All In Abyss: Judge the Fake Review
Grim Texas hold’em visual novel lacks depth in story and gameplay.
All In Abyss: Judge the Fake. Credit: ACQUIRE Corp. / WSS Playground / Alliance Arts
All In Abyss: Judge the Fake is a poker visual novel adventure co-developed by ACQUIRE Corp. and WSS Playground. Players embark on a journey through a dystopian, gambling-dominated city, defeating opponents in 1v1 Texas Hold‘em poker battles. The game's narrative and poker portions are both lackluster and sometimes tedious. The game was a test of my patience.
Asuha is a self-styled “gambling prodigy” who travels to the Gambling District, a walled city ruled by a group of gamblers called the “Witches,” determined to prove herself as the best gambler and walk away with a fortune. She must defeat each Witch in head-to-head poker matches where the loser suffers fatal consequences. Each Witch cheats in some way, so Asuha must discover their weaknesses and how to beat impossible odds.
All In Abyss: Judge the Fake. Credit: ACQUIRE Corp. / WSS Playground / Alliance Arts
The game’s villains have interesting backstories that the game doesn’t spend enough time exploring. Meanwhile, protagonist Asuha is a vacuous character who’s all attitude. The story doesn’t do enough to explore potentially interesting relationships.
The narrative’s presentation is lackluster and unimaginative. It is told nearly entirely through character portraits with limited poses, accompanied by dialogue boxes over generic-looking backgrounds. Characters other than Asuha or the Witches are nearly all represented as generic, faceless NPCs whose portraits are repeatedly repurposed throughout the game. It’s all too abstract and dull, especially when All In Abyss is trying to set up such an exotic, dystopian world.
The only elaborate story scenes are for characters’ deaths, each told through a series of slightly animated images. The deaths are horrific, depicted in sadistic detail, and come off as tasteless thanks to their shocking nature and (often past) borderline fetishistic nature. These scenes are cruel just for the sake of it and feel at odds with the tone of the rest of the game.
The poker game gets repetitive quickly, made worse by the need to grind and the questionable opponent AI. It’s standard Texas hold’em with a couple of twists. Every time you or your opponent place a bet or raise, a damage bonus also increases. Losing a hand showdown means that you don’t just lose the chips you bet; the amount is multiplied by the damage bonus. Confusingly, the winner doesn’t receive that number of chips, so my chip count didn’t increase significantly even when I was winning.
All In Abyss: Judge the Fake. Credit: ACQUIRE Corp. / WSS Playground / Alliance Arts
Asuha also has access to skills she can use while playing, some passive and some active. These can be bought and upgraded with skill points. While there is a good variety, I mainly used the same two—opponent hand hints and river card selection—throughout most of the game. I wasn’t motivated to experiment with them, since you can’t change the ones you have equipped in the middle of a match.
It’s hard for me to recommend All In Abyss: Judge the Fake to either visual novel or card game fans, because neither element is particularly compelling. The card game and writing both feel underdeveloped, and I struggled to maintain interest despite the relatively short playtime.
All In Abyss: Judge the Fake is available now on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.
Overall Score: 4/10
Played on: Steam Deck
