Recent reviews by Protocol

Paywalling old heroes that I owned in Smite 1 and then making them not earnable via tokens because they're new. ♥♥♥♥ off and go bankrupt hi rez.

Only installed cause they brought back Guan Yu and I can't even play him

Everyday since this came out I've woken up excited to play it again. While playing I consistently find myself amazed that this exist and I am getting to play it. Truly a dream come true.
Fallout 3 next please :)

TLDR: If you're looking for a button masher action roguelite, or you're a warriors fan, I recommend it.

A warriors style roguelite is something I never knew I wanted. KOEI being the absolute experts when it comes to asset reuse have taken movesets and character designs that are over a decade old and have made an action roguelite with them (also music but its great so who cares). As much as I want to hate this practice, its worked and the game is very fun.

Warriors Abyss has you picking a new hero each run. All of the 100+ heroes have a unique moveset and set passive ability that encourages a build/playstyle. Heroes also have a 2nd passive that is unlocked via their unique weapon (obtained via random drop or purchase with ingame currency).

After picking your hero for the run you proceed through 8 stages which have you fighting more and more enemies as you progress. Every 8 stages leads into a boss fight, these bosses are set and you will be fighting the same ones each run. After defeating a boss you will pick a unique item that is random each run which adds some sort of modifier (ex lower cooldowns on abilities but more dangerous rooms) and then the difficulty spikes a bit.

Throughout your run you will be collecting new characters to add to your formation, or to sit in the back just providing passive buffs. Heroes in your formation provide extra abilities to use tied to your own combos. Heroes also have associated elements that you will generally want to combo with your own, as well as tags such as Wei or Grace that can provide benefits depending on your own heroes (or heroes from your formation) passive. Collecting heroes will also earn you gems that can give you elemental and other buffs.

Inbetween runs you can spend a currency called Karma Embers unlocking new heroes, which also give you account wide stat increases, as well as new formations and other effects. You can also spend this currency to unlock the previously mentioned unique weapons. I think you move through this tree a little too quickly, I was finished everything but unique weapons in under 10 hours. Runs themselves take around 40-60 minutes. While this all sounds good there are some caveats that limit the games potential.

Firstly and most noticeably, the graphics are poor. It runs on the switch so that makes sense, but the game looks old because it is re using over decade old assets plastered on a new backdrop with some new boss enemies. The story is also super barebones. One new character, you've been summoned to hell, kill stuff for me. This is no Warriors Orochi. Furthermore, playstyles feel a too similar despite using different builds. If I go all in on elements for example, regardless of whether its Slay or Ice I will still be spamming my summon abilities to apply the element as much as possible. The fun in builds is mostly just trying to make them as strong as possible based on you selected hero with what you are given in game, not in the changing gameplay due to your build. Lastly, I wish there was more stage variety. You will be playing the same 4 stages with the same bosses every game. I wish there were more stages and you were put into a random one each time. I also wish the stages had a bit more impact on the gameplay, currently the maps are just a bit different so you just have to adjust your movement.

Despite these negatives I still overall recommend the game if it looks like something you would enjoy. Roguelite fans might find the game lacking content, but what is here is fun. Warriors fans should enjoy re visiting these old movesets and getting to play the massive roster. The game also works fantastically as something to play while you listen to a YouTube video or Podcast. As an action bullet hell roguelite, Warriors Abyss overall succeeds in being a fun game.

The greatest trilogy of games, my favourite sci fi universe, all for $5 on sale. Buy this and play it.

One of the best RPG games ever made and it goes on sale for $5. If you're a fan of the genre or interested in trying an rpg there aren't many better options.
Great story, great characters, great world/lore. Tons of choices that give the game tons of replayability. These choices also carry over into Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age Inquisition if you choose to play them. Obviously a bit dated, but it doesn't take away from how great the game is. Was excited to play everyday until I finished my recent playthrough.
Only real negative was some annoying bugs. Make sure you are saving often in multiple slots, one was game ruining and I had to go back to an hour old save to fix it. GOG version has some patches pre installed so if you have the option buy it from there.
Also not a fan of the Awakening DLC personally but im in the minority for that take.

We are so back.
Pre ordered

Edit: Mass refunds and a shut down in under a month. Wow

TLDR: Game is a ton of fun but I can't recommend someone spend $40 on it at this moment. If the game is made free to play, or goes on a decent sale, I would recommend.

Elephant in the room, player count. People will cope and say queues are still fast but that is only because there is 0 SBMM and no region locking WITH crossplay default enabled. Even still the no respawn mode (Rivalry) has long queues at all times, sometimes nobody queuing it at all. Speaking of Rivalry, players throwing to quickly farm XP has been an issue since launch weekend and devs have done nothing to fix it, they've been silent post launch. This makes the mode only playable with a full stack, which will lead to you 4-0'ing every match, at least in my experience. Suffice it to say the playercount is a massive issue. While the numbers are for sure better on playstation, I have serious doubts that they would even be called good, I suspect there is sub 500 players online at any given time as of 2 weeks post launch.

