Review | Survival Hero - Weakest Link
Immediately, you find yourself in a different world, summoned there by the Timemaster in great Isekai tradition. He’d like to see your skills in exchange for your freedom. This setup for Hero Survival sounds promising at first but is never followed up upon, and it seems to only be an excuse to bring in some characters you might recognize together to survive an endless assault of night creatures. The problem with Hero Survival is even the parts that might work in other games aren’t executed well enough to work here. While the Enter The Gungeon-esque graphics are serviceable and have a charm, enemies and coins can hide behind geometry, which with everything happening on screen in this Vampire Survivors-inspired roguelike feels bad. The game is aware of its fleeting appeal and since it is spooky season, you are beset up by some non-copyrightable horror faces you’ll recognize. However, any joy you might find in killing waves of pop-culture-inspired enemies is quickly worn away by the game’s challenges. Unlike the godlike overpoweredness you quickly accrue in Vampire Survivors, you are asked to survive with subpar ‘class’ choices and upgrades that are often detrimental or temporary. Coins drop on the map which you should retrieve, but of course, you’re busy running from ghastly ghoulies, as well as generally being overwhelmed.
On top of this, Hero Survival seems to be missing sound effects, not even stock moans and death cries from werewolves and zombies. The whole soundscape of the game is a bit baffling as I even got a perk which made dead enemies explode but that too made NO sound. While there’s no damage indicator or sound, the music that is here is groovy and synthy, it doesn’t overstay its welcome or overpower other sparse sound effects.
Stats aren’t explained, so when I was offered to increase my Greed by 20%, I had no idea what that meant, in fact, I still don’t really know what it means. Also, the stat spread on items and weapons you’d think would be upgrades are just as puzzling and often seem to be so bad you’re better off skipping them. All this paired with the fact, it’s pretty inconvenient to have to look at your health bar which is only visible at the top of the screen, considering all the chaos going on.
You can unlock more heroes and more stages, but the lacklustre upgrades and slow rate at which currency is doled out made me wish I was doing almost anything else. Most alarmingly though, I unlocked the ability to start with the double-barrelled shotgun which just….stopped working. There were other bugs that weren’t as game-breaking, but at this point, I can’t recommend this game. While I would like to say this reminded me of my time in Tower Defense games in DOTA, or Musou games where I triumphantly slay hundreds of thousands of faceless goons, it’s neither.
I have a feeling if you search two other random generic words, you’ll find a game more worth your time.
