Screen goes plin plin.
Make sad head voice quiet.
Make sad head voice quiet.
Sights & Sounds
- Pretty simple pixel art. Honestly, when I first bought the game, I thought it looked pretty bad, but it's grown on me over time
- The sound effects, however, are awesome. It's like the dev had a folder of audio files called "dopamine triggers" and used them throughout the game
- The soundtrack is another high point. I love that music is selectable at the outset of a run, too
Story & Vibes
- Vampire Survivors is unique in its approach to a narrative: there isn't one, but it really seems like there should be one hidden there somewhere. All the pieces are in place--there are interesting looking characters, lore entries in the form of collections, settings and locations in levels, etc--but they don't really add up to a plot or story
- It follows that the vibes are a little hard to figure. All the vaguely fantasy set dressing and absence of a narrative makes you feel more like you're playing with a toy than playing a video game
Playability & Replayability
- Here it is: the birth of a new subgenre. There are plenty of imitators, but this gameplay loop is the original. You walk around on an infinitely scrolling surface while autofiring your weapons at waves of enemies that fill the screen. You collect items and upgrades for your equipment that help you cope with the growing forces of bad guys
- Eventually, the timer hits the limit specified in level select screen, Death comes out to claim you, and the run ends (...usually)
- Vampire Survivors is packed with secrets, unlockables, and secret unlockables. You'll spend plenty of time looking through the collection and unlock menus to try and figure out how to get everything
- Despite the lack of engagement offered by a gameplay loop like this one, it's highly addicting. It's like rewards and progress are spaced out at optimal intervals to keep you coming back for your next hit. That said, after nearly 40 hours, I feel like I need a break for a bit before coming back to try Adventure Mode and the DLC stuff
Overall Impressions & Performance
- It always feels weird putting together a review for a game that's become a cultural phenomenon like Vampire Survivors. The word is out already: it's a fun game with broad appeal and a casual learning curve
- I'm just so impressed with how addictive this game is. Poncle has a grasp of dopamine and reward timing that would put a neuroscientist to shame
Final Verdict
- 8/10. The market for so-called "bullet heavens" is saturated now, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice not to try the original. Pick it up and see what the fuss is about
- Pretty simple pixel art. Honestly, when I first bought the game, I thought it looked pretty bad, but it's grown on me over time
- The sound effects, however, are awesome. It's like the dev had a folder of audio files called "dopamine triggers" and used them throughout the game
- The soundtrack is another high point. I love that music is selectable at the outset of a run, too
Story & Vibes
- Vampire Survivors is unique in its approach to a narrative: there isn't one, but it really seems like there should be one hidden there somewhere. All the pieces are in place--there are interesting looking characters, lore entries in the form of collections, settings and locations in levels, etc--but they don't really add up to a plot or story
- It follows that the vibes are a little hard to figure. All the vaguely fantasy set dressing and absence of a narrative makes you feel more like you're playing with a toy than playing a video game
Playability & Replayability
- Here it is: the birth of a new subgenre. There are plenty of imitators, but this gameplay loop is the original. You walk around on an infinitely scrolling surface while autofiring your weapons at waves of enemies that fill the screen. You collect items and upgrades for your equipment that help you cope with the growing forces of bad guys
- Eventually, the timer hits the limit specified in level select screen, Death comes out to claim you, and the run ends (...usually)
- Vampire Survivors is packed with secrets, unlockables, and secret unlockables. You'll spend plenty of time looking through the collection and unlock menus to try and figure out how to get everything
- Despite the lack of engagement offered by a gameplay loop like this one, it's highly addicting. It's like rewards and progress are spaced out at optimal intervals to keep you coming back for your next hit. That said, after nearly 40 hours, I feel like I need a break for a bit before coming back to try Adventure Mode and the DLC stuff
Overall Impressions & Performance
- It always feels weird putting together a review for a game that's become a cultural phenomenon like Vampire Survivors. The word is out already: it's a fun game with broad appeal and a casual learning curve
- I'm just so impressed with how addictive this game is. Poncle has a grasp of dopamine and reward timing that would put a neuroscientist to shame
Final Verdict
- 8/10. The market for so-called "bullet heavens" is saturated now, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice not to try the original. Pick it up and see what the fuss is about
the most playable slot machine i ever did see.
Probably the best 5€ I’ve ever spent in my life.
Pure dopemine.
