Despite its engaging concept and moments of brilliance, the game is held back by these shortcomings, making it a journey of both delight and disappointment.

Be warned, you only get one attempt at each temple and failure or settling for a lesser relic means you will never see that temple again...

This is a blessing that is more useful the later you are in a run. Guardians on their own aren't particularly challenging to deal with, but when you have to dodge both them and the temple's hazards, they can be a nuisance.

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Your character has a finite number of hearts that dwindle with every hit you take. Run out of hearts, your character will die, and your run will end. Another player may pick up your essence for a boost.

Bloodborne Kart won't be 'Bloodborne Kart' anymore after a letter from Sony, but the devs are excited to make it an original thing: 'This is a fan game pelo more!'

I think it’s quite fun to play in the moment, but it doesn’t quite have the One More Run hook of a proper roguelike. I found myself tabbing out to look at Twitter or check my emails between runs because I wasn’t feeling a strong pull to start the next level.

I understand that is due to the servers being reset but perhaps a forced progression reset wasn't the best idea.

However, the temple's rooms are, for the most part, easy to clear with a single grapple at a time, and more often than not, Whip Again is simply a luxury to have.

Asynchronous Multiplayer – Explore the perilous halls and colossal rooms of each temple alongside the Phantom Abyss Gameplay phantoms of fallen players that came before you and use their successes and failures to your advantage to progress deeper than they ever could have hoped.

Watch and learn from the mistakes of up to 20 phantoms including your Steam friends that have attempted the same temple and steal their whips as they fall.

This is all to say that Phantom Abyss falls somewhat short on achieving the goal of offering a challenging parkour adventure in a roguelite package. The whip and phantom gameplay involving other players’ trial and error are unique, but its clunkiness, difficulty, and disparate progression are worth a pause.

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An Xbox gamer since 2002, I bought the big black box just to play Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee. I have since loved every second of the 360's life and am now just as obsessed with the Xbox One and Xbox Series X