Geometry Survivor

Genre: Arcade / Roguelike

Players: 1

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Review:

Geometry Survivor, is an Arcade-style game and Roguelike released in 2024 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2024. And since this is a game with the word “Survivor” in the title released after 2022, attentive gamers will no doubt be predicting that this is yet another game in the string of titles to follow in the footsteps of Vampire Survivors, with players moving around hordes of enemies while automatically attacking, an emerging subgenre being referred to as “Bullet Heaven”.

However, while Geometry Survivor takes its gameplay and progression design from Vampire Survivors, that is clearly only half of the inspiration for this game, with the other half coming from the Geometry Wars franchise, an Arcade-style 2-Stick Shooter series dating back to 2003, but that really came into its own in 2005’s Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved on Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade. The visuals, enemy types, and weapon types can largely track their inspiration back to this game.

To the game’s credit, it does an exceptional job imitating the art style of Geometry Wars, so much so that you could be forgiven for thinking that this game comes from the same developer. The game retains the excellent retro-futuristic faux-vector graphics art style of Geometry Wars, with neon-colored glowing geometric shapes against a black background with faint grid lines, with a few additional effects like space-warping black holes. It all looks great, if a smidge less-polished than the game it’s imitating.

Sadly, this game doesn’t come anywhere near as close to imitating Geometry Wars’ excellent soundtrack, with Geometry Survivor’s synthesized tunes just not being as catchy as Wars’. However, the sound here also has a few issues. In particular, this game does a very poor job indicating when your ship has been hit and you’ve expended one of your extremely limited hearts, as opposed to some other effect going on.

When it comes to the gameplay, don’t expect to have your ship firing a stream of bullets at enemies like you do in Geometry Wars. Rather, the start of Geometry Survivor definitely feels closer to Vampire Survivors, or perhaps playing one of the Geometry Wars games’ “pacifism” game mode, with your ship only occasionally firing out a single bullet, and your job being to avoid enemies and collect the gems destroyed enemies leave behind to gradually gain levels.

However, once you do, Geometry Survivor has some pretty interesting selections for weapon upgrades offered in randomized Roguelike style, and it’s here where this game does a good job setting itself apart from Vampire Survivors, really pulling on its Geometry Wars inspiration to give players a variety of futuristic weapons to choose from. You have added spurts of gunfire, lasers and forcefields, helper ships and drones to stalk enemies, gravity wells to suck them in or slow them down, and the like. It all makes for some enjoyable runs that can be quite different based on your choices.

However, since we’re comparing to Vampire Survivors, I have to point out the many areas where this game falls short by comparison. A lack of secrets, a lack of different maps, a lack of a good variety of passive bonuses in addition to weapons, a lack of game modes (you only get one – a 20-minute survival mode). While there are upgrades and additional ships you can unlock between runs, the amount of content here overall pales in comparison to Vampire Survivors, and at $5 this game is being sold at the same price.

Geometry Survivor simply cannot compare to Vampire Survivors, and doesn’t quite have the adrenaline-pumping excitement of Geometry Wars, but this is nevertheless a solid take on the Bullet Heaven formula, and one that does a good job distinguishing itself from Vampire Survivors. I can only hope that more game developers use this as an example that if you’re going to take a stab at the Bullet Heaven gameplay formula, it’s far better to blend that formula with a different game motif than to try to make an uninspired, mediocre copycat of Vampire Survivors. Unlike all the games that do that, this is one can’t simply be dismissed by saying “just get Vampire Survivors instead”.

tl;dr – Geometry Survivor is an Arcade-style game and Roguelike clearly trying to copy the success of Vampire Survivors, but also copying the art style and gameplay mechanics of the Geometry Wars franchise. The result is a game that, while not quite on par with either of those inspirations, is nevertheless unique and enjoyable enough to be worth playing in its own right.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2024 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Action Game, Best Roguelike

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