Vampire Survivors

As simple as a watering can and as addictive as the mythical arcade classics. Vampire Survivors is the kind of game you're happy to give your next few minutes of free time to. And the great thing about it is that as soon as you start playing, you know you're going to lose, but you're going to have a great time destroying half of hell without having to touch a single button. It's as simple as that.

Vampire Survivors is the result of merging the essence and aesthetics of classic Castlevania with the gameplay of the legendary Gauntlet and bringing it into the realm of roguelites. But be warned, there will be no dodgy levels and you won't have to worry about button mashing. Attacks are performed automatically, so the gameplay is based on dodging waves of enemies as your character hits or casts spells while waiting for death to come. Poncle studio has managed to turn something so simple into a real vice.

In addition to a library of sounds and musical themes that intentionally remind us of the vampire saga, we find that advancing through the screen defeating enemies generates small explosions that are a pleasure to hear. It’s a sound similar to that of rain touching glass because, as we shall see, one of the geniuses of Vampire Survivors is that in the end it all adds up.

The premise of Vampire Survivors boils down to something as simple as obliterating everything on screen for the duration of a game. You don't have to press any buttons to attack, nor do you need to aim. You simply have to move around to avoid being overwhelmed by the swarm of enemies that will progressively fill the screen.

In order to improve during the game, some enemies drop a gem that grants experience, and for each level up, new resources can be unlocked in the form of spells, additional weapons, barriers, power-ups and, in general, improvements that increase the chances of survival as the situation becomes tougher.

At the beginning we will survive for 5 to 10 minutes, when we get the hang of it, we will survive for 15 to 20 minutes and if we are lucky with upgrades and skill we will manage to beat that mark, but not much longer.

As any good roguelite, the end of each game of Vampire Survivors gives us a chance to start again with more than just the lessons learned. In addition to completing the collection of skills in the main menu, we can use the coins earned to unlock more heroes, each with different starting weapons and attributes. This gives new layers of variety and nuance to the following games, but that's not the end of it.

If there is something that Vampire Survivors does very well, it is gratification and a sense of progress. The first one is achieved by killing enemies on screen and transforming it into experience and upgrades at a great pace, being able to acquire skills and spells from other heroes and adding them to the ones we have active. But we can also evolve weapons and even combine them by constantly upgrading them. And that's where the game really opens up in new directions.