Recent reviews by Lillieon

Never has my little bi heart panicked more than in this game.

Minor bugs aside, this game is surprisingly polished for early access. The sheer amount of content available to play in the EA phase is pleasantly surprising. It plays similar enough to Hades I that what you've learned can carry over and they take that and expand upon it with the addition of the omega attacks and sprint.

Just like the first game, the game play loop is highly enjoyable without a feeling of stagnation and I love the added addition of gathering.

The music is absolutely bang on and I love the new takes on older tracks.

So far I rate this an 11/10

I've never played a BG game before. Or really any game of this type, so I went into it completely blind and playing it with 3 other people on multiplayer. I've enjoyed it quite a bit but my biggest criticism is that while I was hyped to play a cool game with friends, I feel the experience suffered a bit BECAUSE I played it with 3 other friends.

I wish there was some kind of recommendation to not play this with more than 2 other players because you miss out on so much story with not being able to take the companions. All my friends who were doing solo playthroughs were going on about these amazing story things and I was a bit lost because they never happened for me. I completely admit this could be my own fault due to a lack of research but I do kind of wish companion stories could still be accessible even in a full multiplayer group, since so much of the game's story in wrapped up in them

I'm planning on doing a solo run later to experience what I missed, but with 74 hours under my belt I want to finish my first file first. I am definitely having fun with the game, and the 4 player multiplayer choice has led to me experiencing 'murder hoboing' for the first time ever but I can't help but wish I had the foresight and/or advice to experience the game solo first

No matter how much you doubt it never forget that above all else, this is a love story.

The money rolls in when the times are good, but the company is very serious about meeting that quota. Only downside is we don't get hazard pay....

**Update** the new patch is out and it truly does address a lot of the issues many players were concerned about. I would say at this point the most glaring issue us that gear upgrades still feel a bit lacking for the investment but the Devs are looking into that currently

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I'm 10 hours into this game and absolutely loving it. I'm truly enjoying the fun little blend of cooking game and rogue-like. Both the game playloops (combat/dungeon exploration and running the restaurant) are a lot of fun.

I find running the dungeons to be engaging, though I do have some slight concerns with the beefiness of the enemies but my assumption is that will tune down as I begin to upgrade weapons and equipment. I also find that the game is oddly kind yet cruel upon death. You only loose some of what is in your backpack and wake up the next day at home but be warned that can include weapons and gear, not just ingredients. I learned the hard way after equipping a new weapon to try out and then promptly dying and loosing an absolutely boss Smackeral I had.

Speaking of upgrading, that brings me to my biggest complaint about the game: I feel that the upgrade/brewing for weapons and gear (not cooking equipment) cost to much for their returns. It's 1k a pop to upgrade a piece of gear and you either get 1 damage (weapon) or 5 hp (defensive equipment) and that feels like a huge investment for such a small return. Now granted I don't know how much 1 damage or 5 hp will skew things in favor of the player instead of monster because I'm only 10 hours in but I do know that the as of the most recent patch [Dev update #1] they are planning to review, discuss and revisit the balance for the combat system so that may assuage my concerns there.

My other concern with Brewing (adding special modifications to your gear) as been addressed as of Dev Update #1 and I find the cost is now much more fair for the returns.

I also quite enjoy running the restaurant verse going in the dungeon. Both are very fun, but I appreciate the kind of chill vibe of opening up and serving the townsfolk, it's very relaxing after farming in the dungeons for ingredients and materials. This is also one of the places the game is very kind to you. You can control your pace via how many tables and chairs you put out, meaning you can tune the restaurant portion to your specific desires.

Speaking of the restaurant, you can also upgrade your building and all your cooking tools! I actually find the pricing for upgrades on these items to be quite fair as the returns you get for upgrading is significant for the investment. For example, you upgrade your cooking tools twice (about 2,000 gold to do so) and access tier 2 recipes. This brings in such a significant amount of money that you end up seeing a return on these upgrades almost immediately. I was extremely pleased with that.

