Scarlet Tower

Scarlet Tower
N/A
Metacritic
86
Steam
80.165
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Release date
31 October 2022
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
86 (966 votes)
Recent
61 (13 votes)

Hunt during the day, be hunted during the NIGHT! Scarlet Tower is a gothic horror casual game with roguelike and RPG elements, like talent trees, classes, familiars and more!

Show detailed description

Scarlet Tower system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows 7+
  • Processor: 2.0 Ghz
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: 128mb Video Memory, capable of Shader Model 2.0+
  • DirectX: Version 9.0c
  • Storage: 500 MB available space
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isrzanza
isrzanza

a really nice twist on the formula.
fast paced, very nice graphics and style, multiple characters, a lot of upgrades and a bunch of weapons (some are a combination of 2 other weapons).

the main thing to improve imo is the balancing, both for the stages and the characters.
some are much weaker then other.

Sharp Vanity
Sharp Vanity

Real Potential

This game is constantly being compared with Vampire Survivors and most of those comparisons are pretty accurate. However, I believe there are certain qualities Scarlet Tower has that will set it apart from other games in the genre if it continues to be developed with players, quality, and balance in mind.

For an early-access title, this game is pretty polished. I have yet to encounter any game-breaking errors/bugs. There are certain Quality of Life changes, game balance updates, and feature robustness that I think most players would happily welcome. However, for this stage of development, these are only small nuisances in my opinion.

Overall, wonderful game.
I've really enjoyed my time so far and hope this game continues to be developed in a positive direction.

Trellek
Trellek

Get Vampire Survivors, instead. No, seriously; this game is the sort of game that's so into getting closer to its idol that to a disinterested outside observer it looks like it's trying to be its idol. And not in that cute, healthy, kids will be kids way. This game is trying to be Vampire Survivors to the point that not even Vampire Survivors' wife will notice when it bloodily murders Vampire Survivors, disposes of its corpse, moves into its house, and starts sleeping in its bed.

Mechanically, this is mostly just Vampire Survivors. The things that are different seem to only be different so that the claim can be made that it is different. For example, chests exist in this game, too! One of the few improvements on the formula, actually: they're not animated, which is pretty cool. But there's not actually a guarantee that you'll see even one in a game, because them dropping at all is influenced by a stat that only functions if you have the trinket that boosts it.

Another issue is the difficulty. Ignore the steam stats, I alt-tabbed out of the game to look something up at about the eighty minute mark. Which means that in eighty minutes of play I beat the boss-that-summons-death once, died to the boss-that-summons-death once, and quit at the start of night due to sheer, bloody-minded boredom (after having tabbed out for 20 minutes) once. And that netted me 71% of the game's achievements. On top of that, the game's the worst kind of tedious; the gameplay's bland and uninspired, as though we've seen it a dozen or more times before, but if you give in to the urge to yawn, something will kill you before you've recovered. Further, Elite enemies aren't visually distinct in the least, hiding in the crush of enemies and dropping AoE fields under your feet that will only land if you've decided to stop moving for some fool reason (did you forget this isn't Vampire Survivors? I don't blame you, but don't stop moving). The only enemy that is visually distinct is the boss that spawns with eight minutes left on the clock, takes ten minutes or more to kill, and fires random AoE/DoTs at you that either miss and do nothing or land and guarantee you'll take a chunk of damage. The problem is, this is the only attack the boss has, it fires rarely, hits maybe one shot in 10, and is only going to kill you if you're unlucky. So the boss taking ten minutes to kill? Is entirely because it's got more health than the combined total of all of the enemies you kill between the start of the game and death spawning and killing you; that's not difficulty, dammit. It's not difficult to knock down a house with a hammer; just boring, time-consuming, and tedious.

Finally, the game touts a 'unique' day/night cycle. ......Which has no influence on the game at all, something it accidentally lets slip if you take too long to kill the boss mentioned above. Well, that's not entirely true. See, there are two meta-currencies in this one: gold, which upgrades all the stuff worth bothering with; and 'night crystals', which are used for upgrading various passives that have effect values so infinitesimal, particularly for how expensive they are, that there's no point in bothering. So during the day, enemies occasionally drop gold and xp, and at night enemies occasionally drop night crystals and xp. Oh and the start of night triggers a spawn of enemies that fit the night aesthetic, but since they're not replaced with day aesthetic enemies when the night ends it's pretty clear this is just standard progression timing pretending to be something it isn't.

