Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness is the latest title from Chime Corporation, a studio previously entrusted to create Re:ZERO -Starting life in another world- The prophecy of the throne. But otherwise they’re largely unknown, so what can we expect from a game that borrows from such an elaborate and creative setting as Created in abyss?
Not only that, but we also get two modes to play with, a long tutorial where we follow the story of Riko and Reg from the manga until they leave the 2nd layer. In addition, there is a fully original story supervised by series creator Akihito Tsukushi, in which players can create their own young cave diver.
Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness
Developer: Chime Corporation
Publisher: Spike Chunsoft
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch (reviewed)
Release date: September 2, 2022
Players: 1
Price: $59.99 USD
First, the game prides itself on having two modes. “HELLO ABYSS” where you follow the story of Riko and Reg and “DEEP IN ABYSS” with your own character.
Make no mistake, instead of a separate game mode, HELLO ABYSS is a glorified tutorial that must be completed before DEEP IN ABYSS. Basically, you should spend one to two hours retelling a story that fans of the series will know, and as a fan it’s not worth it.
Even for a tutorial, the game doesn’t teach you much more than the basics of movement. You hardly need to make anything but basic food, Reg acts as a reusable rope for rappelling off ledges, and your weapon doesn’t seem to lose durability. Basically you just tackle each card like a puzzle to get to the end as fast as possible so you can start playing the real game.
HELLO ABYSS also suffers from bad gameplay, whether that’s the ridiculous boss fight towards the end where you’re basically just circling a room while one of the most powerful characters in the setting takes small chopping steps, or the few quick-time- events that don’t telegraph exactly what the game wants.
It took me five tries to do what seemed like a simple “press A” but apparently that wasn’t good enough.
Apparently the circle indicates that you press and DELAY A, at least I think that eventually worked. I saw red after going through the same movie five times to even get to the QTE. Feel free to fool me in the comments if you think this was obvious but it wasn’t for me and I’ve played Telltale’s Jurassic Park.
After spending about 2 hours on the tutorial, you can finally play the main game (aka DEEP IN ABYSS).
While HELLO ABYSS was a fun diversion, you don’t even use a fraction of the craft items and other features introduced in this new mode. Now you have your own character, a brand new story and the satisfaction of character progression by leveling up and taking requests in the Abyss.
While DEEP IN ABYSS feels more like a full-featured game, it generally doesn’t address the issues inherent in the game. The graphics remain muddy, the controls remain clunky and clunky, and the enemies still oscillate between predictable and inevitable. So now that the rant about this game’s glorified tutorial is over, let’s dissect the game as a whole.
Graphically, there isn’t much to look at here. All the attention to detail seems to have been given to the character models, which are smooth and true to the manga.
On the Switch, small enemies look like they’d be at home on the PS2 and the terrain is muddy and characterless in most places. Some of the bigger enemies are at least okay to look at and there are some nice vistas in the background, but the actual playing field is dull and unpleasant.
The controls are clunky, if you expect an open world exploration, such as: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild your best bet is to look elsewhere. I would settle for exploration as fluid as a janky survival game like Rust or Conan Exilesbut Made in the abyss doesn’t even work.
Climbing is an exploitative mess. If you count the number of moves you make before using up stamina (it’ll be 3 up and down or 2 from left to right) and then tap B to do a big move, you effectively double your stamina.
Other examples of bad design are minor bumps like roots and logs that bring you to a complete stop, not to mention the annoying Curse of the Abyss.
For those unfamiliar, the Curse of the Abyss is a type of illness that occurs when one tries to exit the Abyss too quickly (or all the way past the fifth tier) with symptoms growing as a diver goes deeper. The game does a commendable job of reflecting this in the game, except for one small thing. The curse is simplified when an upward change in height causes it to accumulate.
You can make your character sick by just jumping up and down or walking over any of the terrain bumps mentioned above. An argument has to be made that this is authentic to the lore of the game, but I’m not so sure.
Finally, as a fan of Made in the abyss I am disappointed more than anything given the potential of the source material. The writing of the game contains most of what’s good here and it’s a good introduction to the first part of the manga story.
Meanwhile, the original DEEP IN ABYSS story might keep curious players entertained for a little longer. While DEEP IN ABYSS cashes in on the game, after the frustrating tutorial and gameplay, I wouldn’t be surprised if a handful of players don’t even bother to get that far.
Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness was reviewed on Nintendo Switch with a copy of Spike Chunsoft. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness is now available for Windows PC (via Steam), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
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