When Vampire Survivors crashed onto the scene in 2022 and effectively caused the bullet hell genre to explode, many people got hooked on game, myself included. Vampire Survivors opened up the bullet heaven genre not just to me, but to other developers, with many other studios releasing their takes on survivors gameplay. This has become one of my most played genres thanks to this game, so when developer Poncle announced a deck building spin-off, Vampire Crawlers, I was both curious and worried that the game wouldn’t translate super well.

Let’s Get Crawling

I’m happy to say that I was absolutely wrong. The game not only carries over super well, but it shows it in a whole new light for me. The visuals are absolutely gorgeous, whether that’s the new 3D environments of the dungeons, or the 2D character models that made their way over from Poncle’s first endeavor. The remixed tracks are also nice, although a lot more subtle this time around.

Vampire Crawlers is 2 different games that go together like peanut butter and jelly. The first part of the game is a first person dungeon crawler. Levels have been faithfully remade into 3D environments that are instantly recognizable if you played Vampire Survivors. Your goal here is to travel around the map, fight the boss for the floor and descend to the next one. Along the routes you can find lights to break, chests to claim, and enemies to fight. The 2D sprites for the characters work super well here in the 3D environments, and this is where the deck building aspect comes into play.

Chaining Combos is the Name of the Game

When you approach an enemy in the dungeon, you open up the battle part of the game. Your goal here is wipe out all enemies in front of you using the cards in your deck. You start your run with just a few cards; typically a few utility cards and your starting weapon on what character you’re using. Each card has an associated mana cost, and this will be taken out of your mana pool, which starts small. Early game in the runs you need to manage how to effectively defeat enemies while staying aware of how much mana you’re using and how much you have left. The front wave of enemies will attack at the end of your turn if you don’t wipe them out, so planning is definitely a big part of the game.

During the early stages of the game, you won’t have many cards capable of doing big combos. Later in the game you’re introduced to wild cards; these can be used anywhere to chain a combo, and will boost the damage or buff of the next played card. These allow you to make insane combos. I was able to chain a 19 combo during a run later, and man nothing gives you a wonderful hit of dopamine then seeing the numbers just skyrocket.

Upgrading and the New Gem System

New to the series is the gem system. Gems are upgrades you can get in the dungeon during level ups, that will grant you new bonuses and upgrades to your cards. Most of the cards will have one gem slot, which can be upgraded later to allow you to have two gem slots. These gems can range from doubling your damage, duplicating your card, decreasing the mana needed, or turning the card into a wildcard. The gem system is a great addition and I’d love to see a version of it potentially being introduced into Vampire Survivors.

Standard upgrades are also back. You play coins you earn during runs to upgrade things such as how many duplication shots you get, how much health you recover after battles, and the amount of experience you can earn. You also later on will be able to upgrade how common your level up pickups are. Do you really like getting the combo increase cards? You can pay to make it common, so it’ll come up more often during the run. This is a great system that really allows the player to tailor the game to how they like to play.

The Village

New to the game coming from Vampire Survivors is the Village. This basically just covers the unlock menu that Survivors had, but here you’re able to check the inn for your characters you can select, check your unlocks, look at relics and arcana, and visit the blacksmith for upgrading cards. It’s a small thing but it’s nice to start off with an empty area and see it slowly fill up with new buildings and characters.

Frustrating Levels and Lack of Endgame

Now for the 2 major downsides I have with Vampire Crawlers. The first is the bridge levels. These will come up every once in awhile before moving to the next area. These are unique in that there is only a single floor, and there is no multiple pathways. The only way forward is to tackle what is in front of you. This levels are a pretty big skill check, as you don’t have the option to take a different path around a group of enemies, or go find some items before challenging the boss of the floor. This led to some frustrating moments of trying to brute force my way through the bridge, and I would end up having to go do a few runs of a previous level just to be able to afford some new upgrades to rechallenge the level. I would have liked at least one more lane on the bridge to be able to bypass or get some more items.

The other part is the lack of endgame content. Maybe it’s because I came into Vampire Survivors late, but there was so much content that I was playing the game over weeks (not to mention all the content that has been added since). There isn’t many options to remix the levels like there was in Vampire Survivors either, so the only reason to keep going is to work on character specific unlocks and purchasing the rest of the upgrades. This is something that can easily be fixed with updates and I definitely expect it to not be a problem in the future, but it would have been nice to have a little more content based off the updates that Vampire Survivors had.

Final Verdict

Vampire Crawlers is a wonderful follow-up to a game I hold dear. It translates seamlessly from the bullet-heaven genre into the deck building genre. While there are a few frustrating levels and as of now a lack of endgame content to keep me going, there’s enough here to justify playing this for hours on end and keep you engaged. If you’re a fan of Slay the Spire or Balatro, Vampire Crawlers is absolutely a must grab, even if you have no prior experience with Vampire Survivors.

Gamer Social Club would like to thank Poncle for an early access code for this review.

This game was reviewed on Xbox Series X.

Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors is out now for Nintendo Switch 1+2, PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series consoles and is available with Xbox Gamepass.