Duet Night Abyss is a fantasy multiplayer game thats hotly anticipated in the gacha gaming community. Its all about cool-looking combat, grinding, and oh yeah boobs. And based on what Ive played so far, the busty barmaids and endless slog for incrementally better gear arent likely to capture your attention for very long.I played an early PC build of Duet Night Abyss ahead of its closed beta test, with the caveat that I wasnt able to experience multiplayer functionality, so consider this preview to be more about Duet Nights mechanics, world, and the grand narrative that underpins it all. Your player character, a beautiful waif in bandages, awakens in a swirling snowfield. Mysterious voices speak to you. You are helpless and breathy. But out of the snow, someone reaches for you.PlayIts Berry, a major character wholl see you through the basics of movement in this world: most notably, the Helix Jump a slick way of vaulting yourself through the air. Theres no cooldown on that jump, and youll find quickly that its a fun and efficient way of getting around and powerful in combat.Once separated from Berry, youll really begin to come into your own both gameplay-wise and narratively speaking. Broke in a strange new city run by the ominously named Empire, you must become a Phoxhunter, picking up commissions at a rough-and-tumble tavern owned by the worlds least believable barmaaid. But wait. Thats only half the story. Double TakeTheres a second protagonist, a male version who looks strikingly similar to the girl you just met. The idea is that these two show different sides of the same narrative. In the city, the girl sees townsfolk experiencing discrimination, violence, and cruelty at the hands of the Empire. Meanwhile, the boy is a part of the Empire, commanding the same brutish soldiers who are now wounded and pitiful after battle.Much has been made of these dual protagonists and plotlines, but frankly, I dont think theyre as revolutionary as the developer seems to think they are. There were no surprises, no events in one characters story that might make the others revelatory. Of course, this is early on, and I hope to be proven wrong as more story content becomes available.PlayAnyway, solid story or not, this games art is beautiful. I loved the linework, the colours, the fluid animation. I tend to approach the anime aesthetic with skepticism, so trust that my praise says something about how polished and breathtaking the aesthetic was. Unfortunately, I began to feel less enthusiastic the boobier Duet Night became (more on that later).The English voiceover is absolutely fantastic, one of Duet Nights highlights. As I progressed and met more characters, I found each ones voice and dialogue distinct and full of individual personality. Once youre through the initial story quests, youll be participating in a lot of combat. Itll be familiar to anyone who has ever played any kind of hack-and-slash, but its fun for a while. All the shiny sword slashes and oversized guns look epic, especially paired with the Helix Jump ability.PlaySwitching between melee and ranged weapons is seamless. And to really hone your killing skills, you can equip the ridiculously named Demon Wedges: equippable supplements to your weapons that bump up various stats. You can mix-and-match a few of these at any time, playing around with combinations to find synergies that could take your combat to the next level.The Daily GrindI still have an unclear sense of Duet Nights intended monetization model. There are hints, of course, such as multiple currencies I was overwhelmed trying to understand where to obtain each one, and what each one could buy. Though there didnt yet appear to be an interface to spend IRL money, you can bet thats coming.Im not going to mince words: Duet Night Abyss is a grindfest. Take the Retrace system, which is a dice roll to win a bunch of random new weapons to pick from. Its literally click a button and see what you get. Your rewards may be epic, but are mostly not. Provided you have enough of the Hourglass currency, you can just hammer that Retrace button like a slot machine. Its one of the least engaging things I have ever seen in my time as a gamer.Im not going to mince words: Duet Night Abyss is a grindfest.You can also pick up commissions from the aforementioned tavern, which are instances where youll do most of your flashy combat. They may have different themes (a church overgrown with grass, for example, or a mine), but they all follow the same formula: a bunch of rooms that look exactly the same, where you can defeat increasingly difficult and boring waves of monsters.You can grind for weapons to craft into better weapons. Grind for coins to buy cosmetic items, like a chicken for your head. Grind to obtain new playable avatars (most of them busty women). Or you can enter Sandrealm Meditation, which is a euphemism for practicing your combat skills via you guessed it grinding.But all the flashy abilities, gear, and flower hats youre grinding for mean nothing without an audience to impress.Unfortunately, I did not experience any of Duet Night's social aspects. The instances can match you up with three other players friends or randoms but given that I was playing before the closed beta began, there was no one for me to match up with. Perhaps Duet Night will feel like less of a grind as it opens up to players and a community grows, though Im not sure at this stage what that would look like.Alone in a CrowdI recognize that grindy games do have an audience, but as a game reviewer, I feel icky recommending them when there are so many more engaging, delightful, and dare I say interactive games out there.In the beginning, I thought I might like Duet Night Abyss. In those first moments I felt like I was watching a beautifully animated film, and intrigued where the waifs story might lead me even if I did have to grind my way there.But then the, uh, curvaceous women began appearing. This isnt uncommon in anime but it immediately narrows the audience down to one of specific tastes. I personally felt isolated: as slick as Duet Night Abyss was, I could never fully appreciate the better parts of it, such as the art or cute side quests, knowing that this game wasnt looking for players like me.Theres an audience out there for Duet Night Abyss. But it isnt me. Maybe itll be you.