Surprised by how little I hate this. On paper, it's pure gunk of a game, all about being a little seratonin plant that stimulates the brain with the fun chemicals by employing the most base level of visual power escalation. It's not just number go up, it's projectile go so Up you can barely see the field anymore. It's all pretty basic stuff, but that's the appeal - a game stripped down to bare essentials, the character arc of a fully-fledged Metroidvania condensed to maybe 30-minute intervals. A thin Roguelite affair with all the trappings that smacks of a Flash golden-era desktop toy. I'm happy to call this game shite, but it's like yelling at a cheap stress ball and I am well aware of the desperate things we do when we have to listen to a podcast. The veneer of Vampire Survivors is pretty hilarious, uses Castlevania's aesthetic right down to stealing monster designs and items and stuff, alongside this unashamed casino spin where you're pulling gatchas from chests and rolling for good pickups. The music and sound effects sound like a pub fruit machine constantly screaming for attention all the while I'm mowing down the devil's legions in gothic castles.

I see the appeal, I really do, but I'm one of those freaks that watches a movie without tearing my eyes off the screen to blink. Stripping down a game to the point where it is nothing but mechanical gratification isn't my thing, I just need the narrative thrust or linear hand-crafted oven-cooked pomp and care or else a game just loses me and I forget it the moment it exits my peripheral. If I was a kid that had to pretend to do work in IT class in the year of our lord 2022 this would probably be my go-to, but I was definitely better off doing the same with Warning Forever.