if vampire survivors-like games are meth, this one is made by walter white

Ah yes, just what I needed. Another VS style game to make me regret spending so much on a PC.

pick Shuriken/Kunai and crit chance for a better afk experience.

Vampire survivors but the RTX is on

It's using 100% of my GPU no matter what settings I pick.

The less FPS you have, the strong you are... Reaching 0 FPS is the final goal in this game, best I can do so far is 1 fps, still looking for improvement

PSA: The game's discord community has some bigoted pre-release 100+ hours fanatics which don't allow or respect any criticism towards the game. They vet through the negative reviews, take notice of the account names and call you out, which happened to me when I went there to ask help and advice with the game. Extremely unprofessional and toxic. Be careful if you decide to join the server. I wouldn't be surprised if they manipulated the negative reviews with downvotes and clown rewards too (just like mine lol). Based on this experience alone, I would refund the game if I could because this type of community behavior shouldn't be supported. Deeply disappointed. ---- VS genre veteran here. Bought the game on early access launch. My opinion is based on spending multiple hours on games like Vampire Slayers, Nomad Survival, Soulstone Survivors Prologue and Spellbook Demonslayers Prologue. Remember that. Opinions after 1h 40min of gameplay time: It's just ok, kinda meh actually. Released too soon even as an early access game. Wouldn't recommend it in its current state ESPECIALLY when there's free prologue games like Soulstone Survivors and Spellbook Demonslayers out there which are much better than this in every single way possible. Here's why: - Weapon and passive variety is too similar (eg. 5 projectile weapons which mainly differ in their targeting system; closest, lowest hp, highest hp, aim and weakest) and basic. Even though there's many weapons and passives to choose from, they all feel similar. - You end up using the couple essential weapons to survive in late game every single run. The best weapon in the game seems to be the "launch piercing dps waves to your sides" sword which clears the waves consistently giving you room to move. - ... which means no real build variety. Gets boring really quickly. - No weapon evolutions = no mystery. You'll figure everything out within 2 hours of playing. - You unlock new things by picking certain weapons and passives up enough times to meet the criteria. You need to grind to get more variety in your gameplay, which is tedious and boring compared to other games in the genre which have plenty of build variety available from the beginning. - The game has nothing special going on for it with the core gameplay mechanics. If you've played these type of games before, it really doesn't offer anything new to you. Good for newcomers then idk? - Survival relies too much on the dash ability and not raw skill based movement tech (which is an essential core gameplay mechanics in these type of games). The more you have them, the better your survival rate is. - Slay the spire mode, which seems to be the main thing in the game because it's the proper way to unlock everything, is too easy, boring and tedious except for the triple skull and final boss encounters, which are designed to make you fail unless you have multiple dashes and essential wave clearing weapons (launch waves left and right which pierce and do heavy damage WITH rng shurikens which just do a lot of dps). Doesn't rely on skill based movement which is essential in this genre. - The game is not actually 100% two dimensional, there's some slight three dimensionality to the characters/objects on the screen, which makes the hit/hurtboxes above and below you confusing and hitting aimed abilities not 100% accurate. - 1-2 different repetitive songs so far. You'll end up listening to your own tunes pretty quickly. The positives so far? The game is visually... "rich", but tbh imo it's a con because in these type of games the visual clarity is extremely important. Hence, the lowest graphic settings are much better for easier gameplay. This is more of a matter of taste kind of thing, just like competitive fps players play on low graph settings. Slay the spire mode is also new to this genre, but the execution on implementation of it is just empty. Kinda reminds me of Hearthstone's Mercenaries mode. The ramping up sound when you're closer to leveling up is nice, feels satisfying. ---- Remember, this review has been written on its early access launch. Even though it's really basic and released too soon even as an early access game, it has a good foundation for improving itself on every single aspect. I just hope the dev delivers and is able to make the game more interesting than it is now. The plans for the future updates indicate fixing a lot of my criticism, but words are just words. Wait for more updates before buying. ---- Edit after 3 hours of playing; The build variety opens up later in the game, but it requires you to pick up certain weapons and passives X amount of times which might be unoptimal for your run. This same thing repeats with the said unlocked things, which means you need to grind in order to unlock more variety in the game. Sometimes the rng doesn't favour you either, making it frustrating and tedious to open up new things in the game. Slay the spire mode in it's current state can be completed in 2 hours of gameplay time if you're good at the game. Then there's no reason to revisit the mode except for grinding out souls for the perk tree feature, which you'll need because the end game survivors mode's bosses are spongy raid bosses even when you pick the perfect weapons and skills. ---- Edit after 10 hours of playing; I've completed the classic 30 min survival mode and unlocked everything except for 2 ingame achievements. The game actually has three evolutions, but they're one of the most hardest things to unlock because in order to get them you need to unlock several other weapons and passives, which also need certain unlocks to be open. You basically have to grind the slay the spire mode for those, because the only way to actually unlock the said evolution weapons is to limit break the needed weapon at the blacksmith. And your chance of actually limit breaking a specific weapon can be extremely hard, because of the massive weapon/skill pool of useless options and rng. You might get the needed weapon at the beginning, but might not get the upgrade options for it for the rest of the run even when you use all of your rerolls. Does that sound fun? These evolutions and most of the weapon/build variety are behind a grind wall. It's impossible to find them during a run when you first start playing the game compared to Vampire Survivors where most of the evolutions and builds are available from the start through experimenting and trying things out. This game lacks the charm, mystery and experimentation which VS, the game Rogue Genesia is copying, already had on its early access launch and even more now at its current state. Also thorns with defensive build is absolutely broken. If you're having problems with the game, try unlocking thorns and it's ggnore for the rest of the game.

