From the Abyss (Nintendo DS) Review
An Abyss of Boredom
~by tankMage (May 2026)
Score: 67/100 (Poor)
From the Abyss is both an Action RPG and a dungeon crawler. This sets certain expectations when it comes to gameplay. In most ARPGs, a combination of skill, strategy, and planning are key to success. Dungeon crawlers tend to reward players for exploration and often have traps and treasures placed around the labyrinth to make things more interesting. Both genres were very well established by the time From the Abyss came along, yet this game manages to strip them down to the bones to provide players with an almost incomprehensibly bland experience. I can’t even call this an adventure.
The premise of this game is really simple: Demons were sealed behind a gate long ago and the kingdom of Rubenhaut was established to watch over the gate. As time passed, the heirs of Rubenhaut let their guard down and evil began to seep through the sealed portal. You are a traveling adventurer who presumably came to Rubenhaut to battle the demons. The queen, a rather unpleasant and creepy looking character, explains the kingdom’s plight after you chose your hero’s gender and sprite. Character customization and the plot are both fairly simplistic, but they get the job done.
After that, you can visit the town which is basically a menu you can interact with via the DS touch screen. There is a shop that sells equipment, a training school that teaches you the basics, an inn where you can save as well as store items, and a village square filled with NPCs. Talking to the NPCs will sometimes reward the player with items in addition to adding some color to the story.
My first impression of the game up to this point was one of mild disappointment. I didn’t mind the fact that the story was dull and uninspired since it was pretty clear from the start that I could just ignore it, though I patiently read each line of drivel for this review. What bothered me more was the bad art style in combination with the dismal story. The cast looks like something out of a cheap anime someone made using Microsoft Paint. Their necks are too long, they have weird emotes, and there’s a general lack of shading that makes everything look even worse.
On the other hand, the graphics used in the dungeons are really nicely done sprites and tiles. Weapons have unique sprites, there are a ton of skill animations, and the monsters look really good despite the fact that a lot of them were reused. The tiles used for the dungeons are nothing to write home about, but they were competently done at the very least.
All of this makes me wonder why the devs even bothered making portraits and backgrounds for the NPCs when they could have had better results using sprites like a 16 or 8-Bit RPG. Nintendo’s insistence that devs make use of the DS’s touch screen and the visual expectations of gamers at the time likely prompted them to go with the menu system and portraits. It may have also been cheaper, but that’s just speculation on my part. Regardless, it didn’t work out well and the final product suffered as a result of these bad choices.
Anyway, you are given a bit of money after the intro and are free to buy equipment at the shop. I didn’t realize this at first, but you can buy a variety of weapons right off the bat. There are swords, axes, spears, bows, and even staffs for mages. So, I bought a copper sword and went into the Abyss *dun dun dun!*
There were two things I noticed right away when starting the game proper. One: Enemies were slow moving punching bags. Two: It took forever to slay said punching bags. I got a bit frustrated after five minutes of whacking giant venus flytraps and tried out the Soul Absorb ability the queen gives the hero at the start. As advertised, the soul steal (or whatever it’s called) granted me a new skill, which immediately underwhelmed me by doing only slightly more damage than a regular attack.
After clearing the first area, I used an item to return to town and looked for a new weapon. I bought a bow, which was an awful idea in retrospect. The range made the enemies even easier, however, the bow was slow as hell and did little damage. To make up for this, I boosted my agility to make the bow’s rate of fire faster. Another bad idea, I’m full of them I tell ya.
For the sake of clarity, the game awards the player with four stat points they can allocate freely with every experience level. After spending hours riddling monsters with arrows, I realized I was building my character in the worst possible way. Eventually I tweaked my guy’s stats to the point where he could destroy most baddies in a shot or two.
Fixing my build made combat less tedious, but it certainly didn’t add variety. Ironically, the game became less interesting, because everything I encountered died quicker than you can read this sentence. Even bosses melted faster than a popsicle left out the summer sun.
The total lack of sidequests, vaults, puzzles, and elite monsters didn’t help any. All you do in every area is run around blasting monsters while searching for the next exit. The only thing to break the monotony is the occasional encounter with a new creature where you can use the soul trap (or whatever it’s called) spell to learn a new skill.