Almost no real gameplay other than moving around. The real reason why it's so much fun is due to the absurd combos and builds you can make and the progression.
Just when you think you've seen everything this game has a new update comes out with an entirely unique new thing to the game and then you're back in and playing for another hour or two!
This game is pure crack and I can't get away from it. Not that I'd even want to :)
Almost no real gameplay other than moving around. The real reason why it's so much fun is due to the absurd combos and builds you can make and the progression.
Just when you think you've seen everything this game has a new update comes out with an entirely unique new thing to the game and then you're back in and playing for another hour or two!
This game is pure crack and I can't get away from it. Not that I'd even want to :)
It's fun for a time, until you unlock all the main weapon combinations. Then, it's just repetitive. I think I had enough of this type of game. Co-op made me play it, and made it worthwhile.
Timesink game... You ask yourself if that's what you want. I wouldn't exactly recommend it.
Timesink game... You ask yourself if that's what you want. I wouldn't exactly recommend it.
Bad luck with power ups and dying early sucks, but few things compare to the raw power of becoming the Ulimate Garlic Bible Deathball
This game is laced with fent. Despite it's extreme simplicity and potentially ugly outward appearance after one hit you are HOOKED. I've gotten 100 hours on both phone and PC and got 100% completion in less than a month. Fun weapons, great music, absurd humor, and so many secrets you can organically stumble across.
Also somehow beats PvZ as the game with the most insane and funniest bestiary. (It's that good I had to mention it)
Also somehow beats PvZ as the game with the most insane and funniest bestiary. (It's that good I had to mention it)
why r the graphics so bad... worse than minecraft,,,
This is really a game that just constantly has you improving every few minutes so the urge to keep playing becomes dangerously high. There's no down times or pace-breaking story, it's just pure arcadey fun but with a huge progression chain, so unlike large amounts of arcade games you still feel like you're aiming for something beyond a high score.
It's actually quite impressive how much content there is (of course I am playing a few years into the games life). It looks very empty at first, only 4 characters? Then you unlock a new one and it brings up many more. Then you unlock a secret character and it shows all the other secret characters. You're constantly unlocking new weapons and stages, the former of which is always fun to try and experiment with and see what evolves with what. While most of the stages are fairly plain, there's some fun gimmicky ones, like the newly added minecart stage, a stage based on Green Hill Zone with blocks similar to the special stages in that game which break after a certain amount of hits etc.
There's a lot of player-selected difficulty and challenges to be made by turnign on and off certain settings - no matter how much you upgrade, there's always an option to turn it all off to play as if starting a brand new game. But at the same time you can break the game in half by working out how to effectively farm golden eggs to create a character so powerful nothing can even touch you.
I found out this was supposedly made by someone using gambling psychology, except of course without the whole debt part. I'd love to see more vices be made into things that don't have their downsides, how about video games without the extreme time loss? 🤭
I guess as far as issues go, there's not many bosses that really do anything. Most of them just float around like any other enemy and try to overlap with your sprite to take you out. Towards the endgame there's definitely a sense that progression has slowed down - you're just playing to play now. While there's still stuff to unlock, you've already discovered the perfect item combos and can make a build to get you through pretty much anything, so a new item is at best worth a try or two, but lacks that excitement you get early on.
Very fun and massive amount of content for its price. Also a pretty good soundtrack.
It's actually quite impressive how much content there is (of course I am playing a few years into the games life). It looks very empty at first, only 4 characters? Then you unlock a new one and it brings up many more. Then you unlock a secret character and it shows all the other secret characters. You're constantly unlocking new weapons and stages, the former of which is always fun to try and experiment with and see what evolves with what. While most of the stages are fairly plain, there's some fun gimmicky ones, like the newly added minecart stage, a stage based on Green Hill Zone with blocks similar to the special stages in that game which break after a certain amount of hits etc.
There's a lot of player-selected difficulty and challenges to be made by turnign on and off certain settings - no matter how much you upgrade, there's always an option to turn it all off to play as if starting a brand new game. But at the same time you can break the game in half by working out how to effectively farm golden eggs to create a character so powerful nothing can even touch you.
