Synopsis:
Experience the awesome power of the Curse of the Abyss, as well as the astonishing, legendary entities known as primeval creatures. Prepare to glimpse the world of Riko and her friends.

Publisher: Spike Chunsoft
Reviewed on: PC (5800X, 32GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3070)
Also available for: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4

Cast: Brittany Lauda, Luci Christian. Terri Doty, Shannon Emerick, Shannon Emerick, Kalin Coates

Developer: Chime Corporation
Director: Shuichi Miyazawa
Composer: Takashi Okamoto
Planning: Masahiro Kaneko, Kouichi Yotsui. Michitaka Tsuruta, Fumihiro Asami, Ryutaro Kuribayashi

Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness is based on an anime series and is divided into two distinct parts: “Hello Abyss” and “Deep in Abyss”. Hello Abyss is laid out like a tutorial and introduces the anime’s first season. Deep in Abyss allows the players to create a character and follow their own story.

The game welcomes players to Orth, a small village on the outskirts of an island surrounding a huge chasm known as The Abyss. Knowledge of where the chasm came from and how deep it is has been lost, and the only accurate information about it is its effects on the Cave raiders who enter its depths and the consequences of leaving — containing distinct layers, the effects of ascending from each range from basic numbness of the extremities and sickness to a chance of death or worse. Cave raiders learn of The Abyss and the risk/reward associated with it early in their lives. They started their journey learning in the orphanage and heading into The Abyss at age ten. The orphans are mostly children of the White Whistles. These White Whistles are known as top-tier Cave raiders who have journeyed so far down that leaving would result in certain death. The game works this into the story and splits each layer into multiple areas and depths. Ranking up your character allows the player to journey deeper into The Abyss.

With the selection of the “Hello Abyss” option in the game’s menu, the player initially starts as Riko, a twelve-year-old orphan whose mother was a famous White Whistle and has passed away in the depths of The Abyss. Riko wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a great White Whistle, unfortunately during one of her early adventures into The Abyss, a gigantic snake confronts her; fortunately, she dodges and avoids being eaten when suddenly a massive beam of energy comes out of nowhere and saves her life. Following the beam’s trajectory, Riko finds its origin, a robot boy. Riko attempts to wake the child, but the boy is unresponsive. Riko then decides to drag the boy back to her room, where she uses electricity to jump-start him. The jolt of electricity dims the lights in the orphanage but works in awakening the boy. Unfortunately, he awakens with no memory of who he is or what he is doing in The Abyss. Rico soon names the strange boy Reg, and they begin their schooling and adventures together. The story continues, and the player gets to go on a few missions into The Abyss. Riko then receives a letter and her mother’s White Whistle. The letter invites Riko to come to the very depths of The Abyss to be reunited with her long-assumed dead mother. Riko takes this as a sign that her mother is alive and plans to depart into the depths of The Abyss to find her. Reg tells Riko that he will also come along with her to try and solve the mystery of his missing memories. They together plan their journey and soon begin their descent. While on their adventure, they meet a variety of weird creatures and eventually run into a White Whistle and her apprentice deeper in The Abyss. After a few strange conversations, you eventually battle the White Whistle in a weird boss battle. After the battle, the two decide to teach Riko and Reg how to survive, and once their training is complete, they are sent on their way. This brings players up to date with the first season of the anime and tutorial part of the game. This small portion of the game took approximately two and a half to three hours to complete.

Following the completion of Hello Abyss, the “Deep in Abyss” option becomes available, and the player is taken to the character creation screen, which allows the player to create a custom character. The player is given choices of hair, eyes and facial features, gender, and name. Once the character is created, the player can proceed to the Orphanage and begin their story. The players’ story follows immediately after Riko and Reg have departed and is unfortunately only made available once “Hello Abyss” has been completed. The “Deep in Abyss” portion of the game is more complicated, and the player has more freedom in their actions and exploration of The Abyss. The player is free to explore the map and check out the areas and levels within the early confines of The Abyss. There is a subtle difference in this mode in relation to tools and gear you carry that makes it harder for the player to progress to the deeper levels without proficient training and ranking of their character. Returning to the Orth to sell items found, upgrade gear, turn in relics, and assign missions to allow players to level up their character and gain money to purchase more supplies to make their next journey more straightforward. Gathering supplies, crafting equipment, and cooking meals all make up a significant part of this mode’s journeys.

The Orth is the game’s hub, allowing the player to find and navigate the game’s massive number of menus. The player will find shops, relic appraisers, international trade, and the Orphanage in the Orth. The orphanage also contains the school and a variety of schoolmates’ rooms, as well as the players, own rooms. In the player room are two useful items: the first is the notebook, used to save the game, and the second is a chest, which is used to store items that may be needed later and is upgraded for increased storage through ranking up. The adventuring is done in two main ways: head into The Abyss, gather supplies and discover new areas, return the Orth, sell those supplies, and appraise the relics. Each time this is completed, your level increases, allowing you to unlock more abilities within that whistles rank to make adventuring easier. Like many RPG-type games, this loop is endless until the maximum level is achieved. Unfortunately, progress through the whistle ranks is gated by the game’s story. Ranking up unlocks abilities, including upgraded attacks, defence, and movement, as well as the ability to heal and regain stamina while climbing, and even upgrades to defend against the effects felt when ascending from The Abyss.

The music in the game is rather pleasant and repetitive, and it varies for each area and in the Orth township. Most of the time, you are reading and not paying attention to it, so the loops are not noticeable. Many characters are voice acted, and although it is very anime stylised, they do a great job in ensuring each consistency has its tone and expression, even if the script can be clunky and somewhat weird at times. Multiple mentions of stringing people up in the nude seemed odd, as most of the characters you meet are very young. The in-game graphics are nothing to write home about, and they look like they come from the Nintendo 64 era but perform remarkably well. The game was never taxing on my CPU or GPU, running a consistent framerate for the entirety of my journey. The enemy hitboxes were acutely accurate, even if the respawning of creatures bugged me sometimes, as moving the camera would often allow spawns behind you, causing unwanted damage.

The control scheme for the mouse and keyboard was not great, and although players can adjust it, there is no way to change the controls for the mouse, so the player is left squatting each time the mouse is pressed instead of something useful like attacking. On the controller, the input scheme is remarkably better, becoming my choice for the remainder of my playthrough. Using the menus is also a lot easier on a controller. There was, however, a weird option that required manual switching between Xbox and PlayStation controllers depending on the user’s preference instead of an autodetection setup.