I recently found out that this game was available for mobile! I immediately downloaded the Android version and started work on this Vampire Survivors review for you. Furthermore, I prefer free to play games, so I never played the PC version, but I did watch it on Twitch. This page will detail its good elements, the bad ones, and also some suggestions on how this game could improve.
Vampire Survivors is a mobile, free to play, roguelike, shoot’em up, survival game. You select a character and try to survive through multiple waves of enemies. As you can see in the images on this page, the game is a lot like and was based on Magic Survival.
The object of the game is to fight through each chapter and survive 15 or 30 minutes, depending on the stage and mode you selected.
Every time your survivor levels up, the action pauses, and a screen pops up with 3 or 4 options. When this happens, you can choose a weapon or a power-up to upgrade and assist you. When you match a maxed weapon with its corresponding buff, you may gain access to an evolved weapon!
Last update: September 2023
General information
Platforms: Android, iOS, PC, XBox, Switch, MacOS
Released for mobile: December 8, 2022
Developer: Luca Galante, Poncle Limited
Genre: Survival, Action, Roguelike, Shoot’em up
Google Play rating: 4.7
iOS rating: 4.7
Description (from developer)
“Vampire Survivors is a roguelite time survival RPG game with minimalistic gameplay.
The supernatural indie phenomenon that lets you be the bullet hell has arrived on mobile!
Hell is empty, the devils are here, and there’s no place to run or hide. Survive as long as you can until death inevitably puts an end to your struggles. Gather gold in each run to buy upgrades and help the next survivor.
Mow down thousands of night creatures and survive until dawn! Vampire Survivors is a gothic horror casual game with roguelite and roguelike elements. Your choices can allow you to quickly snowball against the hundreds of monsters that get thrown at you.
Test your mettle against the legions of hell using your touchscreen. This wave survival will bring you the edge!
Stand against hordes of enemies, exterminate monsters and finish the game as a lone survivor! There is no way to defeat an enemy army without a collection of great weapons. This roguelike game has it all. Cross, garlic, king bible or magic wand? The choice is yours.
Upgrade your skills and become a warrior with unlimited potential. Take the most out of this hero survival – battle evil and dangerous hell creatures without mercy!
Starting Tips for the best attack survival:
– Take your time to grab gems and items, they won’t disappear.
– Get two or three offensive weapons at first, but focus on leveling them up one at a time.
– Armour and Luck are good starting power-ups to spend money on.
– Refund power-ups often, it’s free, and try new upgrade paths.
Waves of undead legions are all around, have you thought it’s going to be easy? The challenge is what makes this one of the best horde survival games. It’s time to enjoy an exciting rouge survival adventure.
Explore different stages and learn how to slay enemies anywhere, whether that is library, dairy plant, or old capella. Roguelite skill experience will help you collect bonuses and find treasure. You don’t want to be the last survivor with an empty pocket, do you?
Select your favorite character and begin the best adventure roguelike game of your life.
We’re only just getting started. Expect improvements and enhancements as we continue to refine the mobile experience in Vampire Survivors roguelite role playing game.”
Vampire Survivors Review: The Good
- Vampire Survivors is free to play. So there’s no need to spend real money to enjoy the game.
- You can also play while offline!
- It’s easy to unlock and use extra characters.
- It is easy to play by just moving a finger on your phone’s screen.
- The game loads fast.
- You can pause the game. When unlocked, a map of the area will appear that shows the location of items of interest.
- Vampire Survivors has no popup ads, only optional ads. For instance, when you wish to revive.
- From time to time, a mini boss will appear and reward you if eliminated.
- Ground obstacles provide variety and sometimes even protection from the tougher waves.
- The stages and enemies are varied, and your strategy must adapt to them.
- The damage stats for the weapons you chose can be seen after the battle.
- There are many things to do. For example, complete achievements, unlock characters, discover secrets, etc…
- Several different things to collect, for example enemies, items and achievements.
- If you want additional content and/or want to support the developer, there are optional DLC expansions available for purchase.
The Bad
There are not many bad aspects to this game, but I know it’s an important part of any game review, and I came up with these:
- While creating content for this Vampire Survivors review, I discovered that you can lose track of where your character is. Also, at times you can’t even tell where a mini boss is.
- Sometimes you misclick and select a wrong weapon to upgrade from the pop-up menu.
- After you select a weapon from the pop-up menu by clicking “done”, the enemies immediately start attacking again.
- The location of some of the dropped items is not indicated during gameplay. You must keep pausing to look at the map to see if you are near them.
- Some aspects of the game are not explained much and must be figured out by the player. For example, the Arcanas.
Vampire Survivors Review – Quick Tips
- As you will quickly find out, some characters are much easier to play than others. This depends mostly on their starting weapon. For example, Imelda with her Magic Wand and Antonio with his Whip are great starters.
- Use the easy-to-play characters to complete achievements.
- Get a good early Weapon quickly, to keep you alive. Then get a few others. The Magic Wand is a great early weapon. The Whip and Axe aren’t bad, either.
- Check the map often for items and question marks. Go to them if you can!
- Choose at least one weapon to eliminate mini bosses faster, for example, the Knife or Magic Wand.
- I recommend getting the Attractorb buff as soon as you have a good weapon or two. This way you can pick up items and level much faster. We are playing against the clock, remember.
- In general, you want to avoid stepping on ground/booby traps that summon additional enemies.
- Test different characters and weapon combinations to see what works best for you in Vampire Survivors.
- Analyze your weapon damage stats after battle to see what is best for you in the future. For instance, Santa Water and its evolution, La Borra, do major damage in the late game.
Vampire Survivors Review – Screenshots
This game has its weird elements for sure!
How can Vampire Survivors be improved?
I humbly present my suggestions on how to improve the game:
- Add a slight delay before we can select a weapon from the pop-up menu. This way we can avoid misclicks.
- The weapons could show what power-ups they correspond to. And vice versa.
- The graphics are okay, but could be improved.
- Although probably difficult to implement, a non-local cooperative mode for Vampire Survivors would be awesome!
The Verdict: 8.5/10
When this game was launched some time ago, I watched people playing it on Twitch. I searched for and downloaded several similar games that were free to play. Magic Survival was the closest thing to it, and I always thought it was a Vampire Survivors clone. Little did I know that it was almost the other way around.
I think they made a great decision to release Vampire Survivors as free to play for mobile devices, as many of us cannot or will not pay for a game upfront anymore.
While it appears to be a simple game, you can see the developer put a lot of thought and hard work into Vampire Survivors. It has a considerable amount of original design features and content. At times, I was pleasantly surprised with elements and events that I never expected.
The competition in this genre is fierce nowadays, and my final score reflects this. Even though I love pixel art, the graphics look a bit too old school for 2023. As a fun, free and casual game with no visible bugs, this Vampire Survivors review receives an 8.5 out of 10 rating.
I am excited and motivated to continue playing and unlocking this game’s secrets. In the future, I might even write more articles about Vampire Survivors, adding a new category to this blog.
Thank you for reading this page to the end!
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