Vampire Survivors | Review

[@wamyc]

Calling things roguelikes is getting out of control. There's nothing rogue-like in this game, no more than saying Mario Kart is a roguelike because the powerups you get are randomly selected from a list.

[@Nathan_Moor]

Roguelike is a genre, like RTS, 4x, RPG, etc. It refers to the gameplay style of dungeon crawl with no save/reload and how you restart on death, attempting multiple playthroughs with some element of randomization. Roguelite is when you on top of the gameplay loop add empowerment with each playthrough. If every start of a playthrough has the same base its a Roguelike.

[@Dachi40]

This is really similar to the music community arguing about genres. While i agree people take it too far, you should instead focus on educating people instead

[@wamyc]

@@Nathan_Moor there is almost zero randomization of the levels. Unlocking features is too broad to qualify as a roguelike because almost every game has those. And besides, unlocks are what makes a game not like rogue. VS is at best trivially random and isn't an RL any more than any other arcade shooter. You are in almost full control of how your VS game plays out, there is no surprising random variety. The only random factors in this completely on rails game is the set probabilities of level up options. VS has nothing in common with Rogue. You are scripted to die at a certain point that is literally anchored in time. The levels are static. The enemies are static. The position and prevalence of items is very strongly deterministic. It's not a roguelike. And by your definition, Tetris is a roguelike, and so is Minesweeper and SMB1 and Duck Hunt.

[@wamyc]

Also, most critically, roguelike games end up with massive relay value and get more interesting the more you understand them. VS is a great game, but it's the opposite. It's the same thing every time and once you know the game it's fully mindless and replay value drops off a cliff.

[@wamyc]

I understand that roguelike and roguelight are genres. But you are incorrect about calling VS to be in either of those. It's an isometric bullet hell adventure shooter. It's an arcade style mobile game with low choices, almost zero randomization, and fun flashing lights power fantasy that ends at a scripted time.