1.6 hours played
Written 2 years ago
This game hardly knows what it takes to be a Vampire Survivors clone. It feels so confused on what it wants to be and the name just leaves more questions on the table.
TL;DR: There isn't enough content in this game for it to be non-early access. It also doesn't feel great to play in the slightest. Farming thing is interesting but not good enough to carry the game. Return in 4-6 Months.
Before I go into comparisons, I'll get some gripes things out of the way:
[b]ESC[/b] Why the hell is the Exit/Back Button... Backspace instead of Esc? Since you cannot click the button to exit and you're required to hit the button shown, ESC should be used to ESCAPE from a menu or bring up a screen.
[b]Controls[/b] I understand having the Arrow keys being available but why don't WASD work from the very start without requiring rebinding?
[b]Tutorial? Help Menu? Advice?!?![/b] The game is lacking information to the point that the Steam Store Page tells you more about what you're doing and how it works than literally anything in the game itself. This should be dev 101 stuff.
[b]The Screen shake:[/b] (Called Camera Shake for some stupid reason; while there is no "camera") is insanely obnoxious and happens every time you hit an enemy or are hit. Hit more enemies and it only gets worse. Yes, you can turn it off in the Settings but it shouldn't exist in the game at all if it starts jiggling your screen like a drunken baby when you're bashing hordes of enemies.
[b]Experience:[/b] Not only do your exp orbs look like radioactive bouncy balls of the worst possible quality, but they F***ing EXPIRE!? Experience that expires while you're expected to kite and dodge these sanic speed enemies while you move slower than a snail is BS. Exp should condense when no longer on screen but shouldn't expire.
[b]Pick up Range:[/b] There is nothing that increases your range to pick up for Exp. So you're more likely to have them expire. Which adds to the levels of BS.
[b]Increments?!:[/b] Too many skills say "Increments" instead of "Increases". The sentence "Increments the scale of a attacks" does not sound good nor is it exactly helpful, since it doesn't make sense. Just tell us that what it's actually doing. Is it increasing your Damage? Is it increasing attack speed/lowering cooldown? What about Damage numbers? If it's increasing it by X, tell us what X is! Details are important for making sound choices.
[b]Farming[/b] The game does a good job of explaining absolutely NOTHING of this system. The only thing you'll be able to know/figure is that you gain a Seed at the end of your run and can use it to plant and try again when fully grown. The issue with this is, some seeds have levels of abilities that are lower in power than what should've been. It's not explained why nor do they explain how a fully grown Adult Plant can still take "2 Days" to grow after spamming it with 1,000 Manure Bags.
[b]Abilities[/b]
HP Up - Okay, so it adds 5 points? I can't even tell how much HP I have in the first place. How do I even know I'm getting anything? I'd rather have Regen instead.
Whip - Unless this attacks in front and behind, it's terrible. It takes too long to fire again for the speed of enemies. And you're going to have this on every single plant. Would rather choose my starting attack.
Cenjo - What should be one of the best attacks is complete nonsense. While it does say it will cast thunder strikes in a random direction... it actually casts it in a random area. And it doesn't focus enemies. It doesn't even TRY to aim for a group of enemies. So, to make it useful you upgrade it so it attacks multiple times. It hardly helps. It NEEDS to be better than it is. It's a waste of an upgrade right now.
Dart - Like the whip and Cenjo, I'd rather have something else.
In VS, your first character's attack, strikes in front of you AND behind you. It also retains a facing direction and attacks often.
In WS your "plant" only attacks in your movement direction and requires you kill enough enemies to level up and RNG Roll your main attack again JUST so you can attack behind. Any run without other abilities is just a slog to play.
In VS' first stage you get 1 type of enemy and they slowly make their way over to you before swarming around you and being a "Bullet Hell". They then slowly introduce more/new enemies.
In WS you get multiple types of enemies; they all move the same speed: SANIC FAST. They all are different sizes and take a hot second to kill them. ALL enemies are faster than you. You have to kite them around or die.
In VS special enemies are simply larger versions of regular enemies, have more health but reward your with a Chest upon murdering them back into the ground.
In WS the same special enemies are large but so are some normal enemies. So it becomes quite hard to not only kill them, target them with attacks but figure out which one is which.
In VS you're rewarded with different types of chests for the level of difficulty of the special enemy you've killed. You get 1-3 items in the common chest and if you're lucky you get 5 item chests. These chests upon opening play a nice animation that once seeing it enough times, can be skipped to keep the game flowing. You don't have to do anything other than be rewarded.
In WS you're rewarded with a flow derailing mini game that is just a round of slots. If you fail to line everything up you just get some sorry excuse of an alternative like... Bags of Manure. Ha, how fitting.
In VS you get a Power Up menu that is basically permanent boosts. It's your form of help and progression for runs.
In WS you get nothing. Your only assist is the Farm mechanic.
For a game trying to be a "VS" style game it feels like it was never played by the dev(s).
