Neon Abyss

Neon Abyss works exceptionally well, despite a number of important flaws that would otherwise dull similar games in its vein. When crafting a roguelike, developers must rely on that careful balance of frustration and joy doled out by the Random Number Generator Gods. At any point, a run through a cave or laboratory or dungeon dance club can go flawlessly. Through sheer force of luck a player might nab the best power-ups and felled enemies’ corpses will shower the screen with loot, making their character an immortal harbinger of death.

Or you simply get screwed over, watching level after level tick away with unfulfilling rewards and rooms packed with death traps or devastating combinations of enemies. Sadly, lady luck was not on your side.

Despite the swells of rage, disappointment, jubilation, and victory, a good roguelike will always create that nagging itch in the player’s mind. “One more.” The terrifyingly brilliant mantra has forged the successes of The Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, and Dead Cells.

Neon Abyss is able to wedge itself into this hall of greats because of sheer mechanical ridiculousness and a handful of slightly unique elements that spice up traditional one-and-done runs through. Ignoring the window dressing of a plot where players are tasked with destroying a collection of gods by an entity named Hades, there is little story to note or care about in Neon Abyss. Is the titular Neon Abyss the night club that players are sent back to after death, or is it the literal abyss waiting in the pit outside the dance floor? Who knows? Who really cares?

In the depths of the Abyss, players shoot their guns through innumerable dungeon rooms in hopes of obtaining supplemental buffs before encountering a boss. The first tutorial run of Neon Abyss will play out much like the next dozen or the next hundred. There are enemies stuffed in rooms that need to die before gates will open. Keys can be found that will unlock chests or doors or pathways. Bombs can crack open hidden walls or break through stone. Coins can be found to buy items from vendors or insert into slot machines that bar progression. After the well of rooms has run dry, players pass through the ominous threshold of a boss door, kill it, get an item, and move through a portal to the next set of rooms. Rinse, repeat.

Like many players who thirst for a new Call of Duty year after year or can’t wait to get their hands on a big budget open world game, Neon Abyss is on a game-bearing tree that I am very happy to pluck from. Roguelikes are one of the many genres I would love to spend my hypothetical infinite amount of time with because the general formula is steadfast and simple. Each death is an opportunity for improvement but also a fresh start. Easily digestible 20-minute runs give players a snapshot into the future because there’s none of that pesky narrative to worry about or question marks on a screen to uncover.

Neon Abyss has that approachable quality to it. Players can enjoy it for a few hours and step away for months, only to come back and get lost for days. Understanding the fundamentals of the game takes minutes, even less if you are a veteran of the genre. Over time, learning the patterns of enemies will become easier because players literally encounter them hundreds of times throughout levels. Small details and self-taught advice like keeping a bomb or key for the next level to guarantee access to certain rooms will come in time.

As a platform shooter, Neon Abyss feels at home with the shooting and occasionally uneasy as a platformer. One of my biggest gripes with the game is that the jump button defaults to L2 on PlayStation 4. It feel unnatural, especially when the X button is sitting there. I tried remapping jump to X but found that I couldn’t–a strange choice. Otherwise, the jumping and controls were mostly tight as there are only a few instances where precise movement is required.

Shooting is a stick-based affair as players use the right stick to target shots. Gun accuracy wildly varies based on what gun players are actually using. Over my 25-30 hours of play I felt like I had used most of the guns present in the game, pulling the trigger on some truly weird things. Heat-seeking rockets will be a personal favorite for everyone because they also act as explosives. One gun charges up before shooting out a freeze grenade. A guitar encircles the player in music notes that cause melee damage. There’s a cat head that shoots fish bones that splinter off into three directions. Energy beams may do less damage but latch onto enemies. Some wizard’s gun shoots out lasers and shooting stars while another sprouts damaging tendrils from the player’s backside.

I wouldn’t want to count the number of guns in Neon Abyss but eventually I learned to recognize many of them by name or appearance. Like any roguelike, there are going to be duds, regardless of what power-ups are equipped. The heat-seeking rocket launcher was amazing but players can easily kill themselves from splash damage. Additionally, most guns will also feature an active and/or passive skill that increases their value or risk. One particularly “terrible” gun was a death ray that took seconds to fire one high-damage beam but had an active skill that let players blink a few tiles over. Boy was this gun awful for bosses but the blink ability allows players to pass through locks and other barriers that hold items.

Neon Abyss has a way of making the purpose of many of its items elusive. Those skills or guns that seem pointless become less so when supplemented by the 100+ items, pick-ups, and pets that can be collected.

