Vampire Survivors Reviews

by Gaspatchosoup

As an update I just updated the game and it added the DLC store. The button placement for that I don’t care for as it’s like they are shoving it in your face. Put it with the other buttons. The second thing and I know it’s a dollar but when you click on the DLC all it does is go to buy it. There is no description of what you are getting. I know it’s a buck and I like the game enough t support the devs I’m not gonna pay for something I have no idea what it is.
I really really like this game. Its entertaining and very addictive. The thing I don’t get and brings it down so much is double tap. What I mean is when you select your character and stage you have to double tap to accept your selection, when your playing the game you just hit your selection once when you level up. I have selected multiple incorrect items or items I don’t want do to this. At times I take my finger off my phone for a second and right when I touch my phone I level up and select something I don’t want. I think double tap needs to be on all options so this doesn’t happen. Or give us the option to as I might be in a small fraction that has this issue.

by FluffyMaster64

While the game is wonderful and entirely faithful to the PC version, its true potential is severely overlooked. Touch screen based easter eggs would greatly compensate for the lack of the keyboard typing easter eggs of the pc version, and some unlocks need to be adjusted likewise.

I love how the mobile version is free; what would be a hilarious way to poke further fun at cash-grabs is a means to pay for or discount the DLC by watching a series of ads given its already low price, with a counter or progression bar showing how many more ads until completion.

I hope to see more improvements to both the pc and mobile versions, full of even more references to such games as Final Fantasy and Castlevania, with perhaps new references to things like Touhou or Metal Gear.

by Kylewambueger

The game relays on coins which you get form playing to purchase permanent upgrades for your person, a plus about this is no pay to win, but without these upgrades you can’t really get to the end of a level even the first level, you just get to the same point and die because it gets ridiculously hard. so your going to have to end up playing 25+ times probably more if you don’t know what to upgrade and die at the same point. Maybe I’m just bad at the game and I think if you choose the right abilities/meta then you might be able to make it further, but I also feel like without the permanent upgrades you can’t do much besides redo the same missions over and over again, die at the same part until you get enough coins to choose the abilities you actually want to play with. Personally not my type of game because of this, but it’s not bad. It’s a simple and small game. I just don’t like how hard it gets out of nowhere without the right ability’s and permanent upgrades, I just want to play with whatever I want and be able to do good, but I don’t think its that type of game.

by .M.a.d.d.i.e.

Let me start off by saying this game is very enjoyable and easy to progress in. I like that games are limited to 30 minutes and every run has a different outcome based on your abilities. There’s lots of “secrets” and discoveries, I find this very enjoyable!

I know when you start the game there is a photosensitivity warning, I am not an individual that typically struggles with this issue. However, on the level “Moonglow,” without warning the screen started to warp and wave and pulsate colors. I found a setting to stop some of the motion but it was very difficult to look at or play through. When the stage moved me to the next area it got worse, with no option to turn off the motion. I had to give my phone to my boyfriend to try to finish the level because of how extremely dizzy it was making me. I feel this level really needs an extra warning to tell people about this. Ive not had these issues with any other levels and I felt extremely dizzy for awhile after not having my phone anymore.

Like I said, I think it’s a great game. It’s very enjoyable, but “Moonglow” really needs to have a second warning for players. I appreciate the artistry of the effect, but I found it very debilitating. I hope they can add this extra accessibility warning on the level, or add another setting to make it easier on the eyes perhaps.

by Deeplydreaming

Starting by saying that I downloaded this game in February, and back then I would have rated it a 5, and should have, because it’s a great game for the price of free. Hours and hours of fun gameplay that incentivizes completion and exploration. Occasionally VampireSurvivors would crash when tabbing out, causing lost progress, but it didn’t occur often enough for it to hinder the otherwise addicting design. I bought the Moonspell DLC happy to support the devs, and it was well worth it, but VampireSurvivors started to crash more often while in-app. Now, after downloading the new DLC I cannot play more than a few seconds of any level without it crashing. It’s a shame because I would recommend it, but the mobile port clearly needs polishing.

by LiLHackySack

Game is amazing, ten times better than anything else in this type of mobile game genre. I’ve gotten very far in the game around Gallo Tower, however on my endeavour to get to level 80 to find the next level, I believed I had messed up. So you see, whenever you leave your game idle or if you don’t check into the actual app for maybe 20-30 minutes, for some reason it shuts down, which is soooo anoyyinggggg. And in this game I was almost finished and was around level 75 but I had to leave the game for a little bit, and unbeknownst to me the game shut down, leaving my 3000 Gold and new level to be deleted to the auto feature, and I’m very sad I had this happened to me. I do know now if this is an Apple App feature or a Vampire Survivors feature but it is extremely bad and dumb, however even though my rating is not super important in the sea of 5 Stars, if I find out that this is a dumb Apple Feature, then I will put it back to a 5/5 which is truly deserves.

by Geo Vaughan

The game itself is great. I’ve played the original on steam and while the touch controls aren’t as smooth as using a joystick, they work just fine. Aside from a few minor gameplay tweaks to optimize for a vertical screen, it’s exactly the same.

