Warriors: Abyss Review – A Colorful Mess

Hot off the heels of the return-to-form Dynasty Warriors: Origins, a new spin-off joins the ever-growing lineup. Warriors: Abyss takes the one-versus-one thousand Musou genre and injects it with the currently prominent roguelike formula, turning the latest entry into a Hades clone. It sounds like a match made in heaven, combining the franchise’s large-scale battles in a top-down action RPG format. Given the complimentary genre stylings, can Warriors: Abyss add itself to the list of games that have nailed this mashup or will it end up as another trend-chasing misstep?

Warriors: Abyss is a simple concept. As stated, it looks to the critically-acclaimed indie hit Hades as a template for its endeavor. And while we have seen other IPs turn such inspiration into something memorable, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate, Koei Tecmo lazily stretches the face of its iconic franchise across a genre with little creativity. Perhaps it’s tough to call for creativity from a series that is all about hacking and slashing upwards of tens of thousands of similar looking foes on the battlefield, but this year’s Dynasty Warriors: Origins proved what could be achieved by redefining and refining its tried-and-true approach. Warriors: Abyss had the same opportunity laid before it, but it opted for the easy route.

The narrative, which isn’t a core pillar of the series, is as simple as it gets: your favorite Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors characters are rampaging across a new battlefield littered with opponents. The twist? The battlefield is in Hell. Enma, the one heading this hellish realm, has summoned the souls of iconic warriors to aid in toppling Gouma. And that’s about it. But who plays a Musou game for the story, right?

Bonded for (After)Life

Starting a run sees a chosen warrior embark on a journey through the circles of Hell, wiping countless foes from existence on the way. In typical roguelike fashion, the progression largely stems from clearing the screen of all hostiles before selecting a temporary buff that lasts the remainder of the run. These buffs, such as elemental status effects, largely come from the bonds forged with officers. The bond system itself is interesting in practice, allowing players to figure out officer combinations that yield desirable buffs and stat boosts. Plus, those officers can also be brought into battle, either individually via special charge attacks or altogether via an Assembly special move.

Forging bonds with officers and unlocking each through the Hall of Bonded Souls may be one of the strongest selling points for those disappointed by Origins’ single character restriction. You can play as a wide range of characters including Xiahou Dun, Lu Bu, Cao Cao, and Nobunaga Oda. Unique weapons, such as Xiahou Dun’s Cyclops Slayer, can even be unlocked for these warriors if the special currency Karma Embers are used. In this regard, Warriors: Abyss mirrors the classic Musuo games, giving players a massive cast from which to choose and team up to make effective builds for successive runs. Unfortunately, also like Origins, co-op play is completely absent.

The build variety is elevated through the Formation mechanic. Warriors have their own core skills and stats that are further augmented by temporary boosts (e.g., speed, wisdom, etc.) in each run, but they can be further expanded by recruiting heroes and arranging them in a formation via the War Banner of the King. Figuring out which combinations work best is part of the core loop.

Abyss-mal

The main problem is the core loop fails to do anything of note. The Musuo stylings are loosely draped over the roguelike structure, showing minimal effort in the transition. Levels are repetitive and bland slabs to duke it out on. And the battles playing out over them are absolutely absurd as the game progresses. I understand that absurd could be affixed to most Dynasty Warriors titles as a good thing, but here it isn’t meant positively. The AOE spam is insane, drenching virtually the entire play space in purple shades outlining impending attacks. If Koei Tecmo thought the explosion of colors would make for a visual treat, they overdid it by quite a bit. At the very least they could have removed the cooldown from dodging so that the player speed was keeping up with the enemy onslaught.

Needless to say, it’s a mess. And it’s made all the worse by abysmal boss fight design. Bosses have a shield-like gauge that must be completely depleted before any actual health can be chipped away. That barrier gauge regenerates after a matter of seconds, forcing the player to grind through to the damage phase all over again. It was a jarring shakeup to the pacing as I went into the first boss battle, leaving me thinking that the developer really wants the player throwing bodies at the problem until they gain enough officers and permanent upgrades to overcome the initial boss. Because after that first boss, increasing barrier damage makes the others much simpler.

As a quick note, Warriors: Abyss boasts some awful DLC pricing. While the base game only costs $24.99, the all-inclusive Ultimate Edition runs $79.99. What could justify a three-times price increase? Two hundred alternate costumes pulled from Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors installments. Sure, that’s less than $0.30 a skin, but is that really justified? I won’t be marking down the overall score for this optional DLC pricing, but I felt it was worth calling out.

Warriors: Abyss Review Verdict

[Editor’s Note: Warriors: Abyss was reviewed on PS5, and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.]