Vampire Survivors Review

Return to Transylvania

There are too many of them. Even your trusty whip cannot hold them back anymore. You look down at the garlic in your hand. Is this really how it ends?

Just as you’re ready to give up hope, surrounded by ravenous creatures of the night, a glimmer shines in the distance. Followed by your trusty dove companions, you push yourself to run towards the source as you realize what it is. A treasure chest—carrier of sacred relics and holy armaments, stolen by the demons only to be reclaimed by your crusade. You open the lid amidst the clattering of bones bearing down on you, and immediately recognize the azure feathers within. Your glorious savior has arrived.

A Profound Love Letter

Vampire Survivors is a roguelike shoot-‘em-up developed and published by game developer Luca Galante, also known as Poncle. It was first released for macOS and Windows systems, but is finally coming to Android and iOS devices for free.

The title is an obvious love letter to the early Castlevania games from Konami. Not necessarily in gameplay (it plays completely different, actually), but the presentation. Fans of Castlevania might recognize a lot of enemy and weapon designs. The masterfully crafted pixel-art graphics reminisce of that era to the point where you might even notice some of the sprites being similar, if not near-identical to the ones found in those titles. The soundtrack manages to sound both current and retro at once. It clearly takes inspiration from old Castlevania soundtracks, but elevates the themes to a modern standard.

I Am the Bullet Hell Now

Vampire Survivors is the type of game I like to call an auto-shooter. The only direct gameplay element the player has to worry about is moving around. While that may sound simplistic, it’s actually quite complex. Maneuvering through the hordes of enemies and the environment is key to success. Weapons are designed in a way that positioning can make or break the experience, which makes for a surprisingly challenging game.

While learning how to maneuver around the throngs of undead and demons is important, it’s only one of two main skill expressions in the game. The other is knowing what upgrades to pick. Defeated enemies can sometimes drop crystals, which can be picked up to gain experience points. Earn enough experience and you level up, giving you a choice between three random upgrades. These upgrades can come in the form of new weapons, improvements to your existing weapons or even passive effects like increased movement speed or more projectiles. There are only so many weapons you can have in your build though, so choose wisely.

The game has numerous characters to pick from for each run and they all have their own starting weapons and specialties. There are also a dozen stages. From a mad forest to a narrow tower, each requiring a different approach. Knowing what character to use and what builds to go for is important. Not all weapons are made equal, but every weapon has its use. Take the garlic though. You’ll thank me later.

Have a Curse

So, the main challenges in the game are build flexibility and skill in mobility. It’d be fair to ask: What is going to keep you coming back? Besides the addictive gameplay, of course? The answer is simple: Unlockables.

Vampire Survivors has countless weapons, characters, stages, power-ups and even game mechanics you can unlock by playing. Whenever you accomplish pretty much anything, you get an unlockable. You upgraded a particular weapon to max level, have an unlock. You beat a stage, unlock something. Did you just unlock something? Here’s an unlock.

Despite this, the game has enough unlockables to last you a very long time. Most of them are very interesting and can affect how you approach your runs in the future, so it’s a great incentive to keep playing. However, it’s done in a way that still makes it feel like you have all the tools you need to win even without a single unlocked feature. So don’t worry about having to play for a while before you can start having fun.

Toss a Coin To Your Vampire

Considering that the game is free, one might wonder what kind of diabolic monetization the developer could have come up with instead. The good news is: None! Vampire Survivors iOS has no in-game store or intrusive ads whatsoever. There are ads, but they are completely opt-in. I’ve only encountered them in two cases in the entire game. If you lost, but would like to continue the current run, you can watch an ad to earn a revive (once). If you’re out of revives, you can watch an ad to increase the amount of currency earned from that run (again, once).

That’s it. Vampire Survivors never forces ads on you otherwise, and will never ask for your money in any way. It is truly the least intrusive monetization scheme that I’ve ever seen.

There are few games that come close to being perfect. Vampire Survivors might not be for everyone, but it’s not hard to tell that it was created out of love and passion for what it represents: a fusion of old video game values and modern game design. Once you start playing, it might be this passion shining through that’ll make it hard to put down.