The ONLY thing keeping off that fifth star is VampireSurvivors itself. The game has frozen on me at least three times, twice with a Magic the Gathering ad. Those specifically always seem to freeze the game at the end, so if you revive with an ad and see MTG Arena pop up, say goodbye to your session. Additionally, if you hit the home button and leave VampireSurvivors suspended too long, it automatically resets and you lose your session. This is REALLY annoying for a mobile game where the session time is set at half an hour, which is REALLY hard to commit to on a mobile platform. If this game preserved sessions better (maybe with a suspend run feature) I’d give it 5 stars. Still the great game I love, but not optimized for mobile.

by TPyrope

Love this game. Played it since before arcanas way back when. But there are 2 bugs that would make the game so much more enjoyable if fixed. The first is that sometimes picking up an attractorb or using the pentagram upgrade the red gem and sometimes other gems will actually go careening off the screen next to you rather than continue towards you. While I’m sure you can get the rest of the levels you missed from that gem from a new red gem later, it is a little frustrating to see if you don’t have the speed or catch radius to grab it. The second is sometimes changing applications and coming back will reset VampireSurvivors regardless of the fact I didn’t close vampire survivors entirely. This means you have to restart a run entirely. The obvious solution is not to close VampireSurvivors at all, but sometimes I get texts or things to do and I’d like to pause and come back in a minute. If these are fixed then VampireSurvivors for sure gets the full 5 stars

by Carsoni3

To begin, I’d like to say that I’ve played this game much more on my pc than on my phone. I’ve had a ton of fun with the games pc version, so I was thrilled to learn that there was a free version for mobile. However, I soon learned that the mobile version simply isn’t as good. My two biggest problems are that we can’t see the stat page when paused, and that we can’t see what weapons are affected by what arcanas after we’ve selected them. It’s super frustrating that I cant see my stats , since it’s really nice to know how much bonus area, damage, luck, curse, etc. I have. Also, I should mention that the arcana thing is a problem for pc as well. I think it’d be a really nice (and easy to implement feature) for us to be able to just click/tap on the arcanas we have in the pause menu and to see a description of what it does and what weapons it affects. Overall, the games awesome and I would recommend it to everyone. It’s just that it could be even better!

by Makespizza

This is a great game. I love the depth and the feeling of unlocking new characters and levels. There are optional ads which is fine - definitely not intrusive on the gameplay.

The only thing preventing a fifth star is how often VampireSurvivors restarts, especially when it makes me lose a run. I have an iPhone 14 pro so I should have plenty of memory. I just was 20 minutes into a run, switched to my camera for 30 seconds to take a picture of my cat, and when I switched back to the game it was back to the start screen and all my progress was lost. This has happened to me so many times, I’m literally scared to switch to another app mid-run. I’m so frustrated, I’m probably going to stop playing because I keep meeting the requirement for an unlock, losing my run, and having to do the same run again. That’s not fun.

by Ulkesh

All the features are here, from your favorite weapons to the hidden characters, to the Arcanas, to the unlockables. Just make sure your device can handle it; my iPad Pro from 2016 begins to get bogged down towards the latter 10 minutes of each run due to the number of objects on the screen, weapon interactions, etc.

For free? Wow! Yes, there are ads, but they are in easily avoidable places: fail on a run and want to revive your character? Watch an ad for a free revive. End a run and want some bonus gold? Watch an ad. Other than those two places, I haven’t see any ads, and certainly none of the intrusive ads you may see in other free apps.

For the Developer: Please keep in mind that there are plenty of us who would happily pay a fee to remove all ads entirely. Yes, you did a commendable job making your monetization as non-predatory as you could, and for that I thank you. With that said, I’ve purchased the game on Steam full price and would happily have paid the same price for an entirely ad-free version on my mobile devices, too. If that option had been included, this would have been a flawless five-star release (mayhaps for an eventual mobile release of the Moonspell DLC?). As it is, however, thank you for your diligence!

(Also, unlocks and such don’t carry over between the same account on different devices iPhone/iPad ?)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go try to continue unlocking and evolving characters/items/Arcanas/etc….

by Jgstew

I’ve probably played this game for a 1000 hours across iOS and Steam. I definitely recommend it, especially because there are not in app purchases for currency. Not pay to play.

I had a hard time getting into it at first but gave it another go and loved it. It is hard at first until you unlock weapons through playing and get power ups.

