Defend Earth: Xenos Survivors - Prelude

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This is essentially a demo for Defend Earth: Xenos Survivors and while I found the marketing a bit confusing (I whish they'd just called it demo instead of prelude, was confused about that for a moment before I startet up the game). So I decided to just include my thoughts on the full game in here, as it has the same pros and cons of the main game. In short this is a good Vampire Suvivors like game with a few twists to make it more interesting. Such as a focus on a more tactical experiences via enemy abilities like charges, melee and ranged types and big bosses that take some more thought and carefull build planning to take down. All in all I had a few very engaging hours with this, they definitely managed to balance the game in a way to elicit this "just one more round" feeling. Over time you learn to better maneuver around the enemies, what weapons and modules work well together and which don't. There's also an element of meta progression in the form of other characters, meta stats like walk and attack speed etc (the usual fair, really), which provides interesting incentive to play more of the maps provided in the full game. A big plus are the maps which provide interesting opportunities to outmaneuver enemies by leading them into obstacles or finding hidden pick ups. One negative I could find was that, while generally well designed and executed, the UI can be unclear or a tad too minimalistic at times. Sometimes, when deciding which upgrade to take on a level up I was missing some of the more in depth information other competitors tend to provide (like clear information of how and in which way you dps or survivability increases, which of your abilities are affected by a certain upgrade or module etc). Most of this information is provided, just not quite as salient as I'd wish. There are a few bugs, but those I experienced where minor and mostly visual in nature, nothing game breaking. Finally, the music and sound design felt well designed. I especially liked the energetic main track. I am unsure whether or not progress in the demo translates into the full game, that is something one of the developers maybe could clear up? In case progress does not carry over and if you are a fan of these games spawned by the advent of Vampire Survivors I would just advise you to get the main game. Its fairly inexpensive and while there are other games out there with even more content, this one does convince with its unique setting which sets it apart enough from its competitors to provide a new and interesting experience, in my opinion. Tldr: Great Vampire survivors like game with some interesting twists and enough content to provide an entertaining experience for fans of the genre for a few days I'd say. Definitely reccommend getting it if you're a fan of the genre. If not, well then you'd probably not even read this review until the end.