I am a huge Roguelike fan. I started out with Dungeons of Dredmor and then moved onto Rogue Legacy and The Binding of Isaac. In recent years I’ve gotten into Enter the Gungeon, Slay the Spire, and plenty of other roguelike titles. Neon Abyss instantly caught my attention when I saw the trailer, as it combines two things I love: mythology and cyberpunk/neon aesthetics.

In Neon Abyss, a group of gods known as “The New Gods” have taken over and gained dominion over a realm called The Abyss. In response, Hades creates a group of fighters called the Grim Squad to take down the gods and restore his power. You can play as one of 8 (10 with DLC) characters, each with their own unique pros and cons.

Initially, you only start off with two characters, but as you work through the progression trees you can unlock other characters that change the way you play. Some characters have extra mobility options, some start with different health or consumable amounts, while others have different combat capabilities. In terms of overall gameplay, Neon Abyss contains Bullet Hell elements (mostly in bosses) while retaining a run-and-gun feel for the majority of its environments.

Neon Abyss plays like most roguelikes, with some notable changes. You make your way through multiple levels, picking up coins, crystals, items, and guns that build up your run and help you progress further. There are multiple types of rooms, including shops, challenge rooms, and mini-games that you can unlock over the course of your meta-progression.

For most characters, you can only carry one gun at a time. However, one way Neon Abyss differs from other roguelikes in the genre is that your guns can also have an active ability associated with them. One gun may drop random pickups for you when you use its ability. On the other hand, one gun may give you the ability to fly.

These abilities consume crystals, which are also used to open various doors, special chests, and special crystals throughout the dungeon. If you use crystals to open doors, chests, or other items, you get Wisdom points. Fill the Wisdom bar and you’ll get access to a free item room on the floor with special items.

On the other hand, if you attack the chest, doors, crystals, etc then you’ll turn them red. You can then sacrifice HP to open them and accrue Violence Points. By sacrificing health to get Violence Points, you can unlock a sacrifice room, which takes a heart container in exchange for a special item from a unique pool.

This concept is similar to the devil/angel rooms from The Binding of Isaac. However, there is another mechanic that is inspired by Isaac that they’ve elaborated on in an interesting way. As you play through the various levels, you’ll acquire eggs. Eggs have a chance to hatch and if they do they’ll give you either an orbital of some sort or a pet. Orbitals can block bullets, deal damage, or do all sorts of things.

Pets on the other hand act as minions or helpers. Some will shoot enemies in various ways, others can convert health into shields or other items. Pets have a certain amount of health and block shots for you. However, when they die, most pets have some sort of death-ability. For example, the Zombie pet has a chance to split into two zombie pets when it dies.

Pets can also evolve after a certain number of rooms. Some may only evolve once, while others can evolve twice or more. An evolving pet usually gets upgraded abilities, such as the monkey pet who evolves into Wukong and is able to move independently from you to attack enemies with his staff.

In addition to crystals, there are chests and doors that will only open with keys or explosives. You can find keys and explosives throughout your run and, if you’re lucky, you may get passive upgrades that increase the chance to get these consumables. Other passives may make your grenades explode in a bigger radius or may even make enemies drop other consumables after you kill them with an explosive.

Neon Abyss makes references to other games and types of media with the designs of pets and bosses. For example, one of the easier bosses you will encounter is Tik (or his counterpart Tok) which is a reference to… you guessed it, Tiktok, the video-sharing app.

The game riffs off of internet culture, pop culture, and builds a mythology of its own around new gods such as Argus: God of Darknet, who represents the internet. Most bosses have set patterns so if you die to a boss once, which is a given in these games, you’ll likely get a feeling for their patterns and do better next time.

After each run, you will return to the bar, which serves as your hub. Here, you can use Gems, a meta-currency to unlock permanent upgrades such as new items, new rooms, or new characters. In the bar, you can also change the difficulty. Difficulty levels change how much damage the enemies deal and how much they take. It also adjusts how many gems you receive from bosses.

There isn’t a penalty to taking a lower difficulty, so I can encourage you to try it on Easy and then adjust the difficulty to your own preferences. I’m actively considering trying the game on Normal soon, now that I have a better grasp of the game and its mechanics. I greatly support developers making elective difficulty options like this for those of us who just want to enjoy ourselves. It also benefits people with slower reflexes or various muscle disorders.

Getting into my final thoughts for Neon Abyss, I’m not going to tell you that the game is perfect. There have been a few crashes in the time I’ve played, and there are some notable lag/frame rate issues and stuttering during a few of the boss fights. However, I can easily say that Neon Abyss is one of the better Roguelike games that I have played in recent years.

If you like Enter the Gungeon, The Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, or any other similar Roguelike title, then Neon Abyss is one you do not want to miss out on. Playing it on the Switch is especially perfect since you can take it on the go and do a run or two throughout the day if you so choose. The developers are hard at work fixing bugs and updating the game, so don’t overlook Neon Abyss.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Neon Abyss was provided by Team17 Digital LTD for this review.

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Neon Abyss

$19.99 USD

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Multiple Difficulty Options
• Beautiful Aesthetic
• Challenging Bosses and Gameplay
• Lots of Items and Guns to Experiment With
• Lots of Ways to Play

Cons

• Minor Crashing
• Lag/Framerate Issues During Certain Bosses

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