I’ve always loved card games, and Blackjack and Poker can definitely be time and money sinks for me. My parents live in Vegas, so whenever I visit them, my dad and I always hit the strip at least once and play at a couple of casinos. If a video game offers one of these, I’ll also sink some time into it just playing away the virtual money. So when I was offered All in Abyss: Judge the Fake, I thought it sounded like an ideal match.
All in Abyss: Judge the Fake is a poker RPG visual novel starring Asuha Senahara, a young woman who wants to gamble to the top. The setting is the city, and your enemy is the corporation in charge. Solve the mystery of the town, corporation, and the top gamblers called witches, all while trying to stay alive. Half poker RPG and half visual novel, All in Abyss seems to only deliver in one aspect.
Time to Ante Up on All in Abyss: Judge the Fake
All in Abyss takes place in a city where gambling is king. The strongest gamblers who run the city are called witches. Not much is known about them outside of what they allow to be public, and their employer is also shrouded in mystery. All that changes when self-proclaimed genius gambler Asuha Senahara comes to the city. Asuha has one goal: to be the best gambler in the world. She must take on the witches and unravel the city’s mystery.
After arriving in the city, Asuha immediately challenges the first witch and loses. As she stumbles penniless, she encounters Mina Nosaka. She is a kind girl who helps Asuha and gets her back on her feet. Asuha decides she wants a rematch, and with Mina’s help, they set forth on an adventure together. I wish I could say more, but that’s all you get character-wise here. You learn more as you play, but I never started caring for them. Asuha at least has a good design, but there isn’t much going on here besides that. Sadly, that criticism continues throughout the rest of the story and game.
Check
All in Abyss has a decent start with its narrative and visual novel elements. While it didn’t grab me, I saw the building blocks of what could be a good or interesting story. Sadly, it doesn’t build on any of that, and after the first chapter, it immediately becomes tedious. The established characters are incredibly one-note, our antagonists are not engaging, and I found myself caring less with each chapter as the mystery unfolded.
With five chapters in total, I clocked out of the narrative after the second one, and I started becoming annoyed with it as the fourth ended. Each chapter ends with a fun boss encounter, even if they don’t last long. The boss fights all end with the All in Abyss, essentially when both players decide to go all in and bet their lives. It’s a fun idea that could be interesting but only amounts to a final scene between characters. Even though I like it for the most part, it immediately goes into another criticism I have.
I love a good death game; it can lead to creative and fun scenes. I didn’t know what to expect when I beat the first witch, and the game told me I had unlocked her punishment, which felt like peering into the writer’s barely disguised fetish. Every punishment scene feels like this, and I’m not one to judge, but it feels blatant. None of them are creative or interesting; they are just there to try and appeal to someone out there. Not to mention the song that plays during all of them is just grating on the ears. On the plus side, they are all optional to view. I was hoping that at least one would try to do something memorable.
All in
While the narrative falls apart and the characters lack importance, I can praise the other half of the game. There is a decent poker game here that I prioritize when the main story gets tedious. You play Texas hold ‘em, a variant of poker that I enjoy playing. To explain it quickly, you get two cards and try to make a hand with five community cards on the table. You deal in and check the same number of chips with each hand, or you can raise. If the odds don’t look good, you can fold and lose the chips you’ve already bet.
Now, All in Abyss adds another element to Texas Hold ‘em that makes it stand out. You can unlock skills that require luck to help put the odds in your favor. These can be active or passive, from boosting a hand to picking the next card. The games are also battles; when you win the hand, you attack your opponents directly. There is also an attack multiplier that increases the more you raise. This adds a level of strategy that is a lot of fun and makes for satisfying wins.
This carries over to the boss fights as well. While I don’t care for them as characters, it was fun to face enemies I couldn’t use skills on until I found a weakness. They felt like real games of Texas hold ’em, and I wish they offered more of a challenge. It’s pretty easy to game the skill system, but it’s still fun. There is also Poker Royal, which works as a gauntlet with different challenges, and I found this to be a fun distraction from the narrative. The poker delivers; it’s a shame I don’t feel the same about the narrative.
Fold
The praise starts and ends with the poker. After that and the narrative, there isn’t much left to discuss outside of how it looks, which also falls flat. No environments stuck out to me, and the character designs didn’t either. I liked Asuha’s design, but that’s about it, which is a shame because this is an interesting setting. A dystopian city where gambling rules over everything should be fascinating, but it isn’t. The same goes for the music, as no track sticks out, except for the one I hated.
All in Abyss: Judge the Fake delivers on one aspect but sadly falters on the other. While I enjoyed the poker aspect, the other half of the game holds it back. A shallow narrative and the roster of forgettable characters leave something to be desired. I have trouble recommending All in Abyss for this reason, which is a shame because there is a good poker game here. I just wish I could play it on its own.
Disclaimer: Alliance Arts provided Final Weapon with a PC (Steam) copy of All in Abyss: Judge the Fake for review purposes.
