Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors Review

It was recently announced that Poncle Limited are working on a good whack of projects. This pleases me since Vampire Survivors is one of my favourite indie titles of all time. So much so that I gave the review a perfect score back in 2022, you can read that review HERE. When I saw Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors was announced, I was naturally excited for it. Aside from the really long game title, I was intrigued to see whether the game would have the same quality and longevity.

For those of us on Xbox, it’s available on the Xbox Game Pass catalogue as part of the Ultimate tier and on PC Game Pass. The game also has Xbox Play Anywhere functionality and is handheld-optimised, so you can literally play it anywhere your Xbox library is available.

Gameplay

Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors takes the characters, environment, attacks and powers from the original game and thrusts them into a roguelite deckbuilder. Each run starts slow and steadily ramps up in intensity. Each time you level up, you’ll access unlocks in the form of cards, and you’ll want to choose wisely. The number on the right of the screen is an indicator of how many turns you can play. This is associated with the number in the top left-hand corner of the cards. Strategising cards is the main focus, and I quickly learned that if you pick rarer cards with higher numbers, it is sometimes difficult to always execute them.

Navigation is simplistic, and you’ll find secrets, treasure chests, and more that will assist you during your runs. You’ll also have access to gems at points that you can integrate into cards of your choosing. Having the choice to provide these buffs can power you through runs or not, depending on how well you strategise. Everything builds up to the final wave of each run, and you’ll experience many deaths before you come back stronger. As you progress, you’ll unlock new characters with different starting decks, and you’ll also be able to purchase permanent upgrades. All of these unlocks add replayability to the point you max everything completely.

Visuals & Audio

Visually Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors takes that classic pixel-art style that made the last game so great. Seeing so much familiarity is nice, both in enemy types and attacks. Card presentation is great, and seeing them evolve as you progress through runs is satisfying. The variance of colours and seeing the design of what the attacks and buffs are makes instant sense if you’ve already played Vampire Survivors.

During my review, I played mostly on the Xbox Series X but did test the game on my Acer Nitro V15 gaming laptop and also the Lenovo Legion Go. The game handled flawlessly wherever I played without any visual hiccups. Audio design complements the gameplay with great adrenaline-pumping music, decent sound effects and again, familiar sounds that you’ll remember from Vampire Survivors.

Final Thoughts

Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors is a fantastic deckbuilder that takes all the best elements from the bullet-heaven title. It took a while to click for me, but when it did, I was hopelessly addicted until I’d hammered my way through everything the game had to offer. There is a satisfying loop when playing through the runs, but it does get to a stage where you’ve seen and done it all.

It’s a shorter affair than Vampire Survivors, but what they have produced here is a cracking roguelite deckbuilder that works really well with that classic Vampire Survivors theming. It’s well worth buying at £8.99, but you can dodge that cost if you play it on Xbox Game Pass. If you fancy picking up a copy on Xbox Series X/S, you can do so HERE.