Spirit Hunters was my least favorite "Vampire Survivors clone" that I played last year. The metaprogression was extremely grindy, and there was never a feeling of being overpowered that is key to the genre.

1.0 released last month, so I gave it another go. The metaprogression is now far more reasonable, and I had plenty of runs with that nice feeling of being overpowered. I don't really have too much else to say about the game, but I can now recommend Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde as a competent entry in the arena survival/bullet heaven genre.

This isn't much of a game, is it? Is this what Vampire Survivors is? I know this is the clone, but the actual game didn't come out for my platform, and this seems like it's quite close enough, and I'm not sure I really get it. Sometimes, when this game is at its peak, I can see the brilliance as it's kind of like a playing bullet hell shmup with no shooting (which is honestly how some Cave games play anyway) as you weave through enemies, bullets and obstacles, but most of the time, it's just visual sludge as you kind of aimlessly fly around the screen and then the level ends as you either win or lose. Then you buy some upgrades and do it again, with no real major difference between runs.

To be fair, the game is entertaining and things seem like they're happening for the first few hours as you're picking unlocks and feeling the difference upgrades make, but that stops happening and pretty soon, the skill tree becomes a pain you have to scroll around to remind yourself what character needed to complete what challenge for the next unlock and the game becomes a boring chore for the latter half or more as you painstakingly get each upgrade that no longer feels worth the effort.

I don't know. This is a playable game. I guess some people love this Vampire Survivors formula and, while I didn't hate it, I think it really only lasts for one weekend and one game worth of fun (at least until someone expands on the formula somehow) and I've had that now. This is a nice-looking and well-programmed piece of nothing software that I will only remember because the game that inspired it was such a massive trend for a short while.

Had a really great time with the progression up until the point where the game ramps up the amount of obstacles/ruins in the levels. Which is a deliberate design choice that works well in the normal run of play, but becomes a huge hassle in the boss fights at the end of each run. When these kick off, a circular fence pops up around you wherever you are at when the predetermined time limit runs out, creating an instant boss arena. The problem is that any physical obstacles within the circle don't despawn as this happens, which means your options for dodging and kiting can become extremely curtailed, depending on your position when that fence is raised around you. You could make the argument that making sure to be in an open space at the end of the run is a reasonable demand to make of the player, but given how hectic and chock full of enemies the screen tends to be at that point in the run, I don't think I can give the developers the benefit of the doubt on this one. Especially in the challenge levels that make Spirit Hunters stand out against other games in the auto-shooter survival genre (think Vampire Survivors), it feels deeply unfair to get to the end of a run, having managed to put together the required build, only to lose to the boss because there simply wasn't enough room to avoid the adds. This wouldn't be as much of a problem in a normal run, where your DPS is usually ridiculous enough by the end to kill the boss in seconds, but the challenge runs by design will limit your damage input to the point where boss fights become longer and more challenging. Losing these runs because half of the boss arena was filled with a giant monster rib feels super bad, and unintentionally so.

I'm not going to leave a thumbs down review, because I know how much that hurts discoverability on Steam – I honestly think the developers made a pretty kick-ass game – I just hope the team takes a second look at this aspect of the game, because I'd love to come back to it some day. Spirit Hunters does so many smart things to stand out in a very crowded field. It's just not enough to entice me to work around such a dubious design decision (or oversight, I really have no idea whether it's intentional or not, which makes it even more aggravating).