Well, here's a story my granddaughter Jess would appreciate. Neon Abyss 2, the sequel to that wonderfully chaotic roguelike, finally has a release date and a proper final boss. And because this game has never once taken itself too seriously, there is also a very large fish involved. Yahoo Tech has the full rundown, and I've been poking through it with my morning coffee.

If you missed the first one, Neon Abyss was a side-scrolling roguelike where you shoot your way through procedurally generated underworlds, die a lot, and gradually get stronger. The hook was always the sheer absurdity of the item combinations. You could stack power-ups until your character was firing off screen-clearing nonsense, and the game just shrugged and let you. It had the spirit of those old arcade cabinets where the goal was less "beat the game" and more "see how ridiculous things could get before the quarter ran out."

The sequel looks like it's keeping that DNA intact. The big news this week is the reveal of the new final boss, which Yahoo Tech describes as capping off a run in proper spectacular fashion. I won't spoil the specifics here, because half the joy of a roguelike is walking into a boss room completely unprepared and letting panic set in. But a final boss should feel like an event, not a formality, and it sounds like this one delivers.

Then there's the fish. Per the coverage, the game features at least one absolutely massive fish worth, and I'm quoting directly here, many, many points. I laughed out loud at this. There's a refreshing silliness to a fast-paced action roguelike that pauses the carnage to let you go fishing, and then rewards you handsomely for hauling in a monster. It reminds me of the old days when games hid little jokes everywhere because the developers were having fun, not because a committee decided whimsy tested well with a demographic.

The release date matters too, obviously. This has been one of those "eventually" games for a while now, and I know how that goes. My family still teases me about how long I waited for certain gadgets that were perpetually six months away. (A certain folding phone comes to mind. Two years of "next year for sure.") So it's genuinely nice to see a developer commit to a firm date instead of a vague window that slides quietly into the next season. You can find the exact date and platform details in the Yahoo Tech piece linked above.

I'll say what I always say about games and gadgets alike: the fun ones solve a real problem, even if that problem is just "I had a hard day and want to feel powerful for twenty minutes." Neon Abyss 2 seems to understand its job. It's a big, loud, generous toy box with a fishing rod in the corner, and based on everything shown so far, I'd say that's exactly enough.

Now, will I personally be any good at it? Almost certainly not. My reflexes peaked somewhere around the original Game Boy. But I'll happily watch Jess play it, offer unhelpful commentary from the couch, and demand she catch the giant fish so I can see it. Somebody has to.