This is all to say that Phantom Abyss falls somewhat short on achieving the goal of offering a challenging parkour adventure in a roguelite package. The whip and phantom gameplay involving other players’ trial and error are unique, but its clunkiness, difficulty, and disparate progression are worth a pause. I’m confident that additional polish and content are coming down the pipeline, but I need more from the current state of the game.
The early smartphone days of gaming were glorious. Phone games were simpler, far less addled with advertisements, and often killers of battery life. These days, battery life is supposedly better, but mobile games are a smidgen more complicated. If you watch the ridiculous advertisements in-between TikToks, they’re probably more off-the-wall, too.
One early game I remember fondly was Temple Run. It was a simple running game involving single swipe inputs. Swipe up to jump. Swipe down to slide. Swipe left or right to dodge. Collect coins. Stay alive. That sort of thing. That kind of gameplay is simple to pick up, enjoyable in short bursts, while replayable to a high degree.
When I first came across Phantom Abyss, I was quickly reminded of Temple Run’s simplicity. I was tasked with running through temples, dodging traps, and keeping safe from demonic guardians that chased me all the way to the end. All simple tasks, save for one key difference: I had a whip!
Yes, dear reader. I had a whip and I could use it to extend my jumps and improve my traversal. More on that in a moment.
The premise of Phantom Abyss sounds fun, simple, and properly arcade-y. Being a temple thief like Indiana Jones and Uncharted’s Nathan Drake involves danger, treasure, defying gravity and the laws of physics. These temples are also full of phantoms – other players’ ghosts that attempted to play and complete the randomly generated level you are currently trying to escape. These phantoms can activate traps and unlock doors, thus making the experience relatively unique and pseudo-competitive.
In a game like Phantom Abyss where running, jumping, and sliding are core gameplay elements, traversal should feel exhilarating. Inhuman, even. Being a treasure thief/temple explorer like Indiana Jones should involve momentum. As a player, this translates to me feeling like I’m becoming faster, deftly dodging danger, and maintaining momentum in multiple fashions. Unfortunately, Phantom Abyss doesn’t make me feel like I’m a lithe explorer who’s attempting to balance the fine line between life and death.
Phantom Abyss’ temples are full of danger and treasure. Well, far more danger than treasure. Levels require me to fall from great heights, timing a button press to roll to safety. Gigantic blades can be jumped over and slid under. When I used the roll function to break my falls, the movement felt slightly clunky rather than smooth. As I was running, I maintained my current speed rather than incrementally increasing my speed, or at least transitioning from faster to slower. Dashing felt more like blinking forward. I kept hoping for fluid animations and traversal, yet I was met with clunkiness.
That clunkiness has made its way into the vertical traversal and whip gameplay, too. Despite having the flexibility to use the whip to scale walls, flying through the air lacked the fluidity and momentum I might expect from something like Spiderman or even Cyber Hook. I wasn’t able to reach the high speeds I kept expecting to reach.
Taking all of this together, Phantom Abyss doesn’t challenge players with managing momentum. Instead, it challenges players with simply dodging traps and lightly utilizing different whips. By watching where other players’ ghosts have succeeded and failed, you, too, could overcome what they couldn’t.
Phantom Abyss’ Adventure Mode is the first available “mode.” Once you’ve unlocked enough whips and permanent character upgrades, you can proceed to the Daily and Abyss modes.
The current setup of Adventure Mode is less balanced and more disparate than I would like. I usually expect traversal-forward games to build upon gameplay, incorporating new elements while incrementally upping the difficulty through multiple tests. To pass the tests, the player has to continuously utilize the most recently obtained power-up in new ways. Not here. Each randomly-generated temple gauntlet involves its own unique whip that becomes unlocked for other modes once you successfully survive the gauntlet. This means that many of the whips lack impact despite offering the player something that can change the way the game is played.
I can understand that a decision was made to allow players to choose their own adventure and select which levels to complete on their own, echoing the Mario 64 method of progression. The issue here is that levels lack objectives that force players to utilize each whip’s unique abilities. For instance, on a level that had me use a whip that could dispel enemy guardians, simply running away from the guardians was more effective than actually using the whip for its intended purpose. On a level where I could use my whip twice in the air, there were very few opportunities for me to do so.
Some levels were also far more difficult than others, leading me to believe that additional balance is needed to ease player pain when losing. Each level in Adventure Mode features a set of challenges to overcome, such as being continuously chased by a demon or darts that fly faster than usual. Some challenges are flat out brutal, like one that ends your run if you take damage while holding a key or crystal to light your way through a Gloom Room (dark passageway). Falling into a pit while being chased by a guardian can be frustrating, as the game would often respawn me a great distance away from where I died…only to be hit by the guardian who was inches away. Light tuning is definitely needed on the game’s difficulty.
Phantom Abyss taps into some light roguelike gameplay thanks to its difficulty spikes. It doesn’t expect you to complete each level on the first try. Instead, if you’re lucky enough to find a rare key (colored coin) in a level, you can exchange sets of them for permanent upgrades like dash cooldown and bonus health. Losing feels quite punishing, too, as failing a run sends you back to the start of the temple. With enough patience and persistence, I was able to complete its levels, but I fear that others may become frustrated with the experience without giving it a fair shake. Losing 30+ minutes of progress to a cheap challenge (dying if taking damage while holding something) or an unfairly placed guardian and having to start over is legitimately frustrating.
Blessings can be encountered and purchased in between temple phases, adding a bit to the roguelite experience. The blessings made me feel a smidge more powerful on my current run, like being able to double jump or heal if I came in contact with water. However, most of the time I was only able to afford a single blessing because of the rate at which I was able to acquire gold while subsequent blessings increased in price.
As mentioned prior, there are two additional modes outside of Adventure Mode: Abyss Mode and Daily Mode. Abyss exists as a battle-royale setup where you’re pitted against other phantoms (player ghosts) in a multi-floor gauntlet. The first player (or phantom) to claim the relic at the end wins while everyone else (if they survive to see the end) gets nothing for their trouble. It’s a competitive endgame challenge, so expect to grind quite a bit before you can survive that long. The Daily Mode is a randomly generated each day – during my review period, I found that each of the levels had relatively distinct layouts with variable difficulty, so there should be enough for new and veteran players alike.
My one final quibble with Phantom Abyss is that it lacks a cohesive soundtrack. In a momentum-based game, I often rely on a soundtrack to keep the pace of the game itself, bolstering my gameplay. I’m not saying that a soundtrack should be all gas, no breaks, and high-energy ala WipEout, but it helps for that musical consistency to exist. Phantom Abyss has a limited soundtrack, often playing a Jaws-esque soundbyte when I’m being chased by a guardian.
This is all to say that Phantom Abyss falls somewhat short on achieving the goal of offering a challenging parkour adventure in a roguelite package. The whip and phantom gameplay involving other players’ trial and error are unique, but its clunkiness, difficulty, and disparate progression are worth a pause. I’m confident that additional polish and content are coming down the pipeline, but I need more from the current state of the game.
