NuMetalManiak

Review of Abysm: Dawn of Innocence by @jazzmaster9:

while rummaging through everything that has shown up in the Cacowards of 2020 I stumbled upon a prequel to a runner-up by accident, but here we are. leave it to jazzmaster to come up with interesting ideas for a TC, this one combining elements of the Doom clones while incorporating the Doom monsters and several other new ones. health bars can help in determining how much it can take to finish off the enemy in this mod, plus you get several interesting tools of death to use. the crossbow felt great against singular opponents, the raven and serpent staff do the jobs of the Heretic Dragon Claw and Doom shotgun respectively, while the Hellforge Cannon is obviously the rocket launcher. the former two weapons require White mana to use, which is dropped by most enemies and can be replenished with blue potions, while the Hellforge Cannon and another fire-using hand weapon use Black Mana, requiring purple potions. some of this stuff is inventory items, along with several powerups to also help.

there's RPG elements to this stuff too. the main map is this huge-ass hub that thankfully has several warps and even has enemies reappearing once you revisit some areas. the towns of course are where your allies are, so check the quest log and buy stuff that's really all that's necessary. jazzmaster makes sure you keep the run-and-gun action going, so it's recommended to run past most of the enemies that reappear as you go about the quests which are required to progress. the separate levels are either one-off side quest levels where you can find treasure (oh and there's chests to loot, by the way), or fight bosses, and the main levels although much smaller than the hub offer incentives to progress, even the bosses. certain enemies are buffed and have names, and these enemies are bounties which you can trade for more moolah.

overall this isn't one to pass off, as it does an interesting premise along with decent gameplay so that you're not gonna get bored with it. just remember not to lose yourself in the hub and you're fine. now I shall play Abysm 2, which actually was the runner-up.