As someone who plays all kinds of games in different genres, I’ve never been able to truly get into the roguelite genre. This is usually due to the repetitive nature of the genre and how death can often mean losing hours and hours of progress. However, the genre’s popularity is certainly justified, as it provides countless hours of entertainment for many. When I saw Warriors: Abyss this past week, I was immediately curious about how Omega Force would tackle this kind of genre.
Omega Force has a treasure trove of games spreading across various genres, but most of the studio’s work revolves around Musou, a series that focuses on hack-and-slash combat against massive hordes of enemies. Warriors: Abyss sees Omega Force combine the ideas behind both Musou games and roguelite into one, but how does this combination fare? Unfortunately, while there is plenty of promise, I came away disappointed with the lack of depth and unexciting boss battles.
Onward And Downward
Warriors: Abyss has a rather simple narrative. You play as a nameless protagonist who has been summoned by the Lord of the Underworld, King Enma. Enma explains that the evil Gouma has broken free from his prison and taken control of the Underworld.
In the process, Gouma assaults the King, weakening him significantly. With the power he has left, Enma calls upon you, the player, in order to descend into the deeper layers of Hell so that you may be able to defeat Gouma and regain control. There’s really not much to the story as a whole, which makes sense since it’s clearly not the main focus of the game. However, the tutorial run meant to introduce you to the game’s mechanics is frustrating and lacks the depth it should have.
Instead of having a proper push and pull that flows well and allows you to test out the gameplay, King Enma will constantly stop you with tutorial pop-ups. The worst part about this is that you don’t even get to finish that initial run because you are forced to escape Hell before you even get to the first boss room. This was incredibly infuriating as someone wishing to familiarize myself with the mechanics.
The game truly begins with you choosing a hero to start your descent into Hell with. These heroes are all spirits that take on the form of the characters from Koei Tecmo’s iconic franchises. This includes Cao Cao and Liu Bei from Dynasty Warriors. There are also Japanese figures from the Samurai Warriors franchise, such as Yukimura Sanada and Masamune Date.
Unfortunately, the heroes who you control aren’t really voiced besides a few grunts here and there. It would’ve been really nice if they had a lot more voice lines in combat, and maybe a few events here and there. I mean, these heroes have suddenly been summoned to fight the forces of Hell—surely they would have something to say about it? Once the gameplay truly begins though, things really start clicking into place.
The Choice Is Yours
Upon starting, you’ll begin at the first layer, Blazing Waste. This layer is composed of seven “floors”, and an eighth floor is reserved for the area boss. On each of those floors, you’ll be given an objective, though it’s usually just to defeat a few dozen enemies. Once you’ve completed your objective, you’ll obtain experience. All enemies defeated will also convert into two major currencies: Blood Tears and Karma Embers.
After clearing a floor, three random portals will spawn alongside a Crystal Sapling and a Banner. The portals allow you to select the next Route to dive deeper into Hell. These Routes can vary greatly. Some give you treasure chests for completing a mission, while others contain the King’s Cauldron. Cauldrons allow for a brief respite and let you purchase what you will need to go deeper. Overall, countless options allow players to pick the route that best suits their playstyle.
As for the Crystal Sapling, you can think of it as your Summoning Circle. Much like the Portals, this entity will give you a choice to call upon the soul of an additional hero to join your party, from a random selection. Many of those elements should be immediately familiar if you’ve ever played a rougelite game before, because Warriors: Abyss does very little in the way of innovation. From time to time, you’ll even come across certain Memories of the Dead, where you’ll obtain a random buff for a limited time. There’s also the chance for a Danger Zone, where the objective will require you to defeat more enemies than usual, but also give more rewards.
Admittedly, there is an element of fun to it, especially since you never truly know what to expect in each of the rooms, and certain heroes are incredibly fun to play. As an example, I really enjoyed playing with Masamune Date and his dual-wielding gun/sword style. Kenshin Uesugi was also really fun to play. I urge you to experiment until you find your favorite because you’ll slowly grow accustomed to their style.
In the event that you perish in battle, you’ll be sent back to the initial screen. From here, you can access the Hall of Bonded Souls. This is where you’ll spend the Karma Embers that I mentioned previously. By spending this currency, you can unlock new Heroes whom you can recruit from Saplings, or start new runs with. You can also unlock some new Formations, which can be changed at the banner in between rooms. These add special conditional traits that will buff your main hero once met.
Furthermore, the more heroes you form bonds with, the more bonuses you acquire for your stats. This skill tree is quite big, with lots of branches, so Warriors: Abyss addresses this by highlighting important segments that it recommends that you focus on unlocking. This system is also something that the tutorial highlights for those who aren’t sure what is the best to unlock.
Typically, the more Battle Power you obtain, the easier your run will be. There were many times when my focus was to just obtain as many Embers as I could in order to unlock further heroes. I also attempted to boost my stats to make subsequent runs a lot easier. In theory, this should sound like a recipe for success. That said, there were several key issues I noticed throughout my many runs.
Going Down Again
Personally, I found various aspects of the game not that particularly engaging. A large part of that has to do with how the controls are, to put it simply, quite strange. It seems Omega Force has opted to go for the classic “weak” and “strong” attacks that you’d typically see on the Warriors games. While chaining those combos has the potential to deal a lot of damage, it’s incredibly unintuitive at first. This is especially the case since you have to remember how each hero ticks. This is a monumental task, considering there are over 100.
There are other problems too with the mechanics. For example, specific heroes are capable of imbuing their weapons with different elemental attacks, provided you meet their Conditions. Unlike a typical rougelite though, where you can wield various weapons, you’re largely restricted to your summoned heroes and their traits. It isn’t possible to change the hero you’re currently controlling to one you’ve summoned unless you start the run over from zero.
It also pains me to say that the worst part of Warriors: Abyss has to be the boss battles. These appear on each of the floors that will transition you between each of Hell’s layers. Instead of feeling fun and engaging, they just feel like huge HP sponges that take forever to beat, especially for certain heroes.
This isn’t an issue per se, but I can’t count on how many times I just died because it just seemed like his HP would never deplete. As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s all a matter of how much Battle Power you can accumulate before you reach his room. However, these bosses could’ve been a lot better.
While Warriors: Abyss starts to get good after the first boss battle, it raises the question of whether you’re willing to wait that long for the game to improve. This, combined with the aforementioned gameplay issues, I do not blame anyone who might perhaps refund the game after seeing this first boss stage.
Just a Dressed-Up Rougelite
Warriors: Abyss ultimately feels like a half-baked attempt at trying to blend the musou and rougelite genres together. Despite the success of both genres on their own, this results in an extremely lackluster game. There’s so much here that Omega Force could’ve done. While there’s a lot of potential on display, it ultimately feels like an experiment. Unfortunately, it’s not an experiment that works particularly well.
If you’re a fan of the Warriors series and rougelite genre, and you want to try out Omega Force’s own rendition of both, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth here. After all, Warriors: Abyss only costs $24.99, which isn’t as expensive as many would expect. Personally, though, I feel your time could be better spent playing other, much more fleshed-out rougelites that exist in this day and age.
Disclaimer: Koei Tecmo provided Final Weapon with a PlayStation 5 copy of Warriors: Abyss for review purposes.