could be one of the best bullet hell games out there could be as it stands it's a technical ruin come "endgame" it's unplayable, not because of a lack of hardware, but because the engine cannot handel what is going on we are talking literaly unplayable you can build (with some luck) your character in a way that he can just stand there and tank everything (even bosses), which means you are able to still beat the stages, but none of this changes the fact that it's unplayable; we are talking frames in the singel digit category on beefy rigs, with minimal settings: it's the engine and the code needs a major overhaul of late stage scaling, i cannot see any other way to fix this broken mess do not believe all the praises sung about this game: yes, it's a very good game at it's core, but once you enter the late game to end game: IT'S UNPLAYABLE

The game is way too easy and you get overpowered almost every single run which doesnt feel rewarding at all. Feels less like a challenge and more like me just trading my time for some steam achievements.

Was fun at first, discovering new cards and weapons, seeing new bosses and biomes, but after beating A-rank and completing most of the unlocks it became apparent that balance of the combat is not very well thought out. Literally any weapon works without needing to think too hard about which cards you pick or looking for synergies, which is a hallmark of a good survivors game - your choices need to matter, and here they largely don't. One would say "but there are also challenges if you find the game too easy". There are some fun ones, but most of the said challenges just handicap you by disabling parts of the progression, that you've worked to unlock prior to that. It makes as much sense as chopping off one of your feet before going for a jog. The remaining few make monster scaling so crazy that it requires you to engage into turbo grind mode in order to farm best equipment, which considering how dull the game at this point is fate worse than death. I don't write off Genesia entirely, however. It has a great framework and can potentially be brought back and perhaps even turned into a classics.

Get the demo! It's really good! The cool StS pathing and VS fights? Sign me up! Unfortunately, the game after rank F (the part in the demo) is awful. It's "harder" in the sense that every enemy is just a massive bullet sponge. It's boring, slow for no good reason, and wildly unsatisfying because instead of feeling like a boss who can clear a swathe of enemies a la vampire survivor, even the highest damage builds just have to constantly run away - enemy HP bars grow much, much faster than your damage output, and there are "must dodge" bullets, too, making you feel extremely weak. Listen, if I wanted to feel weak, I'd go to the gym. I play games to feel like a badass, not a wimp.

This is probably more of a "Not yet" than a strict "No" review. The things that need to improve: 1) Performance is abysmal. I can see why people think this is mining crypto in the background. 2) Weapon balance is very poor. The weapons you're offered feel like nearly the only thing that matters in a run. 3) More variety is needed. I'm sure this will be remedied with updates, but the Slay the Spire-like map system feels like it's being squandered by how samey each level is.

The developer, in their most recent update, has openly admitted to pushing a non-ready game as a final product, in order to take advantage of a Steam promotional slot. They pushed back features that were due in the final game to accommodate this decision. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this game in light of their behavior.

