About a year ago, the first Abyss Odyssey was released for several systems to pretty solid reviews. While I did not play it, I can tell you about the new Abyss Odyssey: Extended Dream Edition, now available for the PS4.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the colors are beautiful but muted, which makes sense given this nightmare world. The monsters are quite creative looking. None of them are quite like anything you’ve ever seen before. You’ve got a bird-man with no arms, various skeleton-type things, tree-ish monsters, half-human and half-animal creations, and more. Given that the abyss is all a dream, or rather a nightmare, they fit perfectly. Your world is also very fitting. You are traveling down paths of twisting corridors with plenty of places to trip and fall. Even the flora attack you inside the abyss.

All of the voicework is in English, but you also get subtitles at the bottom. The characters don’t speak much though. They really only speak when you choose to talk to someone. Otherwise you just attack and kill things. The monsters (other than the wizard and a few bosses) don’t care to talk to you. You do get some creepy background music to accompany you on the journey, but it feels quite appropriate.

When you load up Abyss Odyssey: Extended Dream Edition, you’ll get a few choices from the Main Menu: Enter the Abyss, Training, Versus, Warlock’s Journal, Help & Options, and Leaderboards. The concept is relatively simple when you choose Enter the Abyss. You will be playing as Katrien. Three tunnels with many levels have opened up headed way into the Earth. You will only have one entrance at first, so jump into the hole. There is a warlock asleep beneath the abyss and Katrien is fighting to stop him. Everything from and in the abyss, including Katrien, is a product of the warlock’s mind, a part of his dream. She needs to wake him from his nightmare. In the levels, you’ll find weapons lying around, chests full of items and gold, and injured soldiers. Talk to those soldiers as they will give you items or money. You’ll also find a skeleton playing a guitar every now and then. He’ll charge you 100 gold for advice, but his advice can give you health, mana, or exp, so I recommend you pay it and see what you get. If you die on your way down, you will have a soldier replace you. He can resurrect you, if he can find your altar before he dies. He can also carry your weapon so you will at least get that back. The soldiers are a bit harder to play with than your characters. They definitely can’t jump as well. I had them stuck a few times. I also locked up the entire PS4 system the first time my soldier died. When your soldier dies and you have to go back to the beginning, you will lose all your items but you keep your gold and experience.

In Versus, you can play up to 4 players locally or online. You choose your character and your support character from the characters that you have unlocked. Then you choose your arena (the three main locations of the Abyss entrances) and battle. Online you can choose different options, like the ability to chat to each other. You can also decide to make it a private game or a friends only game. If you want to just find one to play, you can choose Join Game. So far though, I have not found anyone online to play with. Considering there are only 680 players on the leaderboards (at the moment of writing this), I am guessing there just aren’t a lot of people playing it yet. But even still, you can have a great time beating up your friends at home! It’s also a great place to get used to the controls and moves of the various characters without getting your rear end handed to you in the dungeon. Of course, you can also go to Training to test out the different characters, but sometimes it’s more fun against a real opponent.

The Warlock’s Journal is a pretty neat thing. Since you don’t know much about the warlock at the beginning, you’re at a bit of a disadvantage. As you beat enemies, you will find scrolls lying around that are pages from his journal. The warlock’s story is a very sad one, but in reading it, you will learn a bit about where the creatures and landscapes of the abyss came from. It can never hurt to know as much as you can about your enemy!

Some levels have ? or a guitar looking icon. These are special levels where you’ll run into either an enemy on the ? or a devil on the fiddle icon board. On the ? boards, you are playing as one of the enemies. Be warned you do not have your normal magic skills. If you die on the ? board, you will just fall through to the next level. You don’t even change into the soldier. If you beat it, you can pick up a flame that will allow you to transform into that character to fight. On the fiddle icon board, you can meet with the devil. If you accept the devil’s deal, he will give you a powerful item, but he’ll hunt you down later. He’s not extraordinarily hard to beat though, so I recommend accepting the offer.

Once you start Enter the Abyss, you will be prompted to choose if you want to play on Nightmare Difficulty, whether or not friendly fire is on (if you turn it off, you will not get on Leaderboards), and if you’re playing Local or Online. You then choose a character. Only one is unlocked at the beginning, but you can get more. You will unlock the Ghost Monk after you beat the wizard with Katrien for the first time. The final character, Pincoya, is unlocked by donating enough money to the fountain in the gold room. Enough is somewhere around 30,000.

As you battle, you can earn skill spheres for your characters. Each character has three different skills. You will also earn points as you level up that you can use to strengthen these skills. Just remember, you can only equip spheres at an altar.

Items can definitely make your life in the abyss easier. Note though, you can only wear one bracelet, one ring, and one necklace at a time. If you buy one when you already have one, you will simply leave the old one lying there. There is no concept of selling items in Abyss Odyssey: Extended Dream Edition.

If you beat an enemy using your musou, you will get a blue flame (like the ones on the ? boards) that will let you transform into that enemy for battle for a bit. It’s nice to use if you’re low on health because they will have full health (until you take damage, of course). If you die when transformed, you will automatically turn back into your main character. You can also buy these in the shop. I think my favorite is the sea witch!

Abyss Odyssey: Extended Dream Edition is a 2D side-scrolling platformer where you can only move forward and backwards. You will need to jump and double jump, and learn to use these well. Different characters will have different jumping abilities. I found if I wanted to get really high up, I needed a pudutuar. Pincoya can also jump rather well. You can play multiplayer by having a second player join at the beginning or in between levels. They can exit the game from the Pause Menu by choosing Player Abandon Quest. Please note that if you left friendly fire on at the beginning (which you probably did since that is the default and the run won’t count towards your overall score if you turn it off), you can damage and kill each other. We found it quite difficult to play two players most of the time. Boss battles and the final wizard can be easier with two players if you’re really careful about hurting each other.

There is no way to save the game once you’re inside the abyss, which is a bit of a pain in the rear, but the game autosaves for you at each level. If you choose to return to the Main Menu, the next time you play you will be given the option to continue your previous game. If you choose to do so, it will return you the the beginning of the last level that you completed. If you place a camp token on a level, not only will it serve as a resurrection spot so you don’t go all the way back to the beginning, but it will also put soldiers there. These soldiers just might help you in your battles, so camp tokens can be useful, but they are expensive. Personally, I preferred to just play without them and start over if I died.

It’s been a long time since I played a 2D side-scroller. It took a bit for me to get used to the concept again, but I found that the more I play Abyss Odyssey: Extended Dream Edition, the more I want to play it. It’s an addictive little game that you can pick up, play for a bit, and then return to later. I also love that you can play 4 players locally as games like that are becoming harder and harder to find. If you’re looking for a game with an old-school feel, check out Abyss Odyssey: Extended Dream Edition. You might just find yourself at the top of the leaderboards before you know it!