My only complaint is that if you have tons of weapons and items going during a run, the game is very likely to crash and loose your progress. Happens even on my M4 iPad Pro. This is especially frustrating if you have unlocked an achievement during the run but you don’t quit before the crash.

by Qwetyohdd

Apparently this has been a thing on steam for a hot minute, but I only found out about it when the mobile version was released... and no ads!!! Other than optional ones of course that are completely unnecessary, especially after you finish unlocking most powerup. Most of the power ups are pretty quick to unlock. I think I got most after like 5-10 rounds of playing. The power ups are a very small part of the game though.

Also, others have mentioned freezing and crashing, but that hasn’t happened to me yet on an iPhone 12 running iOS 14. It just makes my phone pretty warm when the screen gets crowded with mobs.

by Chivakenival

First off, this game is absolutely fantastic on iOS. I’ve played with zero issues and been having a blast.

ONE issue I would like to see addressed is losing progress if you have to pause the game to do something else. There should be a function that will continue your game instead of just starting over. I had to take a call and when I went back, it just went back to the main menu. I lost a ton of progress which was annoying.

Other than that, this is the best game on VampireSurvivors Store right now. There aren’t even ads unless you want to revive. I would have gladly paid money for this game so there are NO complaints from me.

by Itsjewlian

iPhone 13 Max Pro iOS 16.0 (so not the latest update) - will get random frame drops when there’s lots of enemies on the screen, unsure if it’s just cause the phone can’t handle it or cause of optimizations. Would love to see the black translucent bar on the bottom of the screen gone if possible. And would honestly love a paid version to get rid of the (optional) ads all together. Other than that, amazing port and glad to finally have the true VS on mobile!

Edit: the other reviewer mentioned this also, but the game does not pop up as the top result when you search by name on the AppStore just FYI. I’m sure it has to do with all the other wannabe games using Vampire Survivors as key search words or something.

by Bored2explore

Downloaded it today and have been playing for hours. Love the different characters and the variety of items. Every round im learning something new and trying different things. Have only tried the first map repeatedly because im trying to kill those things that come after 30 minutes. Have to say clock lancet is an absolute must weapon. Definitely give this game a try!

Uhh side note probably the only thing iv noticed so far that can be better is a way to save your place in a round feature. Was at about 20 minutes so i paused it because i had to leave. I closed my phone to the lock screen and when i came back i had to restart. Other than that game is great.

by Down10

You know the feeling: One more round. One more try to outrun the boss. One more attempt to get that item upgrade. Vampire Survivors delivers on every front. It is the perfect arcade game.

Its controls are simple, but it hits that sweet spot of challenging gameplay (but not impossible) and the promise of more to explore and uncover. The number of hidden items, easter eggs, and unlockable enhancements makes this tiny game worth it.

Don’t let its jagged pixel graphics and 8-bit era music and sound put you off — this game is highly addictive and has immense replay value. While it’s no Elden Ring, it is still as satisfying as only the best games can be. Vampire Survivors is a must for anyone looking for a classic and intense video game experience.

by Gabriel Stringfield

Like I said in the title i love the game, its my favorite game to play on my phone without a shadow of a doubt. The only things I would like fixed or to add to the game comes very late. Once you start getting into the high AOE parts with Randomizo cards and stuff giving you buffs every level. A lot of the effects start to lag, or outright crash the game. It is totally understandable why. And on the PC version its not much of a problem. But on mobile it would be rather nice to have something that can turn off the effects. Or at least reduce the resources needed. For example, the smoke on Vicious Hunger could be removed and that could help a lot. As well, since you have to physically tap now, a way to have a buy in bulk option for the merchant would be really nice. All that is very late game pushing the limits type stuff. For someone playing like a normal person its absolutely fantastic, and playing around with all the builds is fun.

by XplAybOi

Amazing fun game but please fix the crashes… I have been trying to complete the new DLC released recently and am going on attempt number 5. I am using Queen with maxed AoE weapons and it crashes every time I attempt. I cannot seem to get past 15m before the game closes out and I have to try all over again. ALSO! PLEASE release a feature where you can save your progress, leave the game and you are able to jump right back in where you left off on any level. Many games have this feature. Or at least, if it crashes it saves your progress so when you load the game back up a pop up box appears and it says something along the lines of “Your fate was not yet sealed during your last venture. Would you like to continue?”. Other than that, I love this game! 🙏🙏🙏

by EllaVil

This is an almost exact 1:1 port of the PC version, the main differences being the portrait orientation (which you can change in settings at any time), two optional ways to watch ads for rewards (which do not detract from the game, you can disable them entirely and be at no disadvantage compared to PC), and some niche secrets that required you to type in messages on the PC version will require you to connect some keyboard to your phone to do them the same way on mobile.

