Whispike Survivors – Sword of the Necromancer Review

Now the popularity of Vampire Survivors has died down ever so slightly, we are starting to see various clones trying to mimic the same moreish gameplay loop. I recently reviewed the excellent Army Of Ruin which borrowed from the same ideology and was pretty much on par with the award-winning Vampire version. I was keen to see if Whispike Survivors – Sword of the Necromancer could hit the same heights as the two I have played and adored already. This new title is developed and published by Grimorio of Games who also bought the indie title Sword of the Necromancer to the table. For less than the price of a Happy Meal at McDonald’s, is it worth the low entry cost?

How Does It Play?

Whispike Survivors – Sword of the Necromancer commences each run in the centre of the screen and immediately you are surrounded by enemies. The premise is to survive as long as possible but unfortunately, the difficulty is pretty agonising off the bat. Character movement is insanely slow and through hours of runs you never feel like you can get away from enemies for an escape. The horde is constantly overwhelming and whilst you can get a speed pickup it doesn’t seem to accelerate you much faster. The control scheme is simply using the analogue sticks to manoeuvre. The powers you possess will automatically do their own work and you’ll want to navigate to do the most damage possible.

As enemies die they will drop what look like fluorescent bouncy balls and you’ll want to collect these to build up your level and unlock powers. Annoyingly these balls expire if they are not picked up and often it is almost impossible to grab them all because the enemy is constantly up your ass. The higher you level up the more balls you will need to collect to progress.

Now and again treasure chests will drop for a chance to unlock or buff up one of your powers. This is a fruit machine aspect where you have to match three to win, after about 100 runs in the game I still haven’t won on this once. Make of this what you will, not only is the game genuinely consistently rock solid, even the treasure chests are almost impossible to win. There are additional levels but all seem to have a huge difficulty ceiling.

Farming Is Interesting

During your time with the game, you’ll want to pick up bags of seeds and manure. In between runs, you will be able to plant seeds and use manure to mature and flower your plants. At the bottom of the screen, it will inform you of what powers you’ll start your game run with if you decide to pull the plant out of the ground. This will give you an advantage at the start as you’ll already have powers unlocked but it isn’t long before the enemies get a grip on you and take you down.

It was a constant battle to see how long I could go for without dying and I think the best I made was around nine minutes in five hours of constant play. You do have to keep an eye on your crops though because they can wither and die which means you’ll need to discard them.

Graphics & Audio

Visually Whispike Survivors – Sword of the Necromancer uses retro-based aesthetics which are pleasing enough with not much complexity in enemy types. There is a generous variance in the types of foes you’ll come across, some are stronger than others and numbers indicate the damage you do to them. The development team could have done a tutorial to explain how the farming aspect works because you’re left to just guess and learn everything yourself. The lack of statistics on display is notable as well and there never seems to be a sense of progression whatsoever. I know the game is dirt cheap but so was Vampire Survivors and they nailed everything surrounding the core gameplay experience. Sound effects are fairly minimal and do the job.

Tries To Do The Job But Falls Flat

I probably gave Whispike Survivors – Sword of the Necromancer more time that I should have really. The reason for this was that I really wanted to like it but I ended up getting angry and frustrated with every attempt. If they could speed up the character ever so slightly and allow the pickups not to expire then it would make for more entertaining gameplay. Instead, you have a hollow shell of a game in comparison to others in the genre and whilst it does being a unique twist with the crop farming aspect, it simply isn’t enough and the difficulty is extreme which in turn makes the game not fun to play sadly. It’s a shame because you can see the fun factor there if there are some slight changes, but for a couple of quid it may be worth your time if you love the genre.