Also, that 'occasionally' up there is worth reiterating: Enemies don't have a guaranteed drop of xp gems. There's no reliable source of gold or 'night crystals'. If the RNG doesn't feel like awarding those things to you, you'll just fail to kill the boss due to xp starvation. Between that and there being more slots for equipment (six weapons and six trinkets) than it's possible to collect the XP to actually upgrade, the game feels unfair in the weirdest way. 'Behold all these things you could have, if only I felt like letting you reach them!' Except they're not things you need to beat the game.

Look, if you already have every other bleeding game in the genre and the five bucks and you wouldn't be better off just buying a couple cans of Monster, sure: pick it up and revel in finally completing your collection. But this game doesn't do hardly anything that the innumerable other games in the genre haven't already done, and most of the things it does have that they don't, there's a reason for it. If you're desperate for more of VS' gameplay and you've 100%'d it and have so many eggs bought that Poe's starting Garlic can melt every boss up to death without moving, there's a second set of a squillion of these games over on the mobile market, starting with Magic Survival (the game VS is loosely based on).

But personally I'd tend to say to avoid this game. It brings nothing new to the table, it's boring, it's tedious, and its efforts to add difficulty just double-down on the tedium.

EDIT: Also, I am well aware I didn't explicitly mention the 'racial bonus' thing or familiars: since none of the characters mention explicitly what race they are and all of the bonuses are piddling to meh and very expensive to upgrade, I didn't see the point. Familiars are worse: They've also got piddling to meh bonuses and are even more expensive to upgrade.

cervine1
cervine1

For me this game is pretty average, but others might enjoy it more. Kind of a dodge-fest. Enemies are a bit too fast and weapons are way to slow, even powered up. Most weapons fire once every 10 seconds or longer to start, you might be able to cut that in half during a run, but every 5 or 6 seconds is very slow in this type of game. Buffs you can buy between runs are pretty stingy, doesn't make much of a difference even if you max them all. Maybe this will improve over time as the developers refine things.

Aile
Aile

Enjoyed the game for what its worth ;)

Had a lil issue with the files but was able to fix it on my end.

Hope to see more items, character, familiar, combinations and achievements in the foreseeable future.

Blue
Blue

I don't know why but somehow ı can't decide when to attack and choose target. Also it seems there is no any impact of my attack on opponents. Because there is no any visual effect of taken damage on monsters except exploding. At least, they should show some reaction with an animation to my attack.

mondomau
mondomau

Fun, but derivative and grindy.
It's got some really interesting elements to it - the additional nuance in the pets and the bonuses is quite nice. The art style and sprite animation is lovely. But the core of the game is a straight up copy of Vampire Survivors and they don't do enough with the unique elements they added to make you forget that.
Maybe a neutral rating would be fairer but the fact that you basically have to grind the first level 8-10 times (increasing corruption levels just means more 'special' enemies cluttering up the screen ) just to unlock the next one really kills the appeal for me.

Messy
Messy

About 5 hours in I hit a little bit of a wall, I have purchased all the upgrades for stats, got almost all achievements and not sure what else to do or how to unlock anything else. I think there is more to the game, but I just don't know how to get to it. I do wish I had a little more clear direction or at least know what increasing the difficulty does for me. I would like to know what to work towards and how to best get it. I'll wait for more updates and see where this goes. Fun for $5 though.

EDIT: I have this red coin looking currency and I have no clue what to use it on or where to spend it.

Also another note, it does get difficult to see your character when you get a lot of mobs and weapons flying around.

Syzo
Syzo

Its fun, probably one of the better "VS" type games around.
Only downsides i can see is the lack of variety (in weapons, enemies and stages) but since its an early access its alright and im sure it'll be fixed.

The other thing is the graphics, they look good but abit too... shiny? its hard to explain really but because of the higher graphical fidelity its harder to tell wtf is going on in later stages.

overall - a solid game, well worth the price.

