects that might engage.

I was going up against a boss blasting this wild array of fire while flying, that was neat. It’s generally a well put together experience, and it’s quite a lot of fun to play. I can see this being appealing for many that want to try and handle the Abyss. You could also just hit the dance floor, after thirty minutes you get an Achievement which is interesting.

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Neon Abyss Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Team17

Rating Overall: 8.2