Vampire Survivors is Ridiculously Addicting [Review]

While I’m no stranger to the roguelite genre, none have kept my attention for as long as Vampire Survivors, which is a reverse bullet hell game with seemingly endless progression. At its core, all you do is run around, collect XP gems, and kill an endless horde of enemies that mainly just walk towards you. But what makes it so dang addicting?

GLORIOUS SIMPLICITY

For the lack of a better way to describe it, Vampire Survivors is the most intense low-intensity game I’ve ever played. The only thing you truly control is your character’s movement, as every single weapon in the game automatically fires at set intervals. Despite the easy mechanics, each run gets progressively harder as the game will start throwing stronger, faster, and larger enemies your way, along with a few curveballs every now and then, such as incredibly deadly reapers, a ton of bats rushing in your direction, or stampeding minotaurs.

While some games in the genre have various other impactful (and sometimes vague) mechanics that you have to keep track of, Vampire Survivors thrives in its simplicity, as most of the power ups are essentially just flat upgrades ranging from increased move speed to faster projectiles.

Because of this, most of the game’s difficulty comes from the gimmicks and layout of each map (e.g. the library is a straight corridor where it’s easy to get overwhelmed), as well as the small selection of challenge modes that you can activate for each of them. Whether you want to speed up the game or literally flip the entire map upside down and make everything much tougher in exchange for more rewards, you can tailor each run to however harder or easier you want the game to be.

A LOT OF CHOICES, SO LITTLE TIME

A typical Vampire Survivors run lasts for up to 30 minutes (Or 15 if you have “Hurry” enabled), and if you reach that point, the game instantly kills you with an incredibly fast reaper that you literally cannot avoid. Unless you have endless mode on, the main objective is basically to survive until you reach the time limit and use the gold you’ve earned to unlock new characters or purchase permanent upgrades to make the challenge modes much more bearable.

The game features a wide range of characters to choose from, and each of them has their own unique starting weapon and permanent buff/debuff. This lets you plan a bit in advance, as you have limited slots for weapons and utilities each run. Some of these can be combined to create more powerful equipment, and since you only get a handful of random items to choose from every time you level up, part of the challenge comes with figuring out what build to go for with whatever you’ve been given.

My personal favorite is Poe, as he starts with garlic, which is a weapon that deals damage to anything around you. It can be upgraded into something that heals you over time, and with a few complementary items, you can probably reach the time limit without even moving. You won’t be idling in your first few runs though, as you’ll need to upgrade your power ups from the main menu to be able to go on crazy power trips like that.

Although each level essentially loops forever, they also have set spawns for certain items that the game shows you through the barebones map that you can check by pausing. For instance, you can find items such as the wings (increases move speed) and armor (self-explanatory) in specific locations within the dairy plant level. Unless this was changed recently, you can even use these spawns as a way to circumvent the limit on items by picking them up only after you’ve already filled up every weapon/passive slot.

CONCLUSION

Part of Vampire Survivors‘ appeal is the very apparent rise from zero to hero as you trudge through your first few runs and gradually build up your collection of usable characters and weapons. Eventually, you’ll reach a point where your damage can go up to hilariously large numbers, and you can just sit back and watch as your character swiftly clears out the unending swarm of enemies that fills up your screen every few seconds.

For those looking for an extra challenge, you should know that the “instakill reaper” I mentioned earlier is actually killable, and it should serve as one of your endgame goals when you do decide to pick up Vampire Survivors.

As of writing this, the game has just recently released its second DLC, and it has a free mobile port that is, as far as I can tell, well-optimized and is absolutely worth checking out if you wanna play it on the go. I’ve already hit 100% on this game twice, and now that there’s new content (again), I guess it’s time to fire it up and get those achievements!

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