Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy - PC Review
About two years ago, NIS America released Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy on PlayStation Vita. I reviewed the original release back then, finding a good but not outstanding dungeon crawler - please refer to that review for my full thoughts on what the title has to offer.
Operation Abyss got a sequel in Japan roughly around the same time - titled Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy, which NIS America recently announced that they will also be releasing this year. In addition to the original Vita versions, NIS America also announced they are bringing both titles to Steam as a part of their PC port initiative. Operation Abyss releases on PC on March 27, while Operation Babel is set for May 16 alongside the Vita version.
Operation Abyss is a mostly straightforward PC port. Being a dungeon crawler with a mostly text and artwork presentation, there are not too many graphic options in place. There is a toggle for V-Sync, a resolution select, an aspect ratio option to decide how you want to work the slight stretch, and some mini-map options. Also - being a dungeon crawler - Operation Abyss runs pretty readily even on low spec systems.
The in-game character and monster artwork certainly looks nice at 1080p. The game also occasionally uses special artwork for certain scenes, which is more clearly upscaled, but still looks clean enough.
However, one thing in partiuclar that bugged me visually is the font and kerning used in the English lettering. The original Vita version also had some wonky lettering, but I found it a bit easier to get accustomed to, perhaps due to the smaller screen size. It's a bit more distracting on a PC monitor. You can see this in the above two screenshots, where sometimes there seems to be too much spacing in between letters, and other times letters are colliding into each other.
Operation Abyss supports mouse/keyboard input, which while functional, I greatly prefered using a controller to play. Also, the game will refer to PlayStation button prompts throughout, no matter which control style you are using (although the key confiuration screen properly detects Xinput at least).
One notable addition to the PC port is the inclusion of Japanese voices alongside the English dub. The Vita release was not able to include JP voices due to some apparent technical issue that is no longer the case on Steam. It's also worth noting that the sequel - Operation Babel - will be JP voices only.
All-in-all, Operation Abyss' PC port is nothing fancy, but it doesn't need to be. It's a solid and functional port that gets the job done with a couple odd quirks. Please refer to my original review for my full thoughts on the game.
