Phantom Abyss – game test – GAMES magazine

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Phantom Abyss is an adventurous “first person runner”, or simplified FPR (there is no shooting here at all), in which we can participate in the discovery of lost temples. The game creates an immersive world where every careful step is as important as getting to the end of the levels quickly before the defenders catch up with you, the game perfectly captures the feeling of an Indiana Jones adventure in each game. In the game’s temples, phantoms – the ghosts of the players before us – contribute to the experience through several layers: they give the game a sense of competition, they can lead to secret treasures, and the phantom of a lost player can also provide funny moments. Despite this innovative approach and immersive atmosphere, as well as its easy-to-learn basic mechanics, the game’s biggest problem is its opaque development and progression system. At first, it seems much more obvious to start the much more difficult daily adventure than the easier, step-by-step temples, simply because while the previous one lights up in the middle of the lobby, the simpler temples belonging to the “story” are located on the left side of the room.

The user interface of Phantom Abyss manages to find the right balance between simplicity and interest. The tips and information are concise and to the point, making them easy to digest without overcomplication. One of the standout features is the game’s use of great visual cues. When the game is started, it shows us the signs of difficulties specific to the given temple and describes what they mean, then at the moment of their activation, they light up accompanied by an audio signal and occupy a place at the bottom of the screen. These messages are, for example, the appearance of the guardian of the temple, the activation of some negative effect or the deactivation of our own whip.

In terms of graphical appearance, Phantom Abyss is not epoch-making, but it associates a uniform and spectacular image with its gameplay, which gives the game a quality feeling and a great atmosphere. Each temple is randomly generated from pre-made track elements, which lends variety, however, the finite number of elements leads to the fact that these elements will be repeated after a long playing time. This repetition is not a serious disadvantage, but it slightly moderates the feeling of novelty, but it carries with it the feeling that we are becoming more experienced in exploring churches.