Vampire Survivor Review
need to know
what is it? A Castlevania-themed roguelike in which you’ll try to outrun waves of vampires, werewolves, and skeletons.
expect to pay $5/£4
release date October 20, 2022
developer Punkel
Publisher Punkel
audit date Steam platform, Core i5 12600K, RTX 3070, 32 GB RAM
multiplayer game? Do not
association Steam(opens in a new tab)
Like many PC gamers, I’ve been a little spoiled for single-digit dollar purchases of games on Steam over the years. I managed to get Deus Ex: Invisible War for 40 cents, which I’m pretty sure was the cost of a Depression-era video game.Never played but still value.
Considering the exposure of this cheap game, I’d say Vampire Survivor is one of the best deals you can get on PC. It’s a creative, surprising bullet hell roguelike that runs on anything and has me muttering a disastrous “run again” mantra in the morning after everyone in the house fell asleep . As PC Gamer editor Robin Valentine said on Twitter the other day, “It’s dangerous to have it on your hard drive.”
Vampire Survivors is built around horde mode in a simple, sprawling map. You pick a character from a series of Belmont-like characters and try to defeat a horde of ghouls and ghosts, increasing in power and numbers on a 30-minute timer. Vampire Survivor’s first great curveball is how it handles shooting. Each weapon is mechanically unique, with a different AoE, rate of fire, and damage curve. Rather than aiming directly at the enemy, these weapons have timed fire patterns that are affected by your and the enemy’s position.
Take my favorite character, Arca Ladonna, for example. He starts with a relatively ruthless early game weapon: a wand that fires fireballs left and right every second in the direction of random enemies on the screen. I have no say in where these fireballs go, so I have to follow their lead in whatever direction they clear the already claustrophobic enemy crowd, grabbing upgrade gems behind them.
Contrast this with another hero, Imelda Belpase (the vampire’s name is Castlevania). She starts with a wand and fires at the nearest enemy. Imelda can target her enemies more directly from the start, resulting in a more familiar and aggressive playstyle. I still prefer the high-risk, high-reward randomization that Arca offers because it’s something exclusive to Vampire Survivors, but you have a lot of options right from the start.
The closest thing I can compare is when you whip up a death ball in an RTS or more tactical RPG.
I love the way these preset shooting modes encourage me to build a complementary arsenal. For example, the bulky but powerful fireball pairs well with something more consistent and precise, like Imelda’s wand or boomerang cross. Early in the game, this elaborate build craft pays off in the final third of the game with explosive, self-perpetuating fantasies of power, which I think is exactly what vampire survivors do.
(Image credit: poncle)
With six weapons maxed out, and at least some of them evolved through item combinations, your character just keeps unleashing a ton of projectiles to knock back an endless stream of enemies. It actually plays at this point, but that’s part of the fun. The closest thing I can compare is when you whip up a death ball in an RTS or more tactical RPG. It pokes the same lizard-brain fun center for me when I drag-select a doomsday pile of battlecruisers in Starcraft or a team of mages using Merv’s minute shooting star in Baldur’s Gate, click on an enemy, Then watch the sparks fly.
It does run the risk of getting boring, and a couple of times I’ve been lucky enough to get into an easy early game before transitioning to a steamy late game, which is when Vampire Survivors drags its feet. Fortunately, there are game speed and enemy challenge modifiers to smooth things out, and Vampire Survivor’s hidden characters, challenges, and levels have brought me back into the fun after a slump. It reminds me of the giant iceberg of consecutive final levels of The Binding of Isaac, or the exciting secret levels and bosses of Overkill and Cruel Squad. Vampire Survivor’s Secret makes it feel generous and surprising.
bonus round
(Image credit: poncle)
One challenge that blew my mind requires you to kill a seemingly invulnerable boss that seems more like the rules of the game than something you can actually overcome. It requires rushing to remote corners of the map to collect special items. These items, when fully upgraded, along with the two specific weapons available when leveling up, unlock a pair of super weapons that allow you to kill that juggernaut, unlocking a hidden character.
In some casual games a day later, I made two attempts in this run, but before I got lucky and got into both parts of the RNG side of the build. I change course like crazy to run the challenge, pick up everything I need and fully upgrade it in under two minutes. It feels great to finally put everything together, although you can also stop a fight by standing in one place for 30 minutes with this novel exploit build (opens in a new tab). I think that’s a unique advantage of vampire survivors that allows this kind of stupidity.
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(Image credit: poncle) (Image credit: poncle) (Image credit: poncle) (Image credit: poncle)
I certainly love Vampire Survivor on the desktop, but I think it really sings on Steam Deck (or, if that doesn’t work, a thin and light laptop). Most of my gameplay happens on my couch or on my porch. Not tethered to a desktop-class CPU, the vampires do start to get a little clunky in those late-run squeezing sequences, but the game doesn’t really need twitching reflexes, and I honestly kind of like the effect – it feels like my deck In tension with the weight of all these meteors. Creator Poncle does plan to convert it to a new and hopefully more stable engine by the end of the year(opens in a new tab).
Vampire Survivors is a killer little game, a fun roguelike that absolutely fascinates me, a guy who’s tired of the genre at this point. It also just kills your free time, not your wallet. Currently on sale until November 1st for $4, you can choose from this great indie game, or one of the three cheapest beers I’ve ever worked on.
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