Neon Abyss is simply too frustrating to enjoy

[klinesmoker]

I've posted a review of this title, but I want to hear how everyone else is feeling about levels of frustration in this game. I don't mind giving the 20 dollars to the studio as I think this game can be great, but I feel like it may end up as an also-ran in the genre without some serious and quick patching.

Let's talk about the good stuff. The game looks great. The entire atmosphere of the title is, for me, on point. The vibrancy of everything makes it feel incredibly unique to look at. Little details like the mirroring in rooms with pools just feel good. The weapon designs are interesting, if a little frustrating (more on that below). Several of the guns really force you to rethink your process of play, which is a good gameplay mechanic/

The bosses are fun and chaotic. I will say that there is a massive difference between fighting Kimmy versus fighting the claw-bear boss whose name I can't recall. Kimmy is easy, the claw bear is intense and aggressive. It's a slight flaw that they feel so disparate, but it will keep you on your toes.

The issues, at least for me, is the things this game does poorly that are beyond hair-pulling.

Resource management is poorly handled. Most runs seem to shower you in crystals, but offer far too few bombs/keys given the overload of opportunities to use them per floor. It's uninteresting design to have so many rooms with items/chests gated behind stone walls when you also need that same bomb to get into a fight room for a passive upgrade or break in to a secret room. I suppose the thought is that you need to make a real choice with use of bombs and keys, but in many situations you DO dedicate that resource to receive very few resources in return.

This leads to chests. Chests spitting out chests that spit out chests that spit out a stone chest. Chests that spit out half a heart, 1 coin, half a shield, one egg etc. really take the fun out of making the aforementioned decision. While it should always be a gamble, my anecdotal experience so far has made me leery of ever wasting a key or bomb on anything for fear of wasting a precious item in exchange for a useless reward.

The core mechanic of Wisdom (crystal focus) versus Violence (damage focused) could be entertaining, were it not for the ways in which you make meaningful progression on either path. Crystals that spawn right after you've spammed bullets in a crazy firefight spawning right where a bullet lands turns you IMMEDIATELY to the violence path. Opening a crystal chest using the hotkey will sometimes result in you stabbing it and being forced down Violence. Your pets auto firing a door/chest/crystal with no agency on your part does the same. Taking damage pushes Violence. Originally I assumed that's what shields were meant for, but taking any damage even with shields dropping your Wisdom progress really takes the wind out of my sails. Perhaps that's a bug, but it feels like shields are just another heart container.

Eggs are bad. We all know how egregious orbitals can be when you end up with a beam weapon or fire rockets. Companions move at light speed towards any rewards they are programmed to collect. I've watched coins spawn literally on my sprite only to be snatched by my follower. You can't dismiss them. You can't kill them. You're just stuck with them. I could write an entire thesis on how poor the design of the bomb-chucking clown is as it bounces you around the room. Now I actively avoid them, which is a bad look for a core design choice.

Chaos on the screen gets unmanageable. Plenty of runs have devolved simply because there was no real way to see where my sprite is.

Your hitbox is larger than your character and seems to fluctuate in size. I'm sure plenty of you have had a run end looking at a purple orb fired by a purple bear that clearly had not touched you. That's such a simple mechanic to ix I'm hopeful it gets patched properly, but for now it sucks to see.

Creating a game that operates heavily on the Y axis puts you in a bad spot in many rooms where you just get cornered immediately. This is to say nothing about needing to move into the room only to have an enemy spawn on top of you, or spawn with a bullet in mid air. Have the enemies visible and after you step out of the corridor they engage. It's an easy fix.

Off screen enemies that blink to your location are a minor problem, but a problem nonetheless. This genre is all about making a snap decision based around what you see. Being punished by what you can't is bad design.

Last thought, I promise (even if we could go on and on). So many of the items are just bad. A chance to explode when I kill an enemy does nothing. A chance to gain a key when an egg hatches empty does nothing. The only items you see of worth are just straight stat upgrades and the rest barely move the needle on gameplay, and if they do they do it in a negative direction by introducing mechanics that actively hurt the player.


This is a wall of text, and if you stuck with me I appreciate it. If you don't agree, well, that's the point of meaningful discussion. It's a huge bummer to feel really excited to purchase this title with hopes that the demo's issues would be fixed only to feel like the game itself is missing the mark on so many core mechanics so as to make it unplayable. There's hope for the future, but this guy goes back on the shelf until it sees proper changes.

[Mr_Basinga]

i have only 1 thing to add WHY I MUST LOST ALL THING OF THE RUN when finish the boss of the section you are force to go back to bar and lose all even when you all other section to do

[Memorizzi]

Yeah, I would place this game in the mobile / console / casual category.
If you look at it that way it makes a slightly better impression.
But if you compare it to PC titles in the same genre and price range as for example "Hades" or "Dead Cells":

There is no "real" variety of loot (powerups ,skills or weapons) in this game. Chests only drop dissapointing stuff. Secret rooms often contain half a heart or one of those eggs.
"lootable crates" are always empty. You will often see a big chest that costs you cristals to open that drops another small chest with a smal little coin.

So in general you know pretty fast that investing anything to get loot out of chests or backtracking to a room with a coin is a waste of time.
Paying 5 coins to use the slot machine for a chance to open the door to a chest? Nope..100% not worth it since you know that in the best case you get the 5 coins back (if it opens at the first try).

After a few hours you understand that the only loot that improves the character (in a very linear way --> more power and bigger bullets) are the percs, all other drops like coins, crystals and bombs are useless. So a run looks like this:- finding the yellow gate as fast as possible and then defeating the boss because everything else is a waste of time. Which weapon you use for this doesn't really matter, it's nice if you find one that has interesting visuals, but it doesn't really make a difference.

Yes that's simply the genre you could say now, other titles don't do it differently either. Yes and no, because what some developers understand and others don't is to create an interesting mix of synergies, skills, opponents and upgrade process.

In other titles you are regularly faced with decisions that can change the build massively and change a run from weak to op. That does not exist here.
You can only play ONE build..because your character will end the same after you beat a few bosses, since there are only 4-5 different percs with changing icons to make it look like there is a lot of possible builds to create.

Overall the loot feels sparse and kinda standard for a game that labels itself as looter shooter rogue like..

What bothers me the most is the fact that there is not much challenge at all, the only challenge I have atm is finding the random drops that let me unlock new bosses...which is not explained to you. I had no idea why the run ends in the bar after I beat the last normally appearing boss and I really dont feel like grinding for one specific random dropping item for hours.

Then there is the 6 page skill tree of which you actually dont need anything from it. The game is already kinda easy, why should I grind for estimated 300 hours to finish the skill tree?
Somehow there is no reason to improve if after a few hours you already farm the bosses.
Of course i could just increase the level of difficulty now, but that doesn't help me, because only this token drop will get me further.