Recent reviews by Puritan74

1000/10 Buy it!

This must be one of the most epic DLC's ever produced! 79 new characters (possibly more, I haven't finished it yet), tons of new Epic Weapons, A vast new castle to explore with many secrets, numerous bosses and multiple epic endings. I haven't finished it but this seems like at least as much playtime to complete as the whole original game.

To top it off, it is an beautifully executed ode to Castlevania, and perhaps the perfect blend of the two. I fell in love with SotN when it first released and have long lamented I can't play it on PC. This brought back many memories!

Vampire Survivors is the OG of the Genre (that I call swarm survivors) and is still the best imho.

It introduced me to the genre and I have since played many others as they have come out. Others have their thing but VS just does it all best.

One Highlight -
Their pricing for the base game and DLC's is spot on.

If you are interested, it is priced low enough to give it a go and most of the value is in the base game anyway (and you will probably be hooked). Then the DLC's are added at very reasonable prices so they are worth checking out too. The only one I find doesn't really fit the feel of the game (although very well done) is the Among us DLC and the latest one is simply fantastic.

Great game 10/10 very highly recommended.

Keep up[ the great work guys.

Epic

10/10

TRUTH

The best Roguelike of the Century!

The gameplay and the retro graphics are excellent and the Story line is spot on.

Your Bunny is so focused on carrots he will walk into traps, so use your mouse to change the signs and switches so he can avoid the traps and the big bad wolf. Fun puzzle game although there could have been more levels building on the ideas. Worth it with a 60% off coupon.

Excellent Puzzle game with a good variety of interesting ideas developing as you go through the levels.

Updated with latest release:

In February 2024 I came back to check on the state of the game and I was very surprised to see they seem to have reversed direction and fixed the issues. Suddenly the game was fun again! Enough for me to enjoy the grind to work out all the achievements!

Hence I am changing my review back to positive. I will leave the previous reviews below and rewrite for clarity once the game is finished.

The Overview:

This is a very good looking swarm survivor type game. I love the characters and the style (it feels good to play as regular soldiers and the detail on the character models is stunning). The meta progression and the game play are also excellent.

I am not really looking forward to seeing what comes next any more, although they are showing at least three new characters and several new maps coming soon and they are still working on it so I have hopes it might get fixed.

Due to earlier updates, I changed my review from recommended to wait/not recommended, and the recent updates have done nothing except confirm the negative review. The concept is excellent but with each update the game/characters/weapons get massive nerfs! That takes away the fun. e.g. The skill cool down mechanic seemed about spot on so you could get pretty low at end game when you had all meta upgrades (allows time for multiple turrets) - no idea why that needed nerfing. The Critical damage was 250% endgame with meta upgrades, that definitely did not need nerfing.

Now the second map is out, with new enemies and bosses, It is just about impossible to beat on hardcore, despite having all upgrades possible. (I have given up after several attempts)

So far 5/10 wait and see.

The Detail:

Positives:

1. Graphics/Style - The models and style are excellent.

2. Game play - You start by choosing your squad leader from the 6 available so far (some have to be unlocked) and then in the game you rescue survivors to build your squad to 3. Once the squad is full, future rescues give you a bonus level up. Along the way you also get crates dropped and opening these gives you useful upgrades.

3. Game modes - Survive until daybreak for victory - 20 minutes on normal and 10 minutes on hardcore, or chose endless mode and keep fighting until you get overwhelmed.

4. The Characters - The characters with their individual styles feel great to play and their skills match well - So far there are Swat, Tank, Engineer, Archer, Ghost (ninja), and Medic and the runs feel very different depending on who you choose.

5. The Horde - The zombie characters are varied in both their looks and their attacks, and the bosses are all similarly varied.

6. The Map - There are two so far with others promised soon, it looks fantastic and while fairly small for the genre, they are well designed. The first really feels like running around deserted streets at night, albeit a block with no buildings.

6. The Progression - The meta progression upgrades are well thought out with enough choice to let you determine your course according to play style, yet enough limitation to keep you hungry for more progression.

