Elemental Survivors

[i]---See where this game landed on my Survivor-like Tier List at the bottom of this rec!---[/i] While [b]Elemental Survivors[/b] doesn't do anything to innovate, it stands as a very enjoyable survivor-like in the vein of [b]Vampire Survivors[/b]. The game appears to have been abandoned by the devs, thus the negative reviews, but it's 100% irrelevant to me. What's here is plenty. It doesn't feel at all incomplete as it is, in fact the only reason you can tell that it's incomplete is because 2-3 stages on the map are listed as "coming soon". If the dev had removed the "coming soon" messages and took off the early access tag, I imagine a lot of these negative recs would have no reason to exist anymore. While there are a number of music tracks, it all sounds like the kind of soulless crap you'd hear play in a clothing store. I wish the mouse cursor stood out more than it does. Once your character gets pretty powered up I frequently lose sight of it and spend a while trying to work out where it is. Very late game the achievement hunting grounded to a halt because the game seems to force you to keep farming XP for meta-upgrades. At that point I'd already seen all of the builds and abilities and exhausted them to death, so it turned into a bit of a monotonous grind. I was tenacious though, I stuck it out and 100% completed the achievements for this one. ===================== [b]My Survivor Rogue-lite Tier List (PC)[/b] ===================== [i]-Not an objective list, purely how much I enjoyed the games-[/i] [b]Loved it:[/b] Halls of Torment | Gunlocked* | [b]Great:[/b] Army of Ruin | Gunbot Diplomacy | Heretic’s Fork* | Slime 3K: Rise against Despot | Achilles: Survivor | [b]Good:[/b] Rogue: Genesia | Scarlet Tower^ | Wings of Seduction*@ | [b]Elemental Survivors[/b]^ | [b]Okay[/b] Vampire Survivors | Brotato# | Orc Survivor | Vital Shell | Glory & Miserable Survivors DX*@ | 20 Minutes till Dawn | Talented | Nomad Survival | Void Scrappers* | Elewar: Fused Survivors | Swarm Grinder | Striving for Light: Survival# | [b]”meh”:[/b] Keeper’s Toll | Twilight Survivors | Pesticide Not Required | Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde | Nordic Ashes | Soulstone Survivors | Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor | Kitty’s Last Adventure | Greedland | Horde Hunters | Kitty Survivors | [b]Very “meh”:[/b] Beat Invaders | Etaine: Magic Survivor | Tower Tactics Arena | Genome Guardian | God of Weapons | Time Wasters* | Boneraiser Minions | Archons | Goobies | X Invader | Cast Out Colony | Starship Scramble | Bounty of One | Holocure - Save the fans! | Cozy Space Survivors | Disfigure | SurvivalScape | Bio Prototype | Bloodshed* | Vampire Hunters* | The Nightwatch# | Choo Choo Survivors | Choo Choo Survivors 2 | Voids Vigil | Boons & Burdens# | Solar Survivors* | Picayune Dreams | Artifact Seeker: Resurrection | Karate Survivor | Tri Survive | Holy Shot | Fantasy Survivors | Apocalypse Party | Neon Spellstorm* | Cosmic Carnage*^ | Raiden Nova* | Zombie Survivors | [b]Awful or Overly basic:[/b] Hack & Shoot Heroes | Solomon’s Boneyard (PC version) | Level Tank | Agent Pigeon 7^ | ========================== [i]* = A misfit or fusion of genres.[/i] [i]# = More of a rogue-like than rogue-lite.[/i] [i]@ = Pornographic/Hentai/Lewd.[/i] [i]^ = Experienced some annoying bugs[/i]

As a person a bit addicted to completing Vampire Survivors like games to 100%, this one feels fresh and different. Stat system, combo, attribute and summons are crazy good mechanics. There is one big minus, game isn't completed and by looking on forums, reviews and yt It looks like it won't be completed (we miss 3 zones, i suppose 6 new chars, and summons for more than first 4 zones) :( Dunno if this is true casue current bundle on HB of this studio titles might br proving it or not. Bough it on Fanatical for even lower price than on HB. I hope I'll be prove wrong and we'll see final version of this title.

Scam game that has been dropped by the dev team. Please save your money and remember the team that made this game so you can dodge any other abandon-ware they release.

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.

abandonware

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.