I’m really shocked at how bland they managed to make this game. Dungeon crawlers have a long and storied history in both hemispheres. In the West we have games like Rogue, Angband, and Diablo which defined the genre. The Japanese have their own dungeon crawler tradition that includes games like Ys, Shiren, and Tower of Druaga. All of these games have things that make them more interesting. Vaults full of marvelous treasure, super powerful mini-bosses, traps, cursed items, and many other mechanics are featured in games that came long before From the Abyss. Why the creators of this game failed to include any of these ideas is beyond me. Maybe they thought the character customization and skill systems were enough to make the game entertaining, but they fell far short of the mark.
My description of my experiences hopefully outlines From the Abyss’s almost total lack of challenge. Monsters move and attack very slowly, often failing to even approach the player before getting obliterated. As I said earlier, I built my character in the worst possible way for the first twenty levels or so and only had trouble with two bosses. One boss managed to kill me two or three times and the other got me once. After some tweaking, my character blew everything away without problems. Even the final boss was a joke.
Once again, I’m not sure what the devs were thinking when they made the game so easy. It’s fine to create a more casual dungeon crawler, but the total lack of challenge in this one makes it a poor choice for people who are new to the genre, because it does not punish bad habits.
The devs even tried to make the game harder by giving the enemies a 1000% power boost that is unlocked after the player beats the game. This may sound impressive, but it’s meaningless. Monsters still move like they are stuck in molasses, so it just takes longer to defeat them.
Ironically regular monsters and bosses are designed really well. Most creatures have cool attacks and gimmicks (like the ability to turn invisible) that would have made the game more exciting if they had a larger aggro range and moved maybe 50% faster. Bosses would have been better if they had more pep in their step as well. Worse yet, there’s one boss that basically proved the devs had it in them to make worthy enemies, because the bastard killed me three times! It would have been great to fight more bosses like that one.
From the Abyss may have produced the world’s most mid dungeon crawler, but I have to say the music, controls, and special powers are all pretty darn good. Much of the soundtrack gave me flashbacks to the glory days of midi BGMs. None of the songs were excellent, but they were nice to hear. The control scheme was also great, though there is he usual forced touch screen interaction. Luckily, only the item menu and status screen force the player to use the touch functionality.
Like I said earlier, From the Abyss features some cool skills. There’s a modest lineup of sword, ax, spear, and bow skills along with a bunch of spells. All of these skills can be sucked out of monsters or bought in the shop for an exorbitant fee. There are not a lot of skills, but they are fun to use and keep the game from being a compete bore. Even better, players can mix some magic into their repertoire, though it will not be terribly effective without the right stats.
A Word about Multiplayer
Before wrapping up, I want to point out that two players can challenge the Abyss *dun dun dun!* together. It may be hard to believe this, but I couldn’t find anyone with a copy to play with me. While I have no qualms when it comes to emulating games, I didn’t have the time or inclination to figure out how to set up multiplayer on an emulator.
Consequently, I am not qualified to comment on the two player experience. It’s quite possible that the devs were all about two player mode and From the Abyss transforms from a sub-par ARPG to a gem when played with a friend. Then again, two player mode may be as dull as single player, except it’s two people being bored together. Come to think of it, being bored with a friend is a mild improvement at least.
Maybe I’ll con one of my buddies into playing this with me someday and report back. For now, I’m just going to judge this one based on single player mode.
If you’ve played From the Abyss with a friend, experienced its shining multiplayer glory and want to tell me how stupid I am, feel free to do so. If you found it just as disappointing as the single player game, tell me about that too. What can I say? I’m a curious guy.
Final Thoughts
I love a good dungeon crawl, especially if it’s ARPG style. From the Abyss has tons of potential and could have been better if the devs had bothered to add any of the things every other dungeon crawler ever made featured. Running around mindlessly gibbing monsters just isn’t enough to make for a compelling game. I imagine the budgets for games like this were pretty tight, so it’s possible the devs were not able to add everything they wanted. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that From the Abyss is the most shallow RPG I’ve ever encountered. There are plenty of rushed games that have far more meat on their bones than this one.
If you’re looking for an ARPG to play on the DS, there are plenty of better titles to choose from. Off the top of my head I can name the three Metroidvanias and the mediocre, yet far better Children of Mana. Ultimately, From the Abyss of one of those games you play when you are out to finish everything in a genre or if you are running out of options.
Thank you for reading this review of From the Abyss!
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