I found out this was supposedly made by someone using gambling psychology, except of course without the whole debt part. I'd love to see more vices be made into things that don't have their downsides, how about video games without the extreme time loss? 🤭
I guess as far as issues go, there's not many bosses that really do anything. Most of them just float around like any other enemy and try to overlap with your sprite to take you out. Towards the endgame there's definitely a sense that progression has slowed down - you're just playing to play now. While there's still stuff to unlock, you've already discovered the perfect item combos and can make a build to get you through pretty much anything, so a new item is at best worth a try or two, but lacks that excitement you get early on.
Very fun and massive amount of content for its price. Also a pretty good soundtrack.
Vampire Survivors started a trend in game design that inspired many similar games. To call them clones would be an unkind interpretation, and say nothing of the improvements they've made over this: the original.
That said, Vampire Survivors on its own is an incredibly shallow experience. It's a step up from an idle game. The level of actual "play" you get out of this game is minimal. You walk, and you choose level up rewards. I get the appeal of such simple gameplay, but simple gameplay
The permanent upgrades outside of the gameplay along with your choice of character can lead to interesting starts to levels, but it all effects your choices of upgrades in predictable ways. I would go so far as to say that this kind of choice actually ends up detracting from the game.
Ultimately vampire survivors leaves an interesting blueprint and legacy for many games to build on, earning itself the "-like" suffix and its own adjective. But I can't treat this as anything but a prototype due to its simplicity.
That said, Vampire Survivors on its own is an incredibly shallow experience. It's a step up from an idle game. The level of actual "play" you get out of this game is minimal. You walk, and you choose level up rewards. I get the appeal of such simple gameplay, but simple gameplay
The permanent upgrades outside of the gameplay along with your choice of character can lead to interesting starts to levels, but it all effects your choices of upgrades in predictable ways. I would go so far as to say that this kind of choice actually ends up detracting from the game.
Ultimately vampire survivors leaves an interesting blueprint and legacy for many games to build on, earning itself the "-like" suffix and its own adjective. But I can't treat this as anything but a prototype due to its simplicity.
What a weird game.
Last year when I got a new phone and with it a new enough Android to run video games, this was one of the first ones that I tried out having heard so much good about it, and for a while, I lost my life to this and Marvel Snap. I even got pretty good at it, though not great, unlocking the secret characters only through cheats after deciding the work needed for them wasn't worth the (personally) precious hours of my life. And then, after a brief but intense love affair, I stopped playing it and soon deleted it full-scale, thinking that that would serve my life better. I didn't regret it.
Seeing my best friend discover it a few weeks ago (now more than two months ago from writing this review …), I was caught up with the bug again, and having witnessed them playing it and feeling the itch, I reinstalled it as well.
My first disappointment was that it had kept none of the saves, despite being on the same phone; it was worse than tears in the rain as it's much less time-consuming to cry than to fully upgrade and unlock everything in this damn game.
But my biggest disappointment was that despite all my knowledge of the game and accumulated skill, I was incapable of surviving much longer than my novice friend. The character just doesn't accumulate enough XP or damage output or health to be able to survive the onslaught past a certain point. It was only after I got a few upgrades, with Amount (giving another projectile) the most important of them (especially with my favourite character, Gennaro, who boasts another extra projectile) that I managed to go far beyond the 15-minute mark and almost hit 30.
Almost.
And that's the thing - how much is doing well at the game really about one's ability and how much is it just upgrades and luck in drops (which can be modified by further upgrades)? There's no denying that skill matters some (I was capable of doing some real daredevil stuff that my friend is still learning to dare, allowing me to progress faster), but if it's virtually impossible to finish a run without upgrades, and the moment you get some good ones you get almost to the end, what is the value of all this accumulated knowledge and reflexes really?
Well, none, of course, it's a silly videogame, after all. But I feel more disappointed now than I did before.
But hey, I still enjoyed my revisit and watching the numbers go up and coasting at the very edge of survivability knowing that's mostly my knowledge of how the game functions, and my daring. Even if I'm unlikely to ever return to the game again.
But hey, I already returned once to this endlessly addicting weird little thing, so who the hell knows?
Even if I haven't picked it up once between writing this review two months ago and posting it now. Go figure.
Last year when I got a new phone and with it a new enough Android to run video games, this was one of the first ones that I tried out having heard so much good about it, and for a while, I lost my life to this and Marvel Snap. I even got pretty good at it, though not great, unlocking the secret characters only through cheats after deciding the work needed for them wasn't worth the (personally) precious hours of my life. And then, after a brief but intense love affair, I stopped playing it and soon deleted it full-scale, thinking that that would serve my life better. I didn't regret it.