Pets are by far the easiest to explain because they act as little helpers that float alongside the player until they eventually expire. To get a pet, players first have to find an egg. After clearing out rooms, eggs will eventually hatch with with a pet or nothing at all. Maybe you will get a clown that shoots bullets but eventually evolves to throw bombs. Or a cat that turns heart containers into moldy hearts that harm or heal. A teddy bear can evolve into a panda bear that shoots bouncier shots. Or maybe you will get that annoying vibrant ball that not only blocks enemy projectiles but your own. I particularly love the zombie girl that shoots poison and splits into two when becoming damaged, potentially creating several other zombies that fill up the room.

While it certainly sounds weird, eggs and pets have just as much utility as anything else in the game. Players might pick up an item that turns any egg into a bomb that will explode when it touches a rock. Several pick-ups grant bonuses based on when an egg hatches or if a pet dies. The best part is that there seems to be no limit as to how many eggs and pets a player can have trailing behind them. After a particularly successful run I think I had about 20 pets and eggs helping me to victory.

Synergy is the key to success in Neon Abyss and eventually, there may come a point where players might pick and choose items to avoid. There is an unfathomable amount of item combinations that exist, all meant to alter gun play, movement, pets, and just about everything else. Basic pick-ups will add full heart containers at the end of a boss fight to grant more maximum health or increase weapon damage. More weapon damage is often indicated by larger sized projectiles. Guns can also be leveled up, shoot faster, or gain increased range, you know, the basics. Deeper into the Abyss, players will find items that cause weapon projectiles to split or blow up after a certain time. Maybe the gun will randomly fire a poison bullet or gain fire damage.

For fun, go check out this list of items on the game’s wiki. There are several I never came across on my runs. It’s honestly somewhat baffling how many there are. Of course, there are ones that can ruin a player’s day like when coins explode after a few seconds–great if you don’t have bombs but also pretty terrible if you don’t have immunity from explosions. Double jumps and the ability to fly became crucial components to runs because it allowed me to bypass several obstacles. Often I would ignore paying for or choosing items that affected my bombs. The reason for this is because I never used bombs in combat unless I had dozens of them, they are just too hard to aim.

Not only do items alter the appearance of the player character, they are packed with references to pop culture. Comic books, movies, television, and games are all fodder for items in Neon Abyss. Many with surprising and cool results. A particular favorite was the “Grabber” pet that sought out coins and eventually exploded in gold when killed. Yes, it looked like Donald Trump. If you wanted to, you could cheat the system and look up what an item is before collecting it. By default, the game does not tell you what an item does but some characters have the ability to show descriptions, except in a shop.

During runs I found myself actively seeking out items and guns that would supplement what I already had equipped, while praying that a lucky few would come my way, especially anything that made me immune to explosive damage–for real, it becomes a lifesaver. One of my favorite aspects of Neon Abyss‘ item system is that players have the ability to unlock items, characters, and new rules for runs. After defeating a boss, players receive golden crystals that can be turned in at the bar. Prices for items start at between five to ten crystals and increase with each new branch. When a player purchases one of these item nodes, that item and usually a bonus one will be given to the player to try out for free on the next run. Additionally, that item is now be added to the random pool.

It’s a clever way to experiment right out of the gate and usually gives players a leg up right at the beginning. In addition to helpful items, players can change what they will encounter in dungeons by unlocking new rules. Golden-tinted rocks that hide items, moldy hearts, merchants to trade in bombs and coins, bonus rooms, and more will diversify future runs and give players more ways to tip the odds in their favor.

Bonus rooms in Neon Abyss are mainly playful but also beneficial. Players will unlock a room that has two branching paths with one usually leading to rewards and the other leading to a meager payoff. Another is a piano room where players must jump on the correct keys to win a prize. I avoided the piano room because the game’s odd jumping meant I would waste 15 coins trying to line up the first jump and immediately land on the wrong key a second later and fail the room. Better, more interesting encounters can be unlocked, though.

Before starting a run, players will also be able to select a preferred character. At the beginning, players can pick Wade or Anna. Anna starts with four heart containers and a key. Wade starts with three heart containers, a bomb, and a key. With more golden crystals players can unlock Lucas who drops a mine that may immediately explode, James who can hold two guns, R-6 that only can have shields, and several others.

Despite an interesting and in-depth collection of ways to supplement a run, it’s important to keep in mind that players will get to a point where the cost of unlocking a node becomes incredibly expensive. Players will need to defeat several hundred bosses before being able to unlock everything and there’s no way to refund a purchase. It costs 15 crystals to unlock the first new character and he is found at the end of one of the trees. While I understand wanting players to make difficult choices, the stingy requirements felt prohibitive. New upgrade branches supposedly unlock after defeating a major boss, as this happened the first time I beat a god. But after beating my second god, a third path didn’t unlock. Then, suddenly, maybe after encountering the second god another time and meeting the third god, that third branch appeared in my options. It’s one of the few things the game does not explain well for players.