EDIT: 130 hours later and everything I said above still stands, and even more so. The dev is goated, and I wish him all the success in the world. This is a $30 game masquerading as a $3 game. As it stands it's an exceptional foray into the VS-like genre, and is a paragon of it. Crazy build diversity that are all *actually* fun to play, the first VS-like endless survival mode I'm actually deriving enjoyment from, a campaign mode that you can build-a-bear with items on top of the branching path... I bought it on release and then played it for 9 hours straight, and am only begrudgingly stopping because I've done literally nothing else in 9 hours and am about to die. Dev seems super reactive to balance issues and you can look at the community tab to see all the bug fixes he's diligently cranked out in the first hours since the game came out. He also has a discord with a lot of info and a roadmap that is pretty hype ngl: expanded weapon talents, 'skins' that function like pseudo classes, even more zones/weapons/items... he's opening a beta branch with the promise of new stuff *every few days* It's a blast, it's a steal, and there's even a demo if you still aren't sure. Hell, I'm tempted to buy this for you if my review didn't convince you. It's so much fucking fun.

Definitely needs a lot of work. As of now (Sep 19th, 2022) the game feels lackluster overall. Unlike Vampire survivor, 20 min. till dawn, or Boneraiser Minions, this one lacks a lot of contents that made the rest great. Also the overall mechanics feels weak as you progress through the game. 1. Lack of hero varieties. As of now only ONE hero! More diverse hero types spice up the combat run. 2. Abilities are lackluster. They don't feel stronger as you progress through the game while leveling them up. 3. You don't really get a lot of abilities that can be acquired in one playthrough. Instead you just get at most 3-4 abilities along with the generic dash ability and you level them up. 4. Elite or Boss heroes get surrounded by so many minions and your abilities do not get stronger enough to pierce through them. This results in terrible long time to beat a boss. On top of that some elite class also randomly pops up and they get added to the mob; surrounded by the mob. This should be about having fun, skill based combat AND less grinding. Well, it is not! 5. Where are my spells, active abilities (dash excluded)? 6. The game has a tree-based system like many other roguelike titles. Well can we also have a tree-based skill tree? Yes you get to upgrade some passive traits (health, defense, speed,etc) like that but that just feels bare bone. Add more unique aspects to the game to make it distinguishable from other great roguelike titles. VARIETY IS KEY FOR A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE.

There is nothing really wrong with the game, and it has a few differences compared to other games in the genre. But it has early access DLCs, and this trend needs to die, together with all the studios doing it. And no, the DLCs being cosmetic doesn't make it alright.

The optimization is exceptionally poor. It brings my Radeon RX 7900 XTX from 10% usage to 99% usage just opening the game and sitting on the title screen.

LATE GAME = BYE BYE FPS The GOOD: 1. Ok, I will start pretty generic up front. Many aspects of this genre are done very well. And I do like the content and what it brings to the table. 2. There are an ass load of different cards, abilities, combinations, etc. Not only are there weapon "evolutions" that combine 2 weapons to make a super powerful weapon, there are also "synergies" which are basically the same thing but for more passive abilities which I think are super cool. 3. You want to feel like a God? This game will do it for you. You can get like multiple thousands of XP buffs, damage buffs, etc. You want to melt all the things? You can do it here. 4. There is a lot of content. Many different difficultly levels, zones, enemy types, abilities, cards, etc. 5. Pets! You can have a dog or cat follow you around. Though it is DLC and costs a little extra. 6. Workshop. I have found it very cool to play as 64 bit (I think?) Super Mario, Zelda, Knuckles and even some characters from I think Vampire Survivors. 7. The progression feeling, unlocking new difficulties, new weapon combinations, high tier cards, plus the soul shop which is essentially a passive buff feature all feel pretty good. The BAD. 1. I don't have as much to say here. The biggest thing is optimization. And while I will only have "1" bad thing to say, it is enough to give this game a downvote, IMO. I have a RTX 4090 and and 14900K. Sure I started playing the game on 4k resolution with max graphics. At first, everything was a fine. A smooth 60 FPS. But late game, when you have tons of enemies on screen plus your weapons (shurikens, orbs, etc), especially if you pick cards to increase the # of projectiles, the FPS drops of dramatically. I dropped my graphics settings to the lowest possible (still in 4k resolution) and was getting about 10 FPS with one of my builds late game. I tried to then decrease my resolution to the lowest possible option, felt like I was playing on one of those MACs we used to play Oregon Trail on on middle school, and still was only able to get like 20 FPS. This is completley ridiculous this day in age, IMO. And this is why I give it a downvote. Almost unplayable. EDIT: GOOD GOD! I have been playing for the last 30 mins with 10 - 12 FPS in the late game because I REALLY want to finish C tier difficulty, but HOLY FUCK!!!! This is fucking miserable. Devs please fix this FPS optimization if possible. I love the game but I don't know how much longer I can play at this rate. Edit #2: Now on Tier C boss map and hitting as low as 6 FPS. Holy shit! So Bad! Edit #3: Holy shit. I actually did it. Beat tier C boss at 8 FPS. Amazing!! Over an hour "in game" time (probably closer to 2 hours with the dog shit FPS and my constant review updates). But TBH, I am not even sure I am going to continue into B tier, as much as I want to. This has been one of the most miserable gaming experiences of my entire life.