Seeing my best friend discover it a few weeks ago (now more than two months ago from writing this review …), I was caught up with the bug again, and having witnessed them playing it and feeling the itch, I reinstalled it as well.
My first disappointment was that it had kept none of the saves, despite being on the same phone; it was worse than tears in the rain as it's much less time-consuming to cry than to fully upgrade and unlock everything in this damn game.
But my biggest disappointment was that despite all my knowledge of the game and accumulated skill, I was incapable of surviving much longer than my novice friend. The character just doesn't accumulate enough XP or damage output or health to be able to survive the onslaught past a certain point. It was only after I got a few upgrades, with Amount (giving another projectile) the most important of them (especially with my favourite character, Gennaro, who boasts another extra projectile) that I managed to go far beyond the 15-minute mark and almost hit 30.
Almost.
And that's the thing - how much is doing well at the game really about one's ability and how much is it just upgrades and luck in drops (which can be modified by further upgrades)? There's no denying that skill matters some (I was capable of doing some real daredevil stuff that my friend is still learning to dare, allowing me to progress faster), but if it's virtually impossible to finish a run without upgrades, and the moment you get some good ones you get almost to the end, what is the value of all this accumulated knowledge and reflexes really?
Well, none, of course, it's a silly videogame, after all. But I feel more disappointed now than I did before.
But hey, I still enjoyed my revisit and watching the numbers go up and coasting at the very edge of survivability knowing that's mostly my knowledge of how the game functions, and my daring. Even if I'm unlikely to ever return to the game again.
But hey, I already returned once to this endlessly addicting weird little thing, so who the hell knows?
Even if I haven't picked it up once between writing this review two months ago and posting it now. Go figure.
Played all on Steam Deck. So simple, but so fun. It's easy to run, but can get to the low frames when you stack or build "correctly". Satisfying and easy to pick up makes for an addicting combination. You just want to do another run or farm for eggs like crazy. The mechanics is basically just moving and you can definitely do that. Everything else is kinda auto. There's also a surprising amount of depth in the game. There's hidden pickups, puzzles, and secret characters and weapons to find. Overall it's a jampacked game that's only going to get bigger (at the time of this writing, the campaign is about to release).
Too addictive for words. Low-fi graphics, simple controls (up down left right,) simpler concept (use your automatic weapon to kill nasties,) great scale, good difficulty curve, and just enough JNSQ to keep you coming back for more. It's all been done before, but nowhere near as well.
This game is addicting as crack. There really isn't much to Vampire Survivors. It's the most simple survivor rougelite I've ever played, but something about this is so much more addicting than the others. Sadly once you figure out how the game really works, it becomes really easy and eventually loses its magic. Abandoned because I don't have the patience to finish a lot of roguelike games 😊
The game tips its hand and winks at you whenever everything pauses to play slot machine noises and have a 'jackpot' go up with a ton of coins that you can spend in the in-game shop. The randomness, the progression, it all feels like it's designed to manipulate your brain chemicals rather than actually be fun. As far as incremental games go, the game does a good job at keeping the player engaged, but there's only a crumb of gameplay here.
Its a 2 (3 if you're generous)/5 brain fog autoslop simulator. But it earns five stars for making everyone mad forever.
There's a subset of people in the middle of the bell-curve thinking they're on the right of the bell-curve talking about addiction behavior, casino aesthetics, and blah blah. As if anyone who has ever held a phone before couldn't immediately identify this.
Ignore them. It's your average redditor pontificating circle-jerk. VS a mediocre game with limited customization. Good at passing the time, but little else. If you like this game, you should play other roguelikes.
Ableism sucks! Trans rights! Whoooooh!
There's a subset of people in the middle of the bell-curve thinking they're on the right of the bell-curve talking about addiction behavior, casino aesthetics, and blah blah. As if anyone who has ever held a phone before couldn't immediately identify this.
Ignore them. It's your average redditor pontificating circle-jerk. VS a mediocre game with limited customization. Good at passing the time, but little else. If you like this game, you should play other roguelikes.
Ableism sucks! Trans rights! Whoooooh!
