Made in Abyss the anime is an actual masterpiece.
However, sadly the game does fail to capture this presence and likely this manifests due to all the mechanics built to make the game harder for the player. The game is built as a survival game but the main issue is the grind needed to complete the quests. This makes every level exceedingly long due to all the micromanaging of resources, food, stamina and the curse itself.

In short, the anime is amazing but the game just makes it a tedious survival with everything sort of done to slow you down.
I hope this changes in any future games, since the game stops before the final dive.

Here is an short and to the point review

Pros
-it is emulating the anime story pretty good, and by this I mean in the second game mode you are put in the shoes of an character that its not part of the anime, so that you can tell your own story
-the idea of exploration the abyss its well designed, especially the curse of the abyss.
-I like the fact that weapons have low durability and you have carry weight limit, so you cant carry countless weapons. Makes you decide if engaging in fights is worth the gear damage
-crafting systems,, skill systems, codex entries, there are a lot of systems that gives flavour to the game
-game nailed dialogue lines length, not too much to get you bored, and yet just enough for the story to make sense. If I hate something at a game, is getting stuck for hours into dialogues. Not here.

Cons
-interface sucks and navigating menus is horrible
-combat is not that good
- graphics outdated
- friendly characters AI is braindead
-game is very grindy
-game is way to expensive at full price

Overall, my opinion is that this could had been a very nice PS2 game, but if you catch it on sale and you love anime, exploration, and grindying hours into geting your character better. This is a good game.

I would recommend this game with some caveats.
First of all, if you enjoy the anime this is a really good way to experience more of it, but, as much as I enjoy the anime, and as much as I enjoy the game, do not buy it for full price. I don't know how they settled on the £50 price tag, but this is not in the calibre of other £50 games.

If I had paid full price, and if I wasn't already a fan of the anime, I think that the first -boss- would have made me mad. It was the first time I had to acknowledge the limits of the game, and it was just awful. Thank god I'm here to experience the environment and the excitement of descending the abyss, because the combat is dreadful.

I say, if you're a fan try and get this game for about £30, if you've never heard of it I think this world is really worth exploring but the game demands a bit of patience. The game also runs absolutely perfectly on the Steam Deck.

super entertaining and a lot more complex than i thought. solid 9/10 game, -1/10 for the bland character interaction cgi and being softlocked in the tutorial (worst part of the game), although i wish some scenes were hand-drawn to elaborate emotion more clearly. only issues i found were the collect interactions with the moths, attacking moths, and additionally platform hitbox with ores while excavating.

good

bought the game on sale for like 10$, never heard of the series before now but found the plot interesting now i'm hooked.

abyss

mid game tbh only buy on sale and only if youre a really big made in abyss fan, its my favorite anime/manga of all time...still cant bring myself to finish this

weird controls but story is fine