Developer: HAPPINET
Publisher: NIS America
Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Switch 2
Tested on: Switch 2
Brigandine Abyss – Review
Six years have passed since the Brigandine series attempted to entice modern audiences with The Legend of Runersia, a revival of an IP that had been dormant for twenty years at that point. We enjoyed The Legend of Runersia for what it was, but it didn’t set our world on fire either, which is why we haven’t exactly been keeping up with the series. As such, the arrival of Brigandine Abyss definitely caught us by surprise, especially with the game arriving mere weeks before what is arguably going to be the year’s biggest turn-based tactical RPG. We’ve only just finished Ledgerbound and we’re not quite sure how we managed to squeeze in another genre entry before September 17th, but here we are, eager to tell you whether or not you should consider playing Abyss while waiting for your copy of Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave to arrive.
Story
Told from the perspective of no less than six separate factions, Abyss centers around a coup started by Chaossolus, the former advisor of the king of Solignat. After seizing power, the advisor establishes the Abyssloa Empire and launches an aggressive military campaign to conquer the entire continent of Meltitea. This overarching conflict forms the backdrop for Abyss’ campaign, with each of the playable factions having their own storylines and motivation. These include plots involving a displaced princess and her mercenary allies and dragon tamers seeking to rescue dragons, to name a few. While the premise of multi-perspective storytelling has plenty of potential for unexpected twists and turns, Abyss unfortunately plays things a bit too safe, relying on familiar tropes and story beats. Not only that, but Event Battles occur at fixed points, regardless of how much you’ve advanced the story, creating a disconnect between narrative and gameplay progress. We can’t say that Abyss’ storytelling approach is lacking ambition, but its execution falls flat.
Graphics
If you’re returning from The Legend of Runersia, the first thing you’ll notice about Abyss’ visuals is an art style shift. Colours have become much brighter and more saturated, and character designs come across as more modern. Although the 2D character artwork is definitely more pleasant to look at, this doesn’t alleviate our most prominent concern from the previous game though, and that is that the fantasy-anime designs still lean too much into generic archetypes and are lacking in personality. Non-story visuals remain largely unchanged, with re-used class-based battlefield models, dated menus and uninspired map layouts.
Sound
The storytelling might not reach the level of grandeur that Abyss’ overarching premise requires, but the game’s soundtrack makes up for this. Orchestral arrangements and triumphant trumpets provide a bombastic backdrop that fits with the sheer size and scale of the conflict. The Japanese voice cast is clearly having fun too, leaning into the archetypical nature of the characters to deliver deliberately cheesy performances.
Gameplay
Building on what was established in previous entries, Abyss combines the series’ signature hex-grid tactical battles with macro-level territorial conquest. The game offers no less than six separate campaigns, one for each faction, which you can tackle in any order. These campaigns proceed through Seasons, involving an extensive organizational layer, where you manage your units and bases across territories under your control. While the meat of Abyss’ gameplay is in its battles, we found that this strategic army-management layer was surprisingly engaging. It often felt like our decisions here were much more important than on the battlefield, as moving or questing with a leader could leave another position on our map vulnerable.
Even six years on, battles felt instantly familiar. In these, you take up to three leaders and their associated forces to fight on hexagonal maps in turn-based combat. The major new mechanic in this entry, Rally, lets one of your leaders absorb a monster to gain passive benefits, giving even weaker monsters a strategic purpose. Each faction feels unique, and there are plenty of puzzle pieces to create your own strategy with. It’s a shame then that the battles themselves are tactically shallow, and can get repetitive quite fast. It doesn’t help that battlefield designs never fully capitalize on their potential, despite verticality and interactive objects making an appearance in some maps. The biggest issue with combat, however, is that the in-game AI simply isn’t up to snuff. Computer-controlled opponents are predictable and don’t focus on protecting leaders. If you defeat a leader, you remove that leader’s entire squad, so battles devolve into focusing on exposed commanders for easy victories.
Different difficulty settings don’t alleviate this issue, and instead simply adjust statistical modifiers rather than improving enemy behaviour. Raise the difficulty level, and suddenly, you’re regularly missing attacks with a supposed 70% hit rate. In turn, this means that you’re simply relying on luck rather than challenging your tactical prowess. We’re not entirely sure what the design philosophy behind this is, or even who this game is for. Its plethora of menus, systems and organisational tasks is too overwhelming for beginners, whereas the repetitive battles and underwhelming AI opponents won’t win over genre veterans. A single campaign playthrough of Abyss will take around 30 hours. With six factions, you’re looking at a massive behemoth of a strategy title that should eat up well over 100 hours, which sounds like a good deal for €49.99. However, we just can’t bring ourselves to sit through it all again another five times.
Conclusion
As much as we wanted Brigandine’s return to be a triumphant one, it seems like the game bit off far more than it could chew. On paper, the sheer amount of content, new central mechanic and macro-level army management mechanics should add up to a tactical masterpiece. However, the weak enemy AI, repetitive battles and underdeveloped storytelling prevent Abyss from reaching the upper tiers of the genre.
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