Early Access Review
Do you have what it takes to move around in a circle until you can become so powerful that you do not need to move at all?
This pretty much sums up Vampire Survivors gameplay, however like always, the devil is in the details
For full review and discussions lets meet at:
Calicifer’s Reviews
The Genre Rising
Vampire Survivor is a new genre in itself. I had saw similar games before it on an android phone. However, Vampire Survivors was a first game which had bought such type of games on PC and done them better. Then few too many streamers had noticed this game and rest is history. There are many such games sprouting, but genre is unlikely to be popular in a long term. Further evolution is necessary like deeper and more complex builds or game quality which isn’t horrible.What is good about it?
While gameplay is a bit tedious and monotonic, game is built around scaling. Making your character feel really powerful. Game is solely about out-scalling your enemies who at certain period of a game, DPS checks you with huge waves to see if you can continue your game. Eventually you die after 30 minutes. It is a nice, fixed gameplay period. Content Stream
- Game’s strong suit is its variety, references, memes. It has a lot of content. Not all of it will be good, but you will constantly be unlocking something new or you will have something to look for unlocking. This constant drip of new content, new power through permanent power unlocks gives a player incentive to keep playing. It is fun to see a meme about Mario when you discover coffin of another vampire. It is fun to discover hidden rooms in the levels. It is fun to constantly unlock new heroes and levels. All of this imbues this game with longevity and quality which outsiders can’t understand.
Building Your Character - What is most interesting is that in this game you can and should build specifics builds. Some builds are better with one items. Other builds are better in one or another map. Some builds are better on one or another hero. All of this add depth to a game. It makes you motivated to see what fully maxed out and evolved build will look like. How evolved version of this ability will look like. Then you start wanting to make combination of various skills. This creates interest to play this game. A bonus is that those abilities tend to be very flashy and powerful in a mid game. This gives player a sense of power which motivates them to play. This sense of power is that made this game so successful. Uninvolved and easy gameplay with consistent content unlocks and some depth to keep people interested.
Treasure Chests - A honourable mention should go to treasure chests. They are great. It incentivises player to fight very tough enemies instead of running around. It creates anticipation of receiving much needed character power boost. That is more, opening cinematic is great. It makes you feel that you are getting a lot. It breaks monotony of a gameplay. It allows for those peaks when you discover legendary chest and screen is filled with colours and rewards. It is such a simple mechanic, but it makes game so much more enjoyable to play even if it upsets some hipsters that game is just too enjoyable for their tastes.
The Stinking Garlic
Game has many problems. Poor optimisation, shockingly low production values, lack of balance, redundant content, lack of variety in levels, lack of depth, etc. I will touch on the core issues for this game which had annoyed me the most. Rotten RNG
- Quite often game will fail to generate sufficiently random seed. It will keep on giving you same upgrade paths with some never appearing. This is particularly problematic when you have to combine two weapons where one will appear while another might be absent in an entire run. It is unlikely to be changed since developer took a random function without testing it thoroughly enough and such fundamental and yet, difficult to notice changes are never fixed. It is enough to look at the massive games like Firaxis X-COM. It is a public secret, but everyone just accepts it and jokes about it.
Flood of content - While it is great that developer adds a lot of content which was his intention all along. The issue with it that most of it is just of low quality. Most heroes have generic abilities with no variation. Levels are poorly thought out with some being way harder than others. Some of them being a lot more monotonous and limited. Diary Farms versus Library comes in mind. Outside of secrets, there is little to see in these levels, in abilities. It is all random, thrown together and game feels like a mod or a flash game.
Poor Balance - While there are certainly a lot of items and characters, they are not well balanced. King’s Bible for example is vastly superior to a lot of items. Some picks up range from adding flat 25% damage increase or 50% speed boost in a game where you do not need to go anywhere. Or a character who gets free resurrections in a game where if you die, it is probably because enemies had out-scaled you and you will be resurrected on top of a swarm which just had killed you. A lot of things in this game aren’t good which is a side effect of developer solely focusing on adding more content rather than refining what he already has.
Sun is Rising
…and our time is running short. Vampire Survivors is the greatest example of game in its genre. It is fun, it does a lot of things well. However, it does lack depth and as a result gets tiresome rather quickly. Game also has poor production values in general. Game is fun and there isn’t anything like it which is why I can easily recommend it.