Negatives: (Note it is early access and just released so they are fixing these issues all the time)

1. Some Bugs

2. Some Evolutions - Some of the third tier weapons are weaker than their tier 2 so the level up/evolution is frustrating until you unlock a couple of banishes. this is particularly true of the archer who goes from a multi-shot bow to a cold (slow) arrow or exploding arrow, both of which are next to useless and the medic who goes from a rapid firing low damage pistol at tier 1 to a very slow firing lower damage syringe tier 3 and a choice of slow throwing flasks (very low damage cold or low damage poison) - The medic does however have the bonus of improving healing.

3. The achievement - It's Raining Men is ridiculously hard and took hours and many attempts. (might be fixed as they reduced the requirement from 20 to 10, but now there are other impossible achievements)

5. The Maps - There are only 2 and the second is nowhere near as atmospheric as the first.

6. The constant nerfing of everything into the ground, supposedly to seek balance but just spoiling what was a fun game.

7. The political propaganda - the medic has a syringe that says "vaccinate the ones that were too afraid to take the vaccine in time" - while I guess you could take it that you are using the vaccine to kill them, It seems to suggest the Zombies didn't take the vaccine because they were afraid when the truth is, the zombies took the vaccine precisely because THEY were afraid.

I am still looking forward to seeing what comes next and I will update this review if the game gets fixed.

Spirit Hunters has developed into one of the top tier swarm survivors, and a great game! Many of my reviews complain that developers keep doing things to ruin games but no such complaints here!! The game keeps getting better and better with every update. I have always enjoyed the progression web that allows the player to progress through the game prioritising their preferred weapons but the addition of new characters and maps and weapons have brought excellent variety and further enjoyment to the game.

The developers have done (and continue to do) a great job listening to their players and introducing great quality of life features like the ability to see your already equipped weapons and pets when levelling up. The great variety of challenges added to the game are excellent and greatly increase replayability.

The one complaint I saw from youtubers was the lack of walking animation but this is not an issue as the characters do have different moving animations and the lack of "walking" just makes the movement much more fluid.

Love the game, keep up the great work.

8,5/10

9/10 definitely recommended!

Time Wasters is an interesting take on the swarm survivor genre. You pilot a space ship, choosing one of 11 captains with very different abilities. As you battle, you have planets where you can collect bonuses which occasionally require defending against attackers. As you level up, you can collect up to three more abilities, and can add the respective captains to your ship to boost their weapons.

When you complete any mission and get the victory over the final boss, you can choose to continue your run in endless mode and see how far you can get which is a fun challenge.

The graphics style is unique and well done, and the variety of weapons makes for a fun game.

Each of the captains have their own unique weapons that are very different, and it makes for a good challenge to work out which weapons to take into a particular mission, or to just play the regular survival with your desired loadout. They also each have their own unique missions which are very well designed on unique maps and add a lot of value to the game.

The problem I mentioned in my previous review with nerfs and 2 hour boss battles seems to be fixed and
the game now has a good balance, and although the grind for meta upgrades can still be somewhat tedious, the collection rate has improved.

All in all, a great game.

Awesome "souls like" loot and shoot.

This game is getting on a bit now but it is well worth picking up if you haven't played it.
The maps and graphics are fantastic and the motion and game play is super smooth. The enemies and boss mechanics are varied and fun to work out, although they can be frustratingly difficult at times, until you work out their attacks.

Above all, this game has fantastic replayability and you will have to play through it a few times if you want to get all the gear as the levels, side quests and bosses are randomly rolled and change each time.

In my opinion, a much better version of dark souls.

p.s. the 2 DLC are well worth picking up, especially in the current sale.
9/10

!!! WARNING !!! Motion sickness guaranteed.

This game needs to come with a warning!

I liked the concept and the game idea and design when I started, it is fun going fast and working out the subtle challenges to do this but this is made unnecessarily annoying by the odd sensitivity of left and right movement.

The ever changing pov and the janky overly sensitive controls quickly made me feel very sick and I have never suffered from motion sickness.