It's a shame I have to leave a negative review, because Neon Abyss is a game I really wanted to like. Right out of the gate, though, it feels slow, quiet, and uninspired. I found a lot of QoL issues in the demo, but figured that build's about 8 months old, so that's not really too much of an issue- but save for one, they're all still present in the base game.

Within 40 minutes of playing, I found the following problems:

• Here's one of the big ones- you can't teleport from any room to a room with the teleporter. What's the point? Teleporters are intended to reduce backtracking, right? They're still "reducing backtracking" but you still have to backtrack to the actual teleporter. The way Gungeon does it, where you can go to any teleporter at will, or Monolith, where you can go to any room at will, is perfect. I see no reason to deviate from that idea.
  
• Eggs are... weird. It's not like in Isaac where they closely follow your movements, they instead flip direction entirely once you look the other way.
  
• Music restarts every. Single. Room. If you enjoy listening to the same 30 seconds of the "intense" version of the track, then more power to you, but a Gungeon-esque system would've been better, where the track only reverts back to ambient after a minute or so.
  
• Item text persists only for a couple seconds, and you usually don't have enough time to read what the gun or familiar does. This isn't like Isaac where descriptions are two or three words, this is two or three sentences. It's inconvenient to have to go to the pause menu every time I see something with longer text.
  
• I think I got an event of some kind at one point, but I couldn't read what it said because, sure enough, the item text showed up as a familiar evolved, and I completely missed what the event said since the item splash text is so large that it covered up a good third of the screen.

The trailers will have you believe this is a fast paced, Gungeon-esque game, and I was hoping this would scratch the Gungeon itch, but instead it just makes that itch worse. Instead of taking the positives of Gungeon (its humor, polish, core gameplay loop, balance) it seems to take the negatives (visually busy design, pacing, pre-update slow backtracking) while offering almost nothing new to the table. Babies are a neat concept, but even they aren't completely polished, and that's the game's only standout factor- I had a baby that split into about 10 zombie babies, and it was never explained why- I had to go to the pause menu to figure it out. I never saw the actual health of the zombie babies either, and the item text implies it would just continually split itself, which I figured wasn't right, and sure enough they all died a few seconds later.

I feel like Neon Abyss doesn't know what it wants to be. It wants to be Isaac, it wants to be Enter the Gungeon, but what it lacks from those two games is staying power. I put this in the same category as Steredenn and Wizard of Legend, where they're games I really wanted to like, but out of the gate i saw pacing and polish issues that I just can't overlook. I'm willing to overlook problems with a game if it's fun, because no game is perfect, but Neon Abyss... isn't fun.

A game being derivative is okay and expected in today's industry. Monolith, for example, is one of my favorite roguelites, and it's just about one of the most derivative roguelites you're going to find. This is derivative for the wrong reasons. Where Monolith takes existing ideas, iterates on them, and seamlessly integrates them together into a cohesive experience, Neon Abyss feels like it's taking existing ideas, throwing them in, and praying it works, and the way I see it, it doesn't work.

I think this game has the potential to be good, but it's going to take a lot of changes. The game, overall, needs faster pacing (at the very least optional like in Gungeon) and needs to be able to stand by itself, as well as a lot of quality of life iteration. If i found this many gripes in 40 minutes, that tells me there's probably a lot of others, too.

It's a shame I have to leave a negative review, because Neon Abyss is a game I really wanted to like. Right out of the gate, though, it feels slow, quiet, and uninspired. I found a lot of QoL issues in the demo, but figured that build's about 8 months old, so that's not really too much of an issue- but save for one, they're all still present in the base game. Within 40 minutes of playing, I found the following problems: [list] [*]Here's one of the big ones- you can't teleport from any room to a room with the teleporter. What's the point? Teleporters are intended to reduce backtracking, right? They're still "reducing backtracking" but you still have to backtrack to the actual teleporter. The way Gungeon does it, where you can go to any teleporter at will, or Monolith, where you can go to any [i]room[/i] at will, is perfect. I see no reason to deviate from that idea. [*]Eggs are... weird. It's not like in Isaac where they closely follow your movements, they instead flip direction entirely once you look the other way. [*]Music restarts every. Single. Room. If you enjoy listening to the same 30 seconds of the "intense" version of the track, then more power to you, but a Gungeon-esque system would've been better, where the track only reverts back to ambient after a minute or so. [*]Item text persists only for a couple seconds, and you usually don't have enough time to read what the gun or familiar does. This isn't like Isaac where descriptions are two or three words, this is two or three sentences. It's inconvenient to have to go to the pause menu every time I see something with longer text. [*]I think I got an event of some kind at one point, but I couldn't read what it said because, sure enough, the item text showed up as a familiar evolved, and I completely missed what the event said since the item splash text is so large that it covered up a good third of the screen. [/list] The trailers will have you believe this is a fast paced, Gungeon-esque game, and I was hoping this would scratch the Gungeon itch, but instead it just makes that itch worse. Instead of taking the positives of Gungeon (its humor, polish, core gameplay loop, balance) it seems to take the negatives (visually busy design, pacing, pre-update slow backtracking) while offering almost nothing new to the table. Babies are a neat concept, but even they aren't completely polished, and that's the game's only standout factor- I had a baby that split into about 10 zombie babies, and it was never explained why- I had to go to the pause menu to figure it out. I never saw the actual health of the zombie babies either, and the item text implies it would just continually split itself, which I figured wasn't right, and sure enough they all died a few seconds later. I feel like Neon Abyss doesn't know what it wants to be. It wants to be Isaac, it wants to be Enter the Gungeon, but what it lacks from those two games is staying power. I put this in the same category as Steredenn and Wizard of Legend, where they're games I really wanted to like, but out of the gate i saw pacing and polish issues that I just can't overlook. I'm willing to overlook problems with a game if it's fun, because no game is perfect, but Neon Abyss... isn't fun. A game being derivative is okay and expected in today's industry. Monolith, for example, is one of my favorite roguelites, and it's just about one of the most derivative roguelites you're going to find. This is derivative for the wrong reasons. Where Monolith takes existing ideas, iterates on them, and seamlessly integrates them together into a cohesive experience, Neon Abyss feels like it's taking existing ideas, throwing them in, and praying it works, and the way I see it, it doesn't work. I think this game has the potential to be good, but it's going to take a lot of changes. The game, overall, needs faster pacing (at the very least optional like in Gungeon) and needs to be able to stand by itself, as well as a lot of quality of life iteration. If i found this many gripes in 40 minutes, that tells me there's probably a lot of others, too.