Okay, okay, you've probably seen this game a couple times now. But this one is personal. Vampire Survivors isn't just a staple game here but it's a staple game for me. My dad introduced me to it and we both got a little autistic about it. Luckily that means he bought this game for the family library and I got it for free, hehe.
Overall as a fan of both Vampire Survivors/Bullet Heaven games as well as a fan of roguelike deckbuilders (Slay the Spire is my current GOTY for 2019 and STS2 will probably be GOTY for 2026 when it gets cheeves), this game was a weird pick but a no-brainer.
Considering this game is a completely different genre than survivors, it weirdly has a lot of the same DNA and kinda does feel like a direct successor. Crazy considering how little in common these genres share with each other. All the sprites feel a lot higher quality in 2.5D/3D compared to the original 2D style, some part of which were ripped straight from Castlevania (Castlevania Bloodlines Death gave me a fucking jumpscare lol). The voice acting is very... weird... but also charming in a way. Doesn't matter since I played the game muted for the most part (one of those games) but everything seemed to come together in a way that Survivors just didn't, which makes sense considering it is twice the price of the base game.
Overall, though, I think the best parts of the game are the combo system and the difficulty.
The combo system is a unique take on Slay the Spire's energy system. In Slay the Spire, higher cost cards are just... better. In Vampire Crawlers that is also the case, but now they benefit directly from you playing cards in order. 0 cost cards boost the effects of 1 cost cards which boost the effects of 2 cost cards etc. the inclusion of wildcards allowing you to reset the combo and do absolute nonsense is really satisfying. The only problem is that the UI is so damn crowded that higher draw/hand sizes make it annoying to pick the right card. This game doesn't seem to have hotkeys like STS does, making it pretty unsatisfying when youre trying to pick out one card out of a sea of trash.
The difficulty is the best change from Survivors, however. Those of us who've stuck with survivors can attest that it's just... easy. Too easy. A bit mindless. Compared to competitors like Picayune Dreams, Brotato, and Mega Bonk, VS's endgame just feels like an awkward power fantasy to the point that they introduced adventure modes to artificially set you back. Crawlers isn't too much harder, but it does require you to consistently play at your best in higher levels. You can get away with spamming your way through the lower levels once you have some upgrades, but with max upgrades I at least have to constantly try. It's like Dark Souls where you can bully the shit out of 99% of the enemies, but if you get cocky and stop focusing then they can get a rogue hit on you and end your run. It's really satisfying and I never felt like it dipped into being too easy or too hard.
My main problem with the game (other than the UI) is the crawler system. Basically if you play your crawler card then they'll give you the regular buff alongside a special bonus on the side in relation to your duration stat. The problem is that the game never gets hard enough for you to care. Some of them are more noticeable like "draw a card when you play a yellow card", but otherwise it's just background damage stats or whatever. It felt kinda pointless and off to the side despite probably being a very powerful mechanic.
In conclusion this game fucks. It'll probably be updated a hundred times knowing how poncle works.
#63 in total completions
#1 for 2026 games
#2/2 for Vampire series
Ranks 9 of 63, above Monument Valley and below :THE LONGING:
GOTY for 2026