I reigned terror like I was invented destroying everything in sight with pure chaos. Dominated with a build that I did not think would work....thorns, armor, and mitigation. After a few more sweet projectiles I was unstoppable. I WRECKED the end boss. Then I started again and died before I could reach the first boss 10/10

The concept is cool and the items are sweet. The gameplay is good aswell. Why negative then? Sadly the game becomes unplayable due to lag on the later stages. After world 3 the game runs on sub 20 fps and gets worse. It turns into a powerpoint around world 5. The dev has said that this isn't fixable on the Discord.

the developer releasing an unfinished game and pushing back features to profit from the release sale slot is disgusting.do not supporit such greedy behaviour.

This game is interesting... there are a lot of positives about it, don't get me wrong. It is pretty fun and exciting, however, it falls into one of the worst traps that any game can fall into. It isn't very well balanced. As a caveat though, I will say, if the developers are able to fix the current balance issues, I would turn this into a positive review very quickly. The balance issue I am referring to of course is that it has two standard modes of difficulty for the player to endure. By this I mean that there are basically TWO states of difficulty you can find yourself in and those are, it's either A: too freakin' easy or B. too freakin' hard. There is NO middle ground and that's unfortunately where the greatest balanced games lie completely. I don't know about other gamers, but balance is the SINGLE GREATEST attribute any game can have and if it isn't within a perfect range, it throws everything so far out of whack that it ruins the entire experience. I WISH this game had better balance honestly, because it is otherwise a very well done/polished game. It has fun gameplay (the actual combat/avoidance aspects of survivors) and the graphics are extremely cool and I simply love the perspective of the battlefield that you are given. It has an decent meta-upgrade system and several different character classes to choose from, each with a distinct style/play. Sound effects/music aren't annoying and add to the gaming experience as well and while I wouldn't say it is the most groundbreaking and innovative addition to the genre, but it is fun and I otherwise have enjoyed the game. I just can't in good conscience recommend people spend their hard earned money on this game AT THIS POINT. Luckily, the game is still early access and is being updated quite frequently by the dev team as is evident from all the various patches that have been released within even the last month or so. This gives me hope for the future and if they can adequately address the balance issue, then again, I will say go ahead and buy this puppy, it will be worth it at that point. I dunno if you can change these reviews, but I have a feeling, it might be possible on this game for sure. So, please read these reviews to make sure what the exact issue with the game is before you decide to pass on a game. <3 2 all

Way too easy right up until you die instantly with no warning or explanation. I've had multiple runs in a row where it's so easy that it's kinda boring and then my screen suddenly turns red and fades out. Normal enemies die so fast that they didn't even make it into view and Elites were just tickling me. And then dead. Just like that. And there's no death recap or anything. 40+ minutes of playtime should never end so suddenly without there at least being some visible mechanic that I'm fucking up. Also, Fractal should be renamed to Slideshow Mode. Don't ever pick it. It gets pretty difficult to see anything as it is with all the explosions and projectiles flying around.

couldn't refund this dog water game, so it gets a negative review.

edit: initially said this was pretty average. my kid stuck with it and urged me to try again. turns out it's pretty solid - HOWEVER - new players have a solid dozen hours to sink into it before they get to the good stuff. until you've upgraded the shop, you're in for a frustrating introduction.