Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy is a first-person dungeon crawler with turn-based battles, a party of six characters, and ten classes to build them from. Experience Inc. developed it. 5pb. and NIS America published it. The game is a combined remake of the first two entries in the Generation Xth trilogy, Code Hazard and Code Breaker, which had previously only been released in Japan.
The result is a game that knows exactly what it is and rarely pretends otherwise. That is both the case for it and the problem with it.
Trailer, via NIS America.
The Xth Squad and the kidnappings in Tokyo
The setup is a Tokyo under quiet siege. Young people are being kidnapped, and the reports are not baseless rumors. Variants and members of a mysterious group have been sighted at the scenes. Students from Hinowa Academy, the school attended by members of the Xth Squad, are in danger.
Then there are the Sprawl Terrors, incidents in which buildings and people vanish into thin air. A powerful enemy of unclear origin opposes the investigation. The game’s own pitch promises that familiar faces will turn up among the enemies, and that loyalties will be questioned as the situation grows more desperate.
Two girls are named as key players in the incident, with the game asking what they know. That is the hook the story hangs on, and it is a better hook than most dungeon crawlers bother to set.
Ten classes, six slots, one dungeon
The structure is standard for the genre and proud of it. You build a party of six from ten available classes, then take them into dungeons in first person. Combat is turn-based. Experience Inc. built the game on the Wizardry model, and the lineage shows in every menu.
The classes give party-building real weight. Six slots against ten options means every team is a set of exclusions, and the game lets you feel those choices in the fights rather than in a tutorial. That is the difference between a class list and a class system.
This is a remake, not a new work. Code Hazard and Code Breaker were separate games, and Operation Abyss folds them into one release. That matters for how the game is put together. The seams between the two halves are visible.
A sequel followed, and it covered the third game
Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy is the sequel. It remakes the third Generation Xth game, Code Realize. Anyone who finishes Operation Abyss and wants the rest of the story has a clear next step, which is more than a lot of niche role-playing games can offer.
- Platforms: PC (Microsoft Windows) and PlayStation Vita
- Genres: role-playing and adventure
- Themes: fantasy and science fiction
- Modes: single player
- Perspective: first person
- Developer: Experience Inc.
- Publishers: 5pb. and NIS America
That spread tells you most of what you need to know about the audience. This is a Vita-era dungeon crawler that later landed on PC, and it was built for people who already knew the shape of the thing.
The Vita is where this game makes sense
The game was developed in 2014 and released on PlayStation Vita with compatibility for PlayStation TV. It reached Microsoft Windows worldwide in March 2017. The gap between those two releases is not a small detail. It is the whole story of who this game was for.
On Vita, a first-person dungeon crawler with turn-based battles is a natural fit. Short sessions, a map on a small screen, a party you check on between other things. The port is the same game. That is fine, but it is not a second life.
Where Operation Abyss holds up
The dungeon design is the strongest argument the game makes. Experience Inc. understands that a first-person crawler lives or dies on whether the map is worth drawing. The layouts here reward attention, and the turn-based battles give the party composition room to matter.
The ten-class system is the other real strength. Building a team of six is a genuine decision, not a cosmetic one, and the game trusts you to get it wrong and learn from it. That trust is rare.
The story does more than decorate the dungeons. The kidnappings, the Sprawl Terrors, and the Hinowa Academy connection give the Xth Squad a reason to keep descending. The two girls at the center of the incident are a thread the game actually pulls.
Where it does not
The presentation is serviceable rather than memorable. The first-person perspective and turn-based combat are executed correctly, but correctly is the ceiling here. Nothing in the moment-to-moment play surprises you after the first few hours.
The story’s promises are bigger than its delivery. The game sets up a powerful enemy with mysterious origins, familiar faces among your enemies, and loyalties under question. Those are strong hooks. The game does not always pay them off with the same energy it spends setting them up.
And the PC release does the game no favors. A Vita title arriving on Microsoft Windows in March 2017 without meaningful rework is a hard sell to anyone who did not already want it.
The score, and what it means
Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy holds a published critical score of 7.0 out of 10, drawn from an IGDB critic aggregate of seven outlets. That number is fair, and it is fair for specific reasons rather than as a shrug.
This is a competent, committed dungeon crawler that knows its audience and serves it. The ten-class party system and the dungeon layouts are real craft. The remake structure and the thin presentation keep it from being more than that. It is a good game with a clear ceiling, and the ceiling is visible from the first hour.
The sequel, Operation Babel, remaking Code Realize, gives players outside Japan a route to the third Generation Xth game. That is the most useful thing Operation Abyss set up. The game is the door, not the room.
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