Abyss Odyssey

 PC
Metascore
69

Mixed or average reviews - based on 26 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 19 out of 26
  3. Negative: 0 out of 26
  1. CalmDownTom
    Jul 18, 2014
    100
    A slick combat system and beautiful visuals help blend with an unobtrusive yet uplifting musical score to make this a wonderful little title.
  2. Everyeye.it
    Aug 6, 2014
    80
    Another strike for ACE Team. This roguelike action games has a deep combat system and a very well designed structure. Community goals and an impressive amount of creatures to play are there to strengthen the replay value.
  3. Eurogamer
    Jul 24, 2014
    80
    If Abyss Odyssey stumbles, it at least does so while attempting a genuinely thrilling, high-wire juggling act of game design rather than simply milking obvious and proven gameplay features. For all its missteps, it remains utterly unique, absolutely gorgeous and delightfully eccentric.
  5. Ragequit.gr
    Jul 21, 2014
    80
    Abyss Odyssey is a pretty interesting adventure, worth trying if you like "mild" roguelike games with focus on the fighting element, but it needed a little tweaking to its gameplay mechanisms in order to qualify as a pure diamond.
  6. Hardcore Gamer
    Jul 15, 2014
    80
    Abyss Odyssey is a quirky little gaming gem, and as long as its warlock keeps dreaming, it’s worth fighting through the beauty of his visions.
  7. IncGamers
    Jul 15, 2014
    80
    ACE Team’s mastery of visual imagery finds a welcome home in solid Roguelike(like) elements and capable, cancel-heavy Fighting mechanics. Abyss Odyssey is their most impressive all-round title to date.
  8. 3DJuegos
    Jul 16, 2014
    75
    Visually very attractive, Abyss Odyssey is a good action game with great ideas, but far away from its authentic potential.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 81 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 51 out of 81
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 81
  3. Negative: 14 out of 81
  1. Gratell
    Jul 17, 2014
    2
    In a nutshell :
    Everything is sluggish and really, really slow. Whole game seems like playing Dark Souls with 200% equip load, the slowest    In a nutshell :
    Everything is sluggish and really, really slow. Whole game seems like playing Dark Souls with 200% equip load, the slowest weapon there is (which is also broken since it does no damage) against heavy armored enemies that keep blocking 90% of the time without you being able to break their defense.

    First the enemies in this game have the worst AI I've ever seen. Every time you attack they block. It doesn't matter if your sword is actually able to reach them or not. As long as you face their way and attack they will stay put and just block even if they are 50 miles away from you. Also every time there are more than 2 enemies on the screen one of them seems completely frozen (doesn't attack, move, nothing). I beat one boss just by standing away and spamming projectiles. He just kept walking towards me, got shot (I was playing as the soldier you get when your character does) and thrown back and than he walked towards me again - this is how bad the AI is.
    By the way there is ONE move that "breaks" blocking. A grab that does about 1nano damage and throws your target up or left/right. Absolutely useless.
    Also I have no clue how the hp bar of the enemies work. Sometimes they get hit 5 times and ate still at 100% and suddenly the 6th hit brings their HP to 50%.

    Now I think there is a good way to describe the "sluggish " I used in my review because "slow" is not the right way to describe it:

    In this game you can just do _one_ thing at the time. If you started an action then you have to wait till the animation is over before being able to do something else. For example if you start an attack then you have to wait till the animation is completely over before you can block or evade/roll/turn around /yadda yadda. It feels like there is some sort of input lag but that's not the case ; the game just ignores everything else. If you do a "combo" and attack more than once then there is no way to turn around between the strikes. If you stand before an obstacle that you need to jump but you are facing the other direction then first you have to turn around and then jump - you cannot do both at the same time or change directions mid air. Let's say there is a wall behind of you and to get over it you need to grab the edge of the cliff to climb on it. If you jump and try to turn around then the game simply ignores the change of direction and you end up jumping backwards and instead of grabbing the edge the character just holds onto the wall and slowly slides down (see DelCasts review about the many times you hug the wall even though you don't want to).
    Again Dark Souls is a good comparison since you cannot stop an attack and block or roll before your attack ends (though, you can change directions of you strikes mid animation..). Same goes for Monster Hunter. Another game is Resident Evil where you can only walk OR aim/shoot. However those games work because they aren't 2D action plattformers with enemies that keep jumping behind you while you keep attacking the air then wait for the animation to end, THEN turn around just to realize he jumped over you AGAIN. Imagine Mega Man or another 2D action/beat em up/platformer only now you can only do ONE action at the time and you get this game.

    I have no problems with those "get your timing right or you die"-games. I really love games like Dark Souls, Monster Hunter or Resident Evil and I also really love 2D scrollers like Mega Man, Strider, Viewtiful Joe or simply Mario, Rayman, PLOK! and Rogue Legacy. However this mutated bastard child of those genres known as Abyss Odyssey is absolutely boring, frustrating and generally no fun at all.    … Full Review »
  2. DelCast
    Jul 16, 2014
    6
    I feel Ace team tried to cram too many different genres into one game and ended up with a decent game that happens to be a bit lost.
    Combat    I feel Ace team tried to cram too many different genres into one game and ended up with a decent game that happens to be a bit lost.
    Combat is probably the main problem, as it feels similar to Super Smash Brothers, but not as responsive or varied, actions feel static and interrupt your movement flow too abruptly. It's also extremely difficult to chain together effective combos with the required timing, although there hardly seems any reason to really use combos outside of pvp.
    The difficulty is also irregular, as solo combat seems very hard, as you can easily get juggled by enemies, but co-op on the other hand makes the game feel too easy.
    Likewise, the platforming feels imprecise, being hard to tell when you'll grab on to a ledge or slide off The exploration is always good, but the procedural generation mars how interesting each section really is, and many core gameplay mechanics are poorly explained ( or not at all ).

    Visually, the game is interesting, with some really weird and fascinating art style, but not very well executed. Oddly enough, the main character lady (forgot her name) model and textures look rather bland and washed out, while some other characters appear more detailed. The backgrounds are the highlight in this sense. They seem to have been made by another team as they have much more personality, brimming with life and stylised detail.

    Animations are another mixed bag. While some attacks look decent, most of the character animation is stiff and robotic. Particularly the male soldier "falling" animation looks unintentionally ridiculous.

    All that said, the rogue-like structure ( that I find more similar to binding of Isaac than Spelunky although this does have the side scrolling aspect ), works very well, and a lot of the lack of explanation makes up for intriguing secrets, which makes for a very addictive experience.
    Likewise, levelling up, and unlocking characters and moves keeps you interested even when you are not making much progress..

    Other small issues are input problems where they should wait for your button press, but the press registers too fast ( like when speaking to characters and being given a dialogue option)

    All in all, I know I'm being quite critical of it, but its just that it could be a GREAT game, but it doesn't do anything particularly well. If you find yourself liking the combat, you will get a lot of value for it, as it s designed around replayability (specially since it's pretty cheap). But I cant give it my wholehearted recommendation.    … Full Review »
  3. Fuz
    Jul 20, 2014
    3
    Awful game designed for consoles only.
    While the art style is pretty good and the musics are nice, everything else just plain sucks. The main    Awful game designed for consoles only.
    While the art style is pretty good and the musics are nice, everything else just plain sucks. The main character animations are horrible and feel like an unfinished work.
    The controls are terrible, they're clunky and irresponsive and they didn't even change the button prompts, so you'll see gamepad keys even if you're playing with a keyboard.
    Shame wasting such a nice art style and soundtrack on this atrocious game.    … Full Review »
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