During my summer vacation I decided to browse the Nintendo eShop and maybe buy some cheap games that don’t have a physical release. Browsing the eShop was, of course, an absolute horror show of laggy UI and shovelware but in the end I grabbed a handful of games. One of those was Vampire Survivors, a game I had heard a lot about but dismissed due to the hype and looks. Still, people insisted it was basically video game drugs so I gave it a shot.
As it turns out. it was basically video game drugs.
Vampire Survivors seems like an ugly game with a weird premise. You’re a Castlevania knock-off character that walk around auto-attacking enemies that get close. The goal is simply to survive for a set amount of time. You do so by leveling up, adding new weapons and abilities to your roster. The entire game is played with the control stick, using buttons only to occasionally select power-ups. Everything’s drawn with pretty basic pixel art and particle effects with both good and… less good designs.
After two or three runs of Vampire Survivors it became clear that yes, it is an ugly game with a weird premise. It is also one of the most fun games I’ve played in years. As you level up you eventually become so powerful that you easily kill droves of enemies, combing weapons and upgrades to find the most deadly combination. But as you get more powerful, the enemies get more plentiful and powerful too. At the end of a run (lasting 15, 20, or 30 minutes depending on map) the screen is positively overflowing with sprites and projectiles and damage numbers. It’s intense and gratifying in all the right ways. I even started kind of liking the art, like it was intentionally weird to go with the insane gameplay. The music goes perfectly with the intensity, often sounding like a fan-made Castlevania arrange album in all the right ways.
Once you get to grips with the basics, you’ll soon find there’s a lot of depth to Vampire Survivors too. Weapons and upgrades can form combos and evolve into new more powerful weapons. There are hidden items and characters littered around the maps. Achieving certain feats unlock further maps, characters, weapons, powers, and more. You can collect coins that can be used to buy characters and permanent upgrades, making subsequent runs easier and more varied. I even ended up in a hidden level, unlocking an item that revealed there were even more hidden items in the stages I’ve already played for hours.
The number of variables available to the player is staggering but you’re eased into it by the good pace of unlockables. It’s genuinely addictive and rewarding to check the achievement list and see what you can finish next, often leading to a run that’s fun and different from the last one. The roguelite loop of permanent upgrades is of course effective, but in Vampire Survivors the core gameplay is so over the top and enjoyable that the “die and try again” nature of it didn’t feel like the main event. I was just happy to try a new character with a new build.
I was playing on the Switch and while there was some light frame drops when the screen was mostly thousands of sprites, that actually made it feel even better. Like old arcade bullet hell games, the game was trying its hardest to throw more shit your way. Vampire Survivor is very inexpensive ($4.99) but has several add-ons with new levels, characters, and weapons. These add-ons are ALSO very inexpensive, making this one of the best values in video games right now. I can’t recommend Vampire Survivors enough!
Things I liked:
- Becoming an unstoppable killing machine of sprites and particles is fun and super addictive
- Interesting and well-paced progression systems
- Tons of secrets that feel like secrets used to feel in old games (don’t google!)
- So much content for so little money
- The soundtrack has some real bangers
- Can basically play one handed and thus eat snacks at the same time
Things I didn’t like:
- It’s still a bit ugly though, isn’t it..?