Are you missing a little chaos in your life? Haven't loaded a zombie with bullets in a long time? Do you like vampire survivors where you can customize your weapons? Grind Survivors could be the game for you.
Grind Survivors is an action roguelike bullet hell where you fight against constant, increasingly intense waves of monsters. The goal is to survive the time limit and win the boss fight that takes place at the end of the round.
The first thing I noticed about the game was the art. The slightly muted background of the level was designed so that the player could easily recognize what is happening on the screen at all times. Each type of enemy is easily recognizable and after the first encounter with it, I intuitively understood what each type does. Each boss has clearly displayed attacks, which makes the fight exciting and dynamic.
Before entering the level, I choose the character and the weapon I want to start with. At the beginning I have one character at my disposal, and through the game I can unlock 3 more, and each one has its own power that significantly changes the way I play. As for weapons, we have the revolver - a slow but powerful weapon, the smg - a weapon that fires rapidly but often requires more bullets to kill enemies, the shotgun - which fires more bullets in a small radius and is ideal for bosses. Each weapon also has several different modifiers that can affect them, so 2 revolvers can play quite differently from each other.
The gameplay loop itself consists of running around the map, collecting crystals left by enemies when they die in order to raise the character's level, and running to different points of interest on the map, which work in such a way that the player stops within a certain radius of the point and after a few seconds "captures" it and receives a passive buff. Upon arrival at each new level, the player chooses 1 of 3 different upgrades for their current build. The upgrades are divided into categories, and within the categories you need to take the first upgrade to unlock the next one in the series. Certain upgrades from different categories also have synergies with each other, meaning that if a player takes both upgrades, they unlock a unique buff that they can't get anywhere else. The goal is for the player's build to always be one step ahead of the enemy in order to keep the horde of them under control, and still do high enough single target damage for the boss fight when it comes.
The most fascinating thing about the game for me was how different the rounds can be. I entered the first round with an smg, which, with upgrades to the bullet firing speed and bullet reload speed, I turned into a powerful machine gun. At some point, the monsters overpowered me, so I decided that I needed some more devastating weapons. I chose a revolver, which at first seemed like a useless weapon, shoots 1 shot, relatively slow, but does a lot of damage, but it soon became my favorite. Namely, during the next 10 minutes of gameplay, I added to it that it shoots +5 bullets in each shot, the bullets bounce from enemy to enemy up to 2 times, I raised the capacity of bullets in the revolver from 6 to 21 and took the upgrade that every time I collect a crystal from a dead enemy I have a 40% chance to fill 1 bullet, which meant that I practically never had to take a break and reload the weapon. I don't think it's necessary to mention how I beat the boss at the end of the round and celebrated my first victory. As sugar at the end, I also got my first legendary weapon.
Between rounds we have several systems to play with. The first one is related to weapons. Namely, weapons can be common, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary. If you didn't manage to get a legendary shot you like, don't worry, you can take the epic version you own and sacrifice any of the other 4 epic weapons and that shot will become a legendary variant. Each rank adds + 1 random bonus stat to the weapon, so part of the fun is getting the weapon with the attributes that suit you.
Once you have found the right weapon, the next step is to upgrade it, where each successful upgrade increases the risk of the weapon being reset, for example to increase the weapon from +4 to +5 there is a 55% chance of the upgrade failing and the weapon being reset to +0. In my case, that chance was 100% in the previous 3 attempts, never lucky.
There is also a rune system that gives passive bonuses, and in some combinations enables new synergies and thus increases the possibility of playable builds.
Another system that facilitates long-term progression is certainly the skill tree system. In its form, it is quite linear and is only there to make the game easier for players over time without significantly changing the game itself.
The game consists of 3 worlds, each with 6 difficulties, where it is necessary to successfully complete the previous one in order to unlock the next one. In each successive difficulty, the enemies are much stronger, and the weapons you can collect in turn are much stronger, which means that one moment you feel like a god, and the next you are working to create a new powerful weapon that will carry you to another victory. You're constantly unlocking new upgrades, runes, skill tree resources and you feel like you're progressing.
The final verdict is that this is not a game for everyone and I have a feeling that it could become quite repetitive after a while. However, if you're looking for a game you can jump into for 20 minutes or so, get that adrenaline rush when all the stars align, put away your keyboard and mouse/controller, and get on with your day, this could be the game for you.
You can play the game on PC (Steam, Epic Games, GOG), Playstation 5 and Xbox series X/S platforms.
A copy of the game for review purposes provided by the development studio Pushka Studios and the publisher Assemble Entertainment.
