Been giving this a shot recently.
So it is one of the many Vampire Survivors clones released this year (yeah, I know VS is a clone as well). However it does a few things differently that help make it stand out.
This is a more typically fantasy variant with orcs, ogres, skeletons, giant spiders, giant snakes and so on. The characters on display start fairly typical as the first class is the Barbarian. With a pyromancer being the second character and there appears to be around 20 different classes/characters to unlock. However the first difference is that, while there are skills that are unique to each class (skills being their variant of weapons and support items) there appears to be a mixture of skills that are common to all characters and then some that are unique to each character class.
There doesn't appear to be evolutions in the game, or not that I have come across yet. However I have only put about 4 hours into it so far. But the passive skills also work a little differently. They seem to come in three base types. Ones that buff the character such as movement speed, increased critical hits, additional dash charges and so on. Then there are ones that buff your skills with the usual AoE increase, damage increase and more. Finally there are ones that can buff mutliple skills as well, so for example one will upgrade all swing type skills. This appears to be their version of having Builds in the game.
A round is also more typically shorter last around 15 minutes or so and boss monsters are summoned after so many kills, and this is where another difference comes in. The bosses actually require some rudimentary skills to get around. The will do large AoE attacks, straight line attacks, have roaming elemental attacks and you will need to dodge out of the way. In addition some of the skills you pick up will require aiming (done with the right hand stick).
Outside of this there are resources. So there are your Yellow gems that act as experience for a particular run and give you your skills. Then there are smaller blue gems that act as currency more permanent character upgrades (more HP, fast XP gain the usual stuff). Then there are materials for things like new weapons for each class, more expensive character upgrades, Runes and a few other bits. However I can't comment on these as I haven't enough of the resources to work on them.
On top of this, I have been playing it on the Deck. (Perfect for Deck). With the default settings there appears to be a bit of slow down. I am not sure if this is from the tech side or a deliberate design decision. The problem is in VS when you get the slowdown it is usually at the end of the run when you have a fully evolved weapon set and the game is throwing screen filled enemies at you. Here it isn't quite as impressive as it more just feals slugish. Tweaking some settings seems to have fixed it, so probably more of a tech issue.
I also quite like how the game looks. It has a colourful low poly look to it. The spell effects are great and as you get late in a run and you have land slides running all over the screen with giant cleavers and explosions from grenades all over the screens it does look great.
While it doesn't have the same "just one more run" apeal that VS has it is still a great game. It does enough to differentiate itself from VS it also does enough for it to be comfortable to slip into if you fancy a change from VS but still want to scratch that itch.
One thing, as an aside, I really dislike this trend of using part of a popular game in your title, this is Soulstone Survivor or you get the games that use Souls is the titles. I know it gets the game type across but I just find it a bit lazy.
please Microsoft don’t ban my console, I just got it today and have game pass till 2025!
www.wepc.com