But that also brings me to my next, smaller, complaint: The game isn't clear about how to upgrade your fridge/cooking stations. While it does show in the UI when you are inside the item it's not easy to notice and when you get the piece of mail discussing upgrading cooking stations it doesn't mention what button to use to do so.

There are a few other minor complaints I have, such as being unable to move the register in the restaurant or time not pausing when in your inventory while in town but to be honest a lot of those concerns are things that can easily be fixed with polish and feedback. Plus, I'm pleased to say that it does seem like to Devs are taking the feedback to heart as the Dev Update #1 addressed most of the major concerns I've seen coming from the community thus far.

All in all while not perfect this game provides, in my opinion, exactly what they set out to do: a fun little romp that combines a cooking game with a rogue-like.

As of writing this Vampire Survivors already has 178,010 reviews. It clearly doesn't need another glowing review talking about how amazing of a game this is.

But I'm going to say it anyway: this game is absolutely amazing and is a must buy.

Do you like Castlevannia? Do you like retro, pixel graphics? Do big damage numbers make your brain go BRRR? Then this is the game for you.

I've never played a bullet hell before this, and I told myself I never *COULD* play a bullet hell but boy did this game prove me wrong. Not only that, but it's helped me master the ability of sight beyond sight.

In terms of being a roguelike my only other experience with the genre is Hades. I suppose you could compare the item and weapon evo system to the boons but that's really the only comparisons I can draw and that isn't a bad thing. I love Hades, but I love this game for an entirely different reason and it has given me a fantastic new experience with the roguelike genre.

My only question is this: When is the vampire going to be in the coffin?!

— Update — The game is 50% off as of the Steam Autumn Sale and while I maintain my original recommendation I don’t think anyone should pick it up at full price now.

It’s still fun, it still brings an interesting and innovation mix up to the MH formula but the on going performance issues and lack of continued updates makes this a hard sell now that there is no budding optimism for fixes.

It’s a shame. I truly did fall in love with game and see something passed the unrefinememt but it just didn’t end up getting the support it needed.

— Original Review — Do I recommend this game? Yes. But in the words of Ian Malcolm "that is one big pile of..."

The thing is, there is a gem here, hidden behind the bad optimization and performance issues. At its very heart the game is fun. Not just fun, but all caps FUN. The Karakuri system is beyond innovative, it brings a lot to the table and can keep fights feeling fresh and give you a lot of ways to counter monsters.

The Kemono themselves feel good to fight, but there isn't as much variety as I'd like to see. I find the later, story driven kemono to be more fun and interesting to fight and while variants of the same creature is nothing new to this genre I would have liked to see a few more skeletons until we got to the reskins.

I recommend this game with multiplayer, as it is honestly a great time hunting down the kemono and using various karakuri loadouts to take them down but I'd like to see us be able to pick up side quests while in multiplayer as it makes it difficult to run those since only the host can grab them, and unless you coordinated before hand you won't have the quests to get credit.

Having come from playing Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Rise this game has a lot of appeal. There is something just...enjoyable about the experience but there in lies the problem...even with the patches there is a lot of dirt you have to dig through until you are having fun. It lacks polish and that is a shame because i can truly see this franchise rivaling MH if it can iron out these issues.

I wish I could give a Maybe option for this recommendation because it is really going to come down to how much you want to work to get a good experience. Performance issues are still rampant even with two patches down, and since I primarily play in multiplayer where the issues are at their worst I've had to jump through hoops using the some tricks with the Nvidia Control Panel to get stability.

Still, even with all that said, since I can't give a Maybe recommendation, I'm going to go with Yes, I would recommend this game. While I'm not happy to support the lack of optimization and what feels like a product that got rushed out the door, I know the dev team put a lot of heart and soul into this and you can really feel that once you cut through all the muck.

This game was not what I expected it to be and quickly became everything I wanted out of a fun little horror game.