I'm not gonna lie, I both really want to like and hate this game due to it's design. The idea for a roguelike with item synergies that deals directly with damage numbers on a 2D plane with a fitting progression curve sounds great. Gathering only 2 items for most synergies and becoming broken quickly, the flashy lights and sound effects ripped from an arcade machine at Vegas, and the overreliance on luck for synergy makes this game a slog and a pain. Every time I think "that's it, this game has gone too far and I've made a decision on it", I then begrudgingly play another 40+ minute game. 2 stars for a failed vision, because all of these qualities fundamentally work to serve the base idea for the gameplay, which unfortunately boils down to walk in a circle for 30 minutes and wait during animations.
I love this game, it's easy to learn and easy to pick up with an accessible price. I played it so much that I closed my eyes and saw the XP crystals on the back of my eyelids when I was falling asleep.
Gamified bubble wrap. Tunes my brain to static within 5 minutes of starting a new run, guaranteed.
Which also means that it feels genuinely unhealthy to play this for more than 30 minutes at a time, like the government should intervene before it allows you to start another round after finishing your first one.
So I’m giving this a brisk 4 out of 5 stars but deleting it from my Switch before I have forgotten what the faces of my family members look like.
Which also means that it feels genuinely unhealthy to play this for more than 30 minutes at a time, like the government should intervene before it allows you to start another round after finishing your first one.
So I’m giving this a brisk 4 out of 5 stars but deleting it from my Switch before I have forgotten what the faces of my family members look like.
omg arca in this ⁉️⁉️ get wrapped up in some shit not sure who you think you're dealing with
phlegm spit in your open hole before I cum in it pulling it out then returnin' it like this is a revenant all these other bitches are irrelevant heaven sent
fun stuff but idk kind of soulless cookie clicker
phlegm spit in your open hole before I cum in it pulling it out then returnin' it like this is a revenant all these other bitches are irrelevant heaven sent
fun stuff but idk kind of soulless cookie clicker
Amazingly addictive rogue like. Played a ton of this over the course of about two weeks, one really hard weekend.
Varied runs kept me coming back especially finding the different combos of weapons to make super weapons.
Varied runs kept me coming back especially finding the different combos of weapons to make super weapons.
Mephistophelian incantation of evil maths that control our world, the claws sunk into your orbitofrontal cortex (plutocratic)
brain goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I am not the biggest fan of this genre i usually need a little bit more going on like a binding of Isaac but this one is pretty decent definitely better than like survior.io but do wish there was more in terms of variety of weapons
mmmmmm yummy crack for my brain yum yum yes
Diablo for people who like podcasts
The way people talk about this game on here is so funny. Dude it's fun. That's all a game really needs to be. Lots of my friends who don't care about gaming enjoy this game and have it on their phones. I appreciate Vampire Survivors for being simple, effective, and harkening back to the social element of arcade-like gameplay without falling into the modern mobile pay-to-win trap (granted, I only play the Steam version but per my friends who have the mobile version it's really fair and doesn't feel like a joke port that demands your money every 2 seconds). It's really fun to sink a spare 30 minutes into this game. Good time.
It's hard to put into words what makes this game so magical. At face value you are just running around trying to not get hit by monsters. However, when you start unlocking all the different passives and abilities, you turn into the hunter rather than the hunted. The loop of trying to survive, then trying to destroy everything is really addicting, this game is really amazing for the price of a small coffee.
O jogo é consistentemente bom. Sua fórmula e sua gameplay é relativamente simples, e é isso que trás seu charme.
Por mais que não goste da temática vampiresca em geral, foi legal ver as armas e sua s evoluções, itens, inimigos, mapas e principalmente as músicas. Dá pra ver que o jogo se destaca no seu estilo, mesmo que tenha pego elementos de Castlevania.
Pontos que acho q pecam um pouco são menu, que realmente é bem desinteressante navegar nele, e a falta de uma mínima história durante o jogo, sinto que desenvolvessem uma lore-zinha enquanto vc debloqueias as fases e personagem traria um carisma bem legal.
Por mais que não goste da temática vampiresca em geral, foi legal ver as armas e sua s evoluções, itens, inimigos, mapas e principalmente as músicas. Dá pra ver que o jogo se destaca no seu estilo, mesmo que tenha pego elementos de Castlevania.
Pontos que acho q pecam um pouco são menu, que realmente é bem desinteressante navegar nele, e a falta de uma mínima história durante o jogo, sinto que desenvolvessem uma lore-zinha enquanto vc debloqueias as fases e personagem traria um carisma bem legal.