Not Abysmal – Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy Review

<p>NIS America has been a supporter of Sony&&num;8217&semi;s fledgling Vita system by shipping many dungeon crawlers for it&period; <em>Operation Abyss&colon; New Tokyo Legacy<&sol;em> is another one of the JRPG dungeon crawlers and it doesn&&num;8217&semi;t disappoint&period; The game starts off with the typical RPG tropes&colon; You awaken in a dark and dingy area with no recollection of how you arrived&period; After you come a bit to your senses&comma; a young man appears before you and tells you that he&&num;8217&semi;s here to help&period; He lets you know that you&&num;8217&semi;ve been kidnapped because you were born with Code-Rise&comma; a special power only gifted to a few people&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Once you escape&comma; your saviors take you back to the school you were abducted from&comma; and you learn about the secret CPA headquarters&period; This is where you meet your squad members&semi; The game randomly gives you certain characters on your team&comma; but it allows you to change them&comma; should you be a more seasoned RPG player&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m still a noob to JRPGs and how they work&comma; so I stuck with the team they gave me&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;06&sol;04221955&sol;3&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-84677" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;06&sol;04221955&sol;3&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Operation Abyss" width&equals;"775" height&equals;"438" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>You also get to meet the quirky cast that will be helping you out on your dungeon crawling journey&period; Kemichi Kanzaki&&num;8217&semi;s the headmaster of the school and the director of the Xth Squad&period; This is the squad that you join due to your Code-Rise potential&period; Kaito Saeki&comma; a 15 year old genius who&&num;8217&semi;s the vice captain of the Xth Squad&comma; and he&&num;8217&semi;s the one that handles you the most throughout the beginning of the game&comma; letting you know where everything is and how to use it&period; Mao Gota&&num;8217&semi;s part of the communication division and let&&num;8217&semi;s you know where the action is happening&period;Finally&comma; Alice Mifune&&num;8217&semi;s the captain of the Xth Squad who uses actions instead of words&comma; and that sometimes gets her into trouble&period; There are many more quirky folks that you get to meet and battle with as you progress through the game&comma; but these are the ones that stuck out as most important to me&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The art style&&num;8217&semi;s your typical anime style&period; Huge eyes&comma; weird hair&comma; and somewhat oddly shaped proportions are only part of  the characters&&num;8217&semi; design&period; They also sport some pretty interesting fashion choices&comma; ones I&&num;8217&semi;m sure I&&num;8217&semi;d never be able to pull off&period; The enemy design is also quite amazing&colon; Sometimes you get some of the same riff raff&comma; but when you get a major boss your eyes are in for a treat&period; Unfortunately&comma; the dungeons you spend a majority of the game in are quite boring&period; The walls are bland&comma; the ground is bland&comma;  and for what are suppose to be extremely scary and monster ridden dungeons&comma; they could use a Home &amp&semi; Garden Network makeover&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;06&sol;04221945&sol;maxresdefault&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-84680" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;06&sol;04221945&sol;maxresdefault&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Operation Abyss" width&equals;"725" height&equals;"408" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The controls are very easy to master&period; To navigate a dungeon&comma; you can use the left thumbstick to move forwards and backwards&comma; and it also turns you left and right&period; The right thumbstick lets you sidle left and right&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s tricky with the left thumbsitck&comma; so I used the D-pad to make my mundane travels easier&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The battle system&comma; once you encounter an enemy in dungeon is fairly straightforward as well&period; Before each turn&comma; the game allows you to pick what each of the six parties will do in that turn&period; You can chose to Attack&comma; Defend&comma; cas a Spell&comma; or use an Item&comma; which makes the battles very simple&period; You can have your melee attackers attack&comma; while you have your healer to heal&comma; or you can use Item to drink a potion&period; Once your characters get through their moves&comma; the enemies do theirs&comma; and you rinse and repeat until you&&num;8217&semi;ve defeated them or you&&num;8217&semi;re defeated yourself&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Operation Abyss&colon; Tokyo Legacy&&num;8217&semi;<&sol;em>s a fairly fun jaunt through some unimaginative dungeons&period; While not the best JRPG I&&num;8217&semi;ve ever played&comma; it is definitely not the worst&period; The story keeps you hooked&comma; the characters keep you laughing&comma; and the content keeps you busy&period; This isn&&num;8217&semi;t a Vita seller&comma; but should you already own a Vita and have conquered <em>Persona 4&colon; Golden<&sol;em>&comma; this may be the game for you&period; Hopefully E3 will bring us some Vita titles to look forward to&comma; but until then&comma; <em>Operation Abyss<&sol;em> is definitely worth your time&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong><em>A press copy of Operation Abyss&colon; New Tokyo Legacy was provided by NIS for the purpose of this review<&sol;em><&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;