Aesthetically, Neon Abyss lacks in shocking ways. When I first noticed the game, I expected a flashy blend of bright visuals, blood, and synth, akin to Hotline Miami. The few music tracks in the game are catchy and change in speed and intensity when enemies are on the screen, but I wanted more. Biomes are limited as players delve deeper and deeper into the Abyss, offering similar visual palettes over the course of every run. Enemies and bosses won’t win many awards for creativity, appearing as cartoon-like menaces with no real threat. Generic shapes with wings, eyes, and teeth will bite and shoot at players. Weird teddy bears, amoebas, and creatures are commonplace for a long stretch of the early game. Like the unlock trees, I think players begin to encounter new enemies after beating enough gods. Late into the game I ran into ghosts that could only be shot while solid, creatures that would turn to stone and become immune, and a few additional baddies that were meant to keep me on my toes.

Like the rank and file enemies, lesser bosses make little impact. Also referred to as gods, these bosses are contained to a single screen and move wildly around the room. Most have two variations that feel mainly cosmetic but have a few different move sets. A duo or trio of flying heads race around the room vomiting spiked eggs that grow into enemies. A wheel races along the walls and shoots out projectiles. A weird singing head emits stars and has frustrating immunity phases. Bosses move fast and erratically and will often shower the screen in projectiles that are difficult to avoid but still maintain a pattern. Often I found that it was easiest to sit in a corner and move a couple inches left or right to avoid a bullet.

These larger encounters can become a joke with the right combination of upgrades or a complete misery. Slow-firing guns can have a player stuck in a boss fight for minutes. The major bosses of the game are more creative both visually and mechanically but are insanely difficult. These bosses will often fill the the screen with beams of death that are hard to avoid. And keep in mind, these bosses are encountered when every attack shaves a full heart off without the help of another item.

It’s at these later boss fights where Neon Abyss can grow a bit tiresome if not oppressively difficult. For players to progress to “the end,” they are required to defeat the game’s five major gods. The first three can be beaten by progressing through the levels. And if you had a good run and beat a god for the first time? Sorry, you are sent back to the bar and must start from scratch. Usually, if you make it to any major god, you’re on a good run and it sucks to have it ripped away from you. However, the final two gods require a bit more effort and luck.

Ares, the fourth god, can only be fought if you have collected his token from a specific room. To get to this room players must interact with the Wisdom and Violence mechanic of Neon Abyss. During runs, players will see pink gates, chests, and crystals that can only be unlocked with crystals, another currency that is also used to power active skills or other abilities. When inserting a crystal into one of these objects, players will trigger a meter on the lower right screen. Once this meter fills up, a secret room is unlocked.

To fill up the Wisdom path, players must avoid taking damage in rooms and activate the specific purple crystals. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Violence path which focuses on players taking damage. Players might encounter red crystal chests, doors, or totems and they can only be opened by walking into them, taking damage. Being hurt in rooms also fills the red Violence meter, unlocking a secret room when full. Both Wisdom and Violence rooms offer items but only the Violence room comes at a cost. To claim an item in this room, players must sacrifice a heart container, lowering their maximum health. Only one item from either type of room can be claimed, meaning players have to weigh the pros and cons, if there are any.

To encounter Ares, players must get lucky and have a token randomly drop in the secret Violence room. Athena, the fifth boss requires the same methodology, just in the Wisdom rooms. Several runs I would intentionally take damage, fueling the Violence meter and losing health only to receive no Ares token. If I was lucky to get one, I had to hope that it was early enough that I hadn’t taken too much damage or that I had a good collection of items that would hopefully earn me victory in the harder boss fights. What’s more frustrating is that players can accidentally shift the polarity of Wisdom objects by shooting them or having an enemy projectile hit them. There are moments where a player may have to rush into a room and sacrifice their health just to trigger a shift.

Though I appreciate this extra twist of the knife, using it as a way to block players from accessing a boss can be annoying. To get to Ares and Athena, players have to get through the previous gods which are also difficult. Worse yet, accidentally hitting a red crystal often wipes nearly all progress on the Wisdom meter and the two are not independent of each other. The mechanic won’t start ticking away until players encounter one of the crystals, meaning that it can take multiple levels to unlock the secret rooms.

Neon Abyss is definitely not without flaw. The negatives are etched into my mind quite clearly and represent several points of frustration for me during my extensive time with the game. I expect spikes of difficulty and poor luck in a roguelike, that’s a staple of the genre. Even the game’s lacking aesthetic left me wanting for a more thrilling, stylish cast of characters to pepper with bullets. Yet there is an infectiously fun quality to Neon Abyss that Veewo Games captured. The item synergy is truly a spectacle, ensuring that similar, repetitive runs remain unique. Whether it is a constellation of pets and eggs, the Frankenstein costume of pick-ups a player is wearing, or the colorful spray of death, Neon Abyss is a blast, shedding its flaws from your mind and giving way to yet another bizarre run.