Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy review – a wasted opportunity

(PS Vita, NIS America, cert 6)

A dungeon crawler in the vein of the 3DS's complex and challenging Etrian Odyssey series on the more powerful Vita should be a win. Yet while Operation Abyss packs sharper visuals and a richer, brooding musical score into its nightmare tale of strange powers and extra-dimensional monsters (that only Japanese teenagers can vanquish, naturally), in almost every other respect it's a disappointment.

From reused environments to typos in the text and the rote emulation of Etrian Odyssey's nuanced role-playing, this feels like a job half done. More effort has been put into character creation, for the squads you explore dungeons with, than in explaining any of the game's overcomplicated systems to the player.

Continue reading...