Vampire Survivors, the tried and true of the all-Italian phenomenon of the PC scene
Vampire Survivors
Meeting him on Steam one would not give him any credit: a € 2.39 game with graphic resources taken from a paid pack for RPG Maker ... Where do you want a game like this to go in the face of the mega-billion dollar productions that run in the sector? Moreover, an Italian has also developed it (emigrated abroad, it must be said), so an extra penalty because it is well known that in our part of the world video games are not played. So why are so many people playing it? Tens of thousands of ultra positive reviews. Continued appearances in the global top 10 of Valve's best-selling games. Quotes almost everywhere. There is also our interview with the creator of Vampire Survivors. In short, a lot of sympathy and love.Okay, in the end we succumbed to the call of the forest and we tried Vampire Survivors too, remaining stunned.
First impressions ... it doesn't matter
Vampire Survivors can become pure chaos At the first game you don't even want to believe it is that simple and you wonder if there is some mistake in the fame that he has conquered. Aren't we going to have the wrong game? Maybe the right one is Hentai Vampire, or Futanari Vampire Girlfriend. But no, we got just the right one. Poncle's Vampire Survivors, aka Luca Galante, is still in Early Access on Steam. It boasts of being a casual game with rogue-lite elements and, on balance, it is of extreme conceptual simplicity, so much so that one wonders why no one has ever thought of something like this before, given that it works great. But let's start playing. After selecting a character from those available, one immediately, another eleven to unlock by playing and spending game currency (or by entering secret codes), you have to choose which level to face between the two present (three if we consider the bonus one): the Mad Forest, basically one map that develops multidirectionally, and the Inlaid Library, a large library that runs horizontally. So you can kick off the dance.The gameplay of Vampire Survivors is elementary: you must be able to survive as long as possible against waves of enemies of increasing strength, until the inevitable arrival of death.
The player character is placed in the exact center of the screen and must be moved continuously if you do not want to be killed by the various bats, witches, jellyfish, living skeletons and all the other monsters that threaten him relentlessly, many of which they seem straight out of the Castlevania series. The artificial intelligence of the enemies is elementary, since they always aim at the player. To characterize them is only a greater or lesser resistance to hits (some have different attack patterns, but they are rare). By eliminating them, experience gems are obtained which, if collected, allow us to level up. At each level gained it is possible to select a new object, or to upgrade one of those already in our possession, in order to obtain new attacks and various bonuses. For now, there are a total of twenty-seven weapons and fifteen bonus items, including mighty axes, fireballs, spinning bibles, bouncing bones and more, but new ones will be added as Early Access continues. useful trinkets to bring death and destruction to the enemy ranks.
Mortaccio eats Nduja del Belpaese
Are there too many? That's the beauty of it! In addition to the objects that make up the character's endowment, other types can also be collected: for example coins, or bags of coins, which are used in the post game to buy fixed upgrades for all the characters from the game store ( don't worry, there are no microtransactions); roasted chickens, which recharge lost energy; plus other bonus items like the spectacular NFT, which stands for Nduja Fritta Too (we're not kidding) and which causes the character to emit a powerful jet of fire from his mouth. The references to Italianness inserted by the author are everywhere. For example in the names of the characters. How about checking out the Mortaccio skeleton (the best character in the game, according to the whole community), or the members of the Belpaese family, vampire hunters, like Imelda, Pasqualina and Antonio? There is also the veiled blasphemy character: Ark Ladonna ...Killed bosses can drop chests The power-ups generally have more common names, such as Knife or Cross, but among them there are also some little goodies like Peachone, which indicates a pigeon that carries area attacks, or Pummarola, basically a heart that recharges the character's energy with the passage of time.
But let's get back to the gameplay. While dodging and decimating the hordes of monsters, from time to time stronger enemies appear, which we can consider as bosses: they require many more hits than the others to end up on the ground and they hurt more when they touch the character. In terms of gameplay, they must be faced like all other enemies, but when they die, they leave red gems on the ground, which give much more experience than the others, or chests, which contain one to five upgrades for the items they possess. Ah, that careless, we were almost forgetting a fundamental element of the whole gameplay: the fire is automatic. Yes, all attacks are carried out by the CPU. We are only responsible for moving the character and selecting upgrades, when given the chance.
Sublime essence
It seems impossible, but it is not Vampire Survivors is all here: a continuous move in every direction trying to survive as long as possible to hordes that become more and more numerous, until they occupy the entire screen making it difficult even to understand what is happening. Problem is, it's damn fun, but in the purest and healthiest way of the term. It's the classic game that captures you for the length of time one game lasts ... and the next game and the one after that. It's still. It's still. The key to its success is precisely its elementary formula, which allows you to play in carefree doing something else and that does not overwhelm you in any way. We are not saying that it is not demanding, because it is. Only he is able to combine the challenge, in certain moments even extreme, with an uncommon background carefree, creating a mixture that makes him engaging beyond his technical flaws (graphically it is ugly, let's face it, and even the soundtrack is not nothing special) and any possible objective evaluation (just to reiterate that looking for objectivity makes no sense when it comes to aesthetic play experiences).An artwork of the game It is a game that does not go in search of who knows what message, but that gives the player a fantasy of elementary and satisfying power, which becomes sublime when it witnesses the destruction of dozens of enemies at the same time, with the death count clearly visible on the screen that grows dramatically. Of course, for now the contents are few, but soon others will arrive and also one cannot but consider the price, lower than that of a cappuccino with a croissant. Don't think too much about it and join the fray.
Vampire Survivors is a game we recommend to everyone, even if it's still in Early Access. It is supported by a simple and direct formula, which immediately involves and entertains for hours. You don't need to look at it: only by playing with it you can understand why it is the phenomenon of the moment and why it is so loved.