This leaves the other 2 respawn queues, TDM/Kill Confirmed and Domination/Hardpoint. These are both fun and I enjoy both, but there are issues with these modes. TDM matches are always far too short, the kill count should be increased from 30 to 50. Kill Confirmed is actually great, I don't have a suggested change for it. Domination and Hardpoint are both balanced around constant contesting. 2 good teams will lead to long matches where both teams struggle to garner a significant lead. A missmatched lobby will lead to quick games with score gaps of 100+. When these games go the distance they are great fun. Unfortunately due to the lack of SBMM, no doubt further impacted by the low player count, these long high quality matches are not the norm.

The core gameplay here is fantastic. Destiny PVP but way better. People compare this to Overwatch a lot but it plays nothing like that. Healing for example is very slow, so fights can end very quickly despite the generally long TTK if you don't play with your team or stand in the open. There are so many small details here that are very clever and do a lot to make basic hero shooter mechanics more engaging. A quick example is how this game does ability recharging. Every ability is unique in this regard. Some are on a timer like normal, others require kills, others pickups, and others character specific things like getting a scan with a different ability and interacting with that again. There are tons of small twists like this on the standard multiplayer hero shooter formula and almost all of them are great changes. The best way to engage with these systems is in the Rivalry mode, especially the crew bonus system that rewards swapping characters, but unfortunately Rivalry is kind of ruined by previously mentioned issues.

People really don't like the character designs. I'm probably 50/50 like/hate on the roster. I really like some of the character designs like Kyps and Jabali, but then there are huge stinkers like Daw and Bazz (although when you unlock different glasses for Bazz she is way better IMO). There is 0 sex appeal here, which I think is what has most people upset even though they would never admit it. Whether or not this matters a ton is is up to you. For me this is not a major issue, I play these kind of games for the gameplay and if it looked like Roblox with fancy lighting and effects I wouldn't really care. Aside from character models the game looks very good IMO.

Tech wise I've only had some infrequent crashing and small bugs. I am on a 4070ti Super with an AMD 7800x3D though so I can't really comment on performance. Runs good for me, might not on a worse setup.

Im a Sci Fi guy, big on Star Wars pre Disney and I love Mass Effect. This games lore/world has a lot to like. You can read about an astonishing amount of things in the "Galactic Guide", essentially this games prettier version of the mass effect codex. Unfortunately there is no voice acting here so it is a lot of reading. Some sneak peeks here: The entire galaxy is slowly being consumed by something called the tempest, the pseudo galaxy government known as the guild is consuming the finite resources without having a plan for when they run out, and most of the food people eat are giant squid like creatures from another planet doused in grounded up egg goo that makes it taste good. People dismiss this mode, but I think its a great addition and its clear that a lot of effort has been put into this. Were this game to have a long lifespan (which I seriously doubt at this point) there would be so many cool ways for the story to go. You can also read this while you are in queue which is very nice.

There are also the weekly "vignettes" but both featured so far were also in the beta so this has been extremely underwhelming as of now.

With the $40 price tag some promises were made and there was also some automatic expectations. I have been overall disappointed with the value for my money when it comes to this. One thing that was promised thanks to the price tag was no paid battle pass, which is true come launch. Progression in this game is based on your account level and individual character level. Both account and character levels earn you separate rewards. Unfortunately a lot of the rewards you will be earning here are underwhelming. Trinkets seen as battle pass filler in other games still make their appearance here despite the lack of battlepass. Here they serve as progression filler so they can tell you there is a reward in the next few levels when all it ends up being is a weapon charm you probably won't even bother to equip. There are also a TON of re-colours.

Furthermore a lot of the "big" rewards you will eventually earn like legendary skins kind of suck. Like the character designs, legendary skins are probably 50/50 good/bad. Emari's is great and fixes a character who I don't like the regular look of. Meanwhile Jabali's biggest change is some horns on his hat. Despite some of these underwhelming rewards levelling also takes a SIGNIFICANT amount of time. With 60 hours in the game as of writing (5 or so being afk or accidentally left on) I still do not have a single character at level 20, and multiple still not at level 10. My account level is only just 50, with the hardest achievement in the game being to reach account level 100. I have only seen one of these legendary skins in the wild during a match. Progression could be 2x as fast and I would still probably think its a bit slow, but that would be a great improvement.

There is a cosmetic shop coming with the season 1 patch scheduled for October (although we will see how this schedule holds given the games launch), and I will be very upset if a bunch of way cooler skins are added with it and nothing else is added to the games current progression.

I don't regret buying the game, I expected to only get 2 months or so out of it as casual shooter game I could play on the side, but I didn't think the numbers would be THIS bad. I can't recommend a purchase in its current state unless devs come out with some sort of action plan. If it ever does go free or on a deep sale I highly recommend, because the actual game that is here is very good.

Listens to feedback

Servers are unplayable. Better off playing the originals.

The most fun hero shooter on the market, and they've fixed all of the monetisation issues recently!
They also recently announced the game was shutting down on Nov 29th.
If you don't mind that the game is shutting down, the game is really fun and in the best state balance and tech wise it ever has been.