‘Flop’ For Me, Could ‘Turn’ You!
Card games have always been a large part of my life. Some of my earliest memories are chasing that illustrious ‘Charizard – Pokemon Card’. Playing poker with my dad and family friends whilst maybe a bit too young to do so. The beta of ‘Hearthstone’ totally blowing me away and founding my love digital card games. Even more recently with ‘Balatro’ which after writing a test piece got me involved with ‘Game Hype’. Needless to say card games in all of their forms have been and will be a part of my life. The latest to fall on my door step is ‘All in Abyss: Fake The Judge’, A visual novel/poker hybrid. Lets see if it can reach the lofty heights of card games from my past, or is it just a bad hand I need to fold.
‘Abyss’ is set in a world where high stake gambling witches are fawned over like celebrities with a glossy anime style. Stepping into the shoes of ‘Ashura Senahara’ a self proclaimed genius gambler, we are here to gamble our way to the top. A large section are narrative portions spent in a visual novel with very light choices of speech. I must admit these sections are not for me. The amount of talking and narrative was far too much for my liking. I just wanted to play poker. The characters didn’t do a lot for me either which probably added to my frustration with the narrative. I couldn’t tell you much that I experienced because it kind of bored me to the point I started skipping the abundant text boxes. The main thing that did stick with me is how cartoonishly evil the gambling witches antagonists were. They are so over the top its kind of funny, if that was the point I take my hat off to the developers as the mission statement was nailed. I cant really give you much more on the visual novel parts as it failed to click with me.
Despite the personalities of the roster of characters being hit and miss, I did appreciate the art of the game. All of the designs were very unique and were well drawn and crafted. Much of the personality oozed out of their designs without reading any of text. However I did notice on the steam page a “AI Generated Content Disclosure”. It claims AI was only used on background images that were processed by hand post generation and the main city was all art from artists. The omission of anything to do with the character art made me double take whilst playing. I don’t want to accuse anything so I wont but I found myself stopping to think is this just AI slop or genuine art. Although this may not bother some it certainly changed my opinion on one of the aspects of the game I initially liked.
Swiftly moving on to why I’m here the poker. The flavour of poker ‘Abyss’ provides is the classic Texas Hold’em, a personal favourite of mine. A rudimentary description of which is players are given two cards and bets take place in between dealings of cards on the table until there are five exposed and players reveal their cards to find a winner. The mechanics of which translate nicely into game. I was disappointed that not all characters you play against have faces which makes the betting seem a little arbitrary. Learning characters tells and poker faces could have elevated the game significantly. A few changes have been made to make it feel more anime poker rather than a trip to the casino. ‘Ashura’ can learn many skills in a RPG-lite system than can be utilised in game. Such as she can learn to count cards or force the dealer to play a card of choice for the final card to give her the edge when revealing your cards. These additions to the classic card game certainly give it a more video game feel which I welcomed. Upon revealing your cards each winning hand has a certain multiplier and attack power to destroy opponents chips as well as taking what was gambled.
During story based poker matches against the antagonists, moments are scripted. I wasn’t totally against this but it does turn certain hands into more of a puzzle game rather than a luck based gambler. Why would I go all in or use my skills on a hand if I know its scripted that one of the witches has a perfect hand. These scripted battles also end in way that put the nail in the coffin for myself. Upon winning or losing these games you get an optional punishment file to view. These play out as drawn cutscenes being punished in an ironic way. For example the first witch is a fan of confectionary to psychotic level. Her punishment file is her being force fed sweets until she cant take anymore. The way these scenes are drawn are pretty gross and creepily drawn, verging almost on hentai without the lack of clothing. Needless to say this was not for me in the slightest and I thank the lord my better half didn’t walk in on me playing these scenes.
On reflection I am clearly not the target audience for ‘Abyss’. While I didn’t find any interest in the visual novel elements others most assuredly could. The poker the main pull for me was a bit too few and far between for my liking, despite having great poker gameplay. Luckily ‘Abyss’ does have a rouge mode called Poker Royale. I found a lot of enjoyment playing this mode but higher difficulties do require you to progress in the story. I’m sorry but as much as I like that mode I can’t go through anymore of the story to get to the limited part I enjoyed. ‘Abyss’ is a fold from me.
A review code for PC was provided by Stride PR. This review is featured on OpenCritic.
