- Game: Poncle's Vampire Survivors.
- Release Month: October.
- Quick Look: Here (Unfinished with Jeff Gerstmann, Jan, and Rorie).
- Started: 17/01.
- Completed (Sorta?): 21/01.
I realize I'm late to the Monster Mash here but Vampire Survivors was one of those games I was putting off initially in part because I'd already satiated myself on the mechanically identical Vtuber fangame HoloCure but also because I feared I'd get hopelessly addicted and wouldn't get much else of my GOTY backlog done (for the record, I've still got four more games I want to look at before the end of this month; wish me luck). Yet, the allure of the vampire couldn't be ignored forever and so here I am, trying to work out what the natural endpoint for a roguelite should look like before I commit to a review.
For those who have been keeping their heads in a Jack-o'-Lantern bucket since last year (or really 2020, when it first arrived as an early access title), Vampire Survivors takes the humble dual-stick shooter and streamlines a great deal: specifically, it doesn't actually let you shoot anything. Rather, all your weapons are constantly firing at pre-determined intervals while you simply focus on moving around avoiding enemies and their projectiles. It's not too dissimilar to a modern danmaku game that just auto-fires for you, since there's not much to be gained by having the player hold down the fire button throughout. Gameplay generally consists of running in any direction to keep enemies at bay, while also maneuvering around them in such a way to make the most out of the weapons you own: the standard knives, whip, and axes all have particular areas of effect, for instance, so keeping enemies in their range at all times is necessary to keep their numbers down.
The player's other main input comes from determining which upgrade they get upon levelling up once they've hoovered up enough of the experience gems dropped by defeated foes: the game usually presents a random choice of three items taken from an ever-expanding stock of active weapons and passive power-ups. These options might also include upgraded versions of weapons and power-ups you've already acquired. You learn early on that the game has weapon "evolutions" where, if you have a weapon that has reached its maximum level and a certain other item (usually one of the power-ups, but sometimes a second or even third weapon) it'll evolve into a much more powerful form. As you progress in the game and unlock harder maps to explore, quickly acquiring one or more of these evolved weapons is how you ensure your long-term survival. Each of the normal stages taps out at thirty minutes—your reward for hitting this time is to be instantly murdered by the Grim Reaper, or a Grim Reaper I should say, but you'll still receive completion credit and bonus cash all the same—but given that the enemy wave intensity continues to build throughout it's not always an easy target to reach; figuring out the most effective evolutions and being fortunate enough when levelling to hit the pre-requisites to acquire them as soon as possible is usually the difference between a successful run and one where you're simply overrun, having an insufficient amount of DPS to handle the hordes nipping at your heels.
If I had to say what was the most compelling aspect of Vampire Survivors, it's the satisfaction of knowing you're on top of things. Once you're starting to fill the screen with lasers and axes and enemies are disintegrating almost as quickly as they appear, there's the power fantasy aspect in play for sure but more than that it's knowing that you've reached a temporary solution for dealing with these tough enemies, either through shrewd discernment or through sheer luck, and being in a position to plan ahead for a means of keeping yourself in fighting shape for the even stronger beasties to follow. Like most roguelites (especially something like The Binding of Isaac), the game also has a near endless amount of bonus content to work towards unlocking: these include new characters and weapons, new stages, new modes, new add-ons and pause menu options, and no small amount of weird secret shit. Likewise, you're constantly accruing currency from exploring the otherwise endless levels for breakable candlesticks (one of just a thousand allusions to a certain Konami franchise) or treasure chests that you can spend on permanent upgrades between runs: a small way to ensure that if you're struggling to complete the current stage, these stat boosts and other purchasable benefits will give you a better chance next time.
The sudden and huge success of this thing coupled with endless reviews and critiques elsewhere puts me at a bit of a disadvantage here since there's nothing new under the sun—just the way vampires would prefer it— to write about, but I will say that I understand the hype and honestly I did back when I was getting into that HoloCure fan game (reviewed as IGotW #276). There are certain mechanics from that fan game that I wish were here, chiefly the ability to lock your firing direction for the weapons that require it and also HoloCure's "panic button" player-activated specials that can quickly turn the tide of a nightmare enemy wave, but right now I think Vampire Survivors is in this enviable space like Terraria or No Man's Sky where it can continue to expand its content and keep all its current players hooked and lapsed players coming back for the foreseeable future. I've yet to bite the bullet on that DLC it just put out but given my weeaboo love for yokais and ninja I may end up doing so once I've run out of new content to unlock in the base game, and even that's a big if. (For the record, I'm presently struggling to get much past the 20-minute mark in the fifth of the main stages given all of its annoying chromatic reapers and am weighing my options; specifically, what I could unlock to make things easier beyond buying more of the paid upgrades. It might just come down to luck at some point.) (EDIT: Which of course I beat right after posting this review. My timing, as always, is perfect.)
For now, though, I just had to put my thoughts on the game out there before GOTY season was entirely over. For as much as it doesn't seem like it sometimes when playing Vampire Survivors, other games did indeed come out in 2022.
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