REVIEW – WARRIORS: Abyss is an exhilarating take on the Warriors formula

The Warriors franchise is vastly underrated. Despise having extremely fun games, including quality crossovers with properties like Zelda, Fire Emblem, or One Piece, many people miss out on some very entertaining adventures simply because the one-versus-a-thousand gameplay found in these games. However, WARRIORS: Abyss is a quality spinoff that should not be missed; its roguelite characteristics, along with the signature warriors style, make for a very addictive loop that will be hard to put down.

The Abyss has been taken away from King Enma by an entity called Gouma, so the ruler of the underworld decides to call upon the spirits of warriors to help him take it back. The story is fairly simple, merely a way to justify the roguelite style since after every defeat Enma can call upon spirits again and start over. What makes this game truly great is its gameplay.

Players start by choosing one heroine or hero and then go to face the four levels of the Abyss, each consisting of eight phases. At the end of each level, there is a challenging boss that can only be conquered after getting stronger. You might initially lose these fights, but after completing each phase and defeating an increasing number of enemies, you can choose a reward to help you best the bosses.

Before facing a phase, you can choose from three different, random potential rewards. Perhaps you want to add more warriors to your team, so you choose Crystal Saplings. There, you will have access to three random characters to choose from. However, you may want to recover your health instead, or open a chest with either Karma Embers or Tears of Blood, which are the two currencies that this game has.

Just like any roguelite, this randomness in almost every aspect is what makes this game so addictive – every run is different! You may unlock heroes that dramatically change how you play, or may suddenly end up with a heroine that harmonizes perfectly with your game plan. Or suddenly you have a lot of Tears of Blood, stumble upon a King’s Cauldron, and your strategy changes completely.

The King’s Cauldron may appear randomly within the three options for rewards in every phase. It functions as a game store where you can pay Tears of Blood to unlock warriors, formations, or items to replenish your health or Musou gauge (i.e. the gauge for special attacks). You lose all of your Tears of Blood upon defeat, so you must use them as soon as you can. I would always save them to unlock my favorite formation, and then to unlock warriors.

Formations are key since they give your team special powers and can unlock strong attacks. Four formations will show up in any King’s Cauldron from the ones you have unlocked from the Hall of Bonded Souls.

The other game currency, Karma Embers, is kept upon defeat and allows for permanent upgrades at the Hall of Bonded Souls. Here you can unlock formations, bonuses, and (more importantly) new warriors. You start the game with a handful of characters and must unlock the rest by paying Embers.

Unlocking new spirits is important not only because it gives you access to new, powerful warriors, but also because each one unlocks a permanent upgrade to your health, attack, or defense. Every run is longer because your character grows with every unlock, which is a fantastic progression system. I made a beeline for my favourite characters and decided to use them to beat the game.

Your main team consists of seven characters; the one you start every run with, plus six among the ones you keep getting as rewards. Those main characters can be summoned for a quick attack, so there is a lot of strategy to consider with your team composition.

However, it would be a waste if you could only have seven characters to be useful from a huge pool. Thankfully, the developers came up with a brilliant system which makes the game very strategic: the emblem system.

Every character has emblems associated to them. They could be Speed, Defense, Fire, Ice, and many others. Once you reach a certain number of emblems, you unlock certain skills. For example, if you have one Speed emblem, you are invulnerable when dodging, or if you have four Bolt emblems, your stronger attacks generate electricity which could paralyze your opponents.

It is extremely addictive to see which new powers you unlock as you go. I tried to focus on Speed on most of my runs by picking heroes with that emblem, but in my winning run I ended up with seventeen Charm emblems, which made skills from formations so much stronger.

To add to the addictiveness, warriors also need a certain number of emblems to unlock or strengthen skills. For example, Oichi had a skill to revive you once, but it needed seven Grace emblems. Luckily, many of my favourite heroines had it, but it was thrilling to see if they would show up among the choices at the end of a battle.

It was equally exciting to see which Treasure a boss would give. Treasures will activate a huge change for the rest of your run, ranging from lowering prices on the store to reviving yourself once. They can alter your gameplay strategies radically, and when you combine this aspect with everything else, you’ll come to realize that Abyss is a fantastic game.

There is so much happening, including random events within a phase or the ability to complete quick missions to unlock prizes like Tears, Embers, or even Unique Weapons for each character that permanently unlock new skills. Emblems can even be dropped by enemies, so suddenly you can unlock a great ability that turns the tide in the middle of a hopeless battle. There is no a single dull moment in the game.

As mentioned earlier, the story is not really important. Enemy design is very generic and unmemorable, which makes sense since you will have hundreds of characters on screen at once. The game ran smoothly most of the time, only struggling once or twice per run and only for a second or two. Music is above average, but the stage design was very basic. However, even with these weaknesses, the gameplay and progression were so good that no negative aspect took anything away from the huge enjoyment I got.

Full of exciting combat, fueled by an addictive gameplay loop with constant progression, WARRIORS: Abyss is an extremely enjoyable addition to the Switch library. Whether you beat a run or face your demise, you won’t be able to put the controller down without wanting to try one more time, facing a completely new adventure. Any fan of roguelites or Warriors games should check this game out right away.