Elemental Survivors

Good but not good enough and will never be finished/improved, which is a shame, there was definitely fun to be had and potential for lots more.

I put over a dozen hours into Elemental Survivors a long time ago, but felt overwhelmed with how much there was still left to unlock so I put it to the side. Recently, I came back to it and found myself completely engaged until I unlocked everything. Speaking as a fan of the survivors-like/bullet heaven genre, Elemental Survivors doesn't really do anything particularly new or unique with the formula, but I found it to be more than competent with charming pixel art and a few nice features. Every playable character (and there are a LOT of them) has a dominant stat (like "Strength", "Dexterity" or "Magic"), an elemental alignment (like "Fire" or "Ice", but also "Nature" and "Witch Craft"), and a unique starting weapon. During runs you can add other characters to your party, where they both attack alongside you and boost your character's stats in unique ways (one increases your walking speed, one makes enemies drop more money, one widens your pickup radius, etc). You also can add more weapons to your arsenal, and get accessories from shops to offer similar boosts. Every time you level up (by picking up exp dropped by enemies), you can raise the level of a player character, weapon or accessory. Raising an equipped weapon to level 10 allows you to "evolve" that weapon to a more powerful form (Unlike several games in the genre, you don't need a specific accessory to evolve a weapon, but you can only evolve it in a run [i]after[/i] you level it up to 10 the first time). Picking up money dropped by enemies makes accessory shops appear, but you don't actually spend money in those shops. Instead, you spend your accumulated gold on permanent stat boosts (HP, defense, attack power, number of projectiles, number of attacks in a combo, gold gained, etc). Eventually, you unlock the ability to boost enemy appearance for each biome, the ability to "favor" a dominant stat as well as the ability to "ban" certain characters, accessories, or weapon so they won't appear in runs. In a nice touch, you can see everything there is to be unlocked in your "Secrets" menu, as well as how to unlock them (available both from the title menu and from the pause menu). Every unlock is also linked to a Steam achievement, adding to the sense of accomplishment as progress is made. Progress is fairly slow at first, but as your stats increase you get a snowball effect where it becomes easier and easier to unlock the next "secret". A few things I really liked: - Characters are heavily inspired by pop culture and other games (like "Kefkoff", an obvious reference to Kefka from Final Fantasy 6, or "Samantha the Beaumont", a Simon Belmont surrogate who attacks with a whip). - There are a lot of background tunes, but the only way to hear them all is by selecting from a variety of "Mini-Discs". You unlock more selections by both listening over lengths of time and by switching tracks and selecting other "Mini-Discs". It's rare that a game's music is tied to the overall progression, but I found that clever. - The previously-mentioned "Favor" feature makes it much easier to create over-powered builds. If I select "Magic", for instance, then the available characters I will encounter, the accessories and the weapons will be those focused on the "Magic" stat. It's so effective, it almost feels like cheating. Almost. - The title screen and sub-menus are designed to look like an old video game magazine which, along with the referential character designs, gives the game a self-aware charm. - Runs are 20 minutes, which doesn't feel too long. Things I wasn't crazy about: - As is often the case with games in this genre, the screen can become VERY cluttered with weapon effects, particularly once they are powered up. Also, it's difficult to make out pick-ups in some biomes due to inconveniently-colored terrain. - There are a few bugs. One of the biomes features large rugs that clip in and out of existence based on how far you are from them. There is an additional play mode that can be accessed from the biome selection screen, but if you change your mind you can't back out of the menu and need to force-close the game. While it generally runs smoothly, I did at one point cause the game to slow to a crawl due to a large group of large enemies. - Several of the unlocks require having multiple specific characters in your party, or powering up a specific accessory with a specific character. Due to the nature of RNG, sometimes you won't get access to the characters/accessories you need for those unlocks. - Similarly, new characters are unlocked by encountering them in a run and max-leveling them, but they won't show up in the first place unless you meet certain conditions. However, even if you meet those conditions, there is still a chance they won't show up. - There are several "Coming soon" areas on the world map giving away the game's Early Access status, and since it's apparently been a couple of years since the last update I'm not sure if these areas will ever be added. Still, I very much felt like Elemental Survivors contains enough content and variety to feel "complete" as-is. The runs, albeit repetitive, always contributed to a greater sense of progression, as even runs where I planned to but failed to accomplish a specific task ended up acquiring enough gold to boost a few stats. It looks good, sounds good and feels good. Recommended for fans of the genre.

Jó kis game, csíptem nagyon.

abandoned

Another one on the long list of Vampire Survivors-likes. This one does very little to distinguish itself from VS and does not really bring anything new to the table. The main gimmick is that there are references to many old school rpgs and anime but otherwise it's very bland.

Nice game, good sense of progression, slow trickle of unlocks and RNG mitigation as you go. Later levels require strategy. Some areas are perpetually "coming soon", but there's still ~20 hours of gameplay here, which is enough for a full game in my book.

The title screen of this game looks like an old issue of Nintendo Power, and the UI is set up like a website from the 90s. Other than that, it basically plays like Vampire Survivors with little in the way of twists or alterations...but it has a title screen that looks like an old issue of Nintendo Power, and a UI that's set up like a website from the 90s. It's getting a lot of bonus points for those, and after all, why shouldn't it?

Sadly abandonware. No updates since 2 years ago. It's a shame because it looked like a promising, party-based survivorslike. Oh well, there's dozens of other options if you want that now. Go play Yet Another Zombie Survivors or I Am Legion: Stand Survivors or Solace Inc or Tri-Survive.

Enjoyable, chill bullet heaven with a stat system that makes you think a bit more about weapon/character synergy. It's still technically in early access, but there's plenty of content to be worth the purchase.

Nice game, too bad it is dead. But you can still have fun for like 40 hours and try to get all chievo's !