Review

A fun game. And it is a game. Sadly a bit of a lost art these days. I do feel little bit torn admitting that I enjoyed myself. I don't usually much care for roguelikes and it's not like there's much depth here. Vampire Survivors is really all about the immediate dopamine rush, eh? But it works on me. It shouldn't, but it does.

I hadn't tried Vampire Survivors until recently because of an obstinate contrarianism. I do not trust the masses. When a game blows up, my immediate response is a critical eye. Which has proven right often enough that I'm fine missing some of the actual good ones. The past is an infinite corridor, either wall adorned with shelves full of game after game after game after game that already exists that you would love. Always remember that. You will die. And playing games that are not good just because they are new is a very silly thing to do. But in either case, I've had fun.

There's a number of small things I can point to. I like that there are cheat codes. What they have taken from us...it is a tragedy. What if games were like about...having fun? And you could just sort of fiddle with some settings if you wanted to spark joy? Because you're playing the game on not the dev. Revolutionary. I like that the silly chest cutscenes are so comedically overwrought, and also that I can skip them (which I do because I can). I like that every weapon at level 1 is such a piddly little nothing and by the time you get it leveled all the way up, it's annihilating quadrants of the screen. I like anything that ups area and quantity of projectiles. That gives the good chemicals. I like that there's tangible sense of your ground being lost and the hordes pushing further into your zone of control. Only for you to get a couple upgrades and feel the calmness that comes from them being pushed back.

I'm a bit middling on the evolutions aspect to your weapons. They're satisfying and all that but once I realized that's how the game works, it made me a feel a bit annoyed. I was enjoying getting to know the various stats and just picking whatever I liked in the moment. But once I knew that each weapon had a specific item that you needed to pick to make it evolve, I felt a compulsion to do so. You don't have to. But the runs where I started actually getting to 30 minutes just so happened to align with when I just started always getting whatever made my weapons evolve...So a little annoyance at that aspect of the game design.

I dunno how much of the game I'll actually end up playing. I am not a 100%er. I never give a single shit about that and haven't since childhood. But what I will say is this game has tendered those feelings more than most other games I've played in recent years has. I've gotten to the point where most of the maps have been unlocked. I've seen the Yellow Sign. I'm starting to look at the unlockables list as a to do tracker rather than just playing whoever and doing whatever. I'm sure that translates to anyone else as "very early in the game". But I think I've played more than enough hours that I have a perfectly good understanding of the shape of the game. There is more. But I'm sure more translates to More stages with more characters where you walk around while your weapons auto-attack more enemies.