The monetisation of this game is a shining beacon in the dark land of modern mobile gaming, no forced ads whatsoever, no subscriptions, no microtransactions for cosmetics or resources, just the free base game and the (very) cheaply priced DLCs, which are absolutely worth their modest price.

To cap it all off, you can play the game completely offline. It truly is the perfect mobile game

by Fall_guys_2

This game is my most played game ever with probably over 600 hours between PC and mobile. The beginning of the game is quite difficult but extremely rewarding to unlock new weapons, characters, stages, etc. By the end of the game, it becomes full dopamine overload as you watch millions of enemies be melted by the thousands of attacks you throw out per second. The only difference between this version and the paid PC version is optional ads, which I watch whenever offered because poncle deserves every penny they can get. I can’t wait till the DLC gets ported over to mobile. This game deserves every ounce of praise I can possibly give it and more.

by ElusivePsycho

I typically don’t care to write reviews, especially if I like it, but this is a great little game, it can get grindy and a bit repetitive trying to pass your highest level record. But I actually like the “luck” mechanic, not just the actual luck skill, but hoping to get a good run where when you level, hopefully you draw good skills to push through levels faster by becoming stronger or sometimes you don’t get the build you want but if you pull through and avoid dying until you get the draws you need, it feels rewarding and it’s just a simple great time killer. For example, you draw quick movement earlier on, do you take it and risk not getting it till later levels, or you select more damage or new weapon. Every decision can affect how long you’ll survive. If you pass on raising damage to much, it’ll be harder to kill mobs in higher levels. Definitely keeping this game and not just forgetting I installed it.

by Kwennitexikki

I bought this game in February 2023 a bit before the DLC dropped. I don’t play it constantly but I’m not looking for something like that. It’s just a few dollars + extra for the DLC and that’s SO refreshing in a sea of free to play and microtransactions. There are loads of secrets and unlockables that you’ll come across, though you might need a guide to keep some things straight because there are just so many little things in the game. It’s simple to pick up and you’ll get sucked in if it clicks with you.

Also, take a look at the bestiary. The dad jokes and other jokes are great. I love all the extra details that show this game was a labor of love. Thanks so much for making it available on mobile. It’s nearly perfect here.
…just be careful not to minimize out of the game for too long because it will reset after too long.

by App_Addict101

I got to the Dairy Plant and defeated all the enemies that circled the coffin then continued to run around for 15 minutes, every 30 seconds running over the coffin but it NEVER OPENED!!! I ended up dying at 29:47. 😭 Do the coffins have to be opened up in order of levels or did the game glitch? I’ve been trying to look up answers with no luck. I saw 1 video where after killing the enemies surrounding the coffin he waited a couple minutes and when he ran over the coffin it opened up soooo I have no clue why it didn’t open for me?
Devs could you look into this or let me know if there’s something I did wrong? 🙏🏼

Go to “options”. Then click the arrow at the bottom to go to page 2/3 Then “orientation” and you can switch between portrait and landscape mode. Awesome the devs thought of that. Game is awesome! Do people not look at settings before complaining!? It even goes into landscape automatically on my iPad. And there’s controller support! Epic!!!

by Kermitthestorm

Ok this game is amazing, period. Very very addicting rogue-like with TONS of replay ability. Plenty of items to unlock, characters to play, levels to explore, and secrets to uncover.

I can’t believe this game is completely FREE and the only ads are completely 100% optional. 1 if you want to revive and 1 if you want a bonus to your gold at the end of a stage. Neither speed the game up or ad much of a benefit and the game runs offline. At this point I actually WANT to donate to the devs.

If you don’t have this game on your device for emergency boredom you really should. It’s great for sessions lasting a few min or can be played for hours on end. I. Love. This. Game.

by DidiMao

Todays review: okay I deleted this and reinstalled after a week… then beat it in a couple days. And deleted it again… I am trying to not reinstall this game so I can beat it from scratch again. Woof. Y’all know what you made!

Previous review: Unsure if that’s a feature or not. I’ve already beat the game and deleted it. A couple days later (today) I downloaded and noticed my save wasn’t there. Debating how much I enjoy having to do this all over again. Because honestly I do and wonder how much faster I can beat it again if I tried. In any case, would love a NG+ or more curses to put on the game for extra punishment.

by Hzzzzzzz

Basically the game is a combination of classical Gauntlet and modern rogue lite level up mechanisms. Add in dozens of characters and different powers you have basically a unique game experience each time, until you figure out the best combinations but even then there is still the element of random luck. I have this game for the PC and unlocked everything. This mobile version is almost identical. One thing to remember though is to change the game display setting to landscape, you can see much further. this will allow the evolved Santa water weapon to circle the player much more closely, thus increasing