Scrum Scrum Baggums
Scrum Scrum Baggums

Fun rogue-like top-down shooter. Art style is beautiful, the progression fun, the characters play differently and the unlocks come in time. Loving this so far, can't wait to see what keeps getting added!

cracatoa
cracatoa

Needs some more work, but this is looking incredibly promising. A deeper Vampire Survivors, but missing some of the polish. Pretty early access though, so it could turn out amazing.

Well worth the cost.

Robert BrickMan
Robert BrickMan

Wtf I Struggle to beat level 9 corruption mode to find out that level 10 i'ts looked, Thanks i'm sweating
Only complain I have it's levelling the pets out if you maxed out one you have to play the others too, I'll like to get bonus exp after that i can use on other pets or at least be randomize after

pipo.cxx
pipo.cxx

It's a clone of Vampires Survival, but a really good one. Kinda wanna hope that devs won't leave the game dead, because there're a lot of stuff to do yet, but so far so good. Visuals, sounds, ost, gameplay - everything is good. Good.

Mimoslav
Mimoslav

Too much visual clutter on screen, the most pathetic dash I've seen in video games (extremely short distance and no iframes), no damage immunity after being hit + enemies that deal contact damage.

How do you earn metaprogression currency? For the most part by maxing out all weapons + items and getting a currency reward as a level up bonus. How do you evolve weapons? Get two mas level weapons + pick up a chest = get a new weapon that you have to level up. In other words evolving weapons makes you earn less metaprogression currency. Evolved weapons are pathetic. Take explosive gift + ectoplasm wand to make a recolored explosive gift. Take frost gun + silver gun to make another gun. Take blizzard wand + frost wand to make s recolored blizzard wand. But that's fine because your unique starting weapon is noticeably more powerful than any evolved weapon.

Shuranosuke
Shuranosuke

Don't be fooled by the pretty visuals, this a very amateur-ish bargain bin Vampire Survivors clone made by people who I don't think play video games (or at least not good ones).

Everything just screams of bad design. Balance is non-existent, meta progression is boring, talents are either useless or game breaking when they even work at all, there's a ton of grind required to unlock basic functionalities like a mini-map, the game is full of visual clutter and of "F*** Y**" moments... etc.

As cheap as it is, just keep your money and go buy yourself a sandwich at McDonald's. You'll get more enjoyment out of it than from this game.

Hopefully the pixel artist will find other people to work with because she's very talented.

Peterjwood
Peterjwood

Takes a little to get going but once you unlock the compass things become a lot better.
The combo's are strange, some could do with a bit of a buff, the others are about right.
Not bad overall but not my cup of tea.

Local Jerk
Local Jerk

In general, I like this, but the devs seem adamant on not listening to player feedback, especially regarding the plague on the third map. I can't recommend where the devs simply refuse to listen to reason, unfortunately.

mrkleckner
mrkleckner

Nice entry into the bullet heaven/survivor type games. I like the art style, character variation, and the number of stuff to buy. Unfortunately, it needs some more time in the oven to cook. It has some annoying and very glaring bugs. The most annoying being tool tips not disappearing when you take your cursor away. Others range from damage formulas being in raw code, numerous miss-numbered % per talent point errors, boss/elite enemies just freezing up, and my favorite...buggy chests. I don't know if a bug or a feature, but chests seems to spawn when they feel like it. Half the time I don't get chests from elites or even bosses. Other times 5 will drop in 2 minutes from regular enemies. If it's tied to the luck stat, which it might be, then that's just obviously bad design.

Other than the glaring bugs, balance is the only real game play issue. Characters, abilities, items, talents, etc. aren't even close to being even near equal. Oh, and that pathetic side step called a dash...it's not useless but just barely so. The games got potential and I want to see what it's like in about 6 months or so. As it stands now though, it's a 5/10.

dude
dude

Didn't work for me, felt like a worse version of Vampire Survivors (even though the visuals are infinitely more pleasing).

Gameplay-wise, I think that the weapons and characters are too imbalanced. Like, why is the dual katana, which doesn't even have an evolution, dealing WAY more damage than my 2 max leveled evolved items? And why is there a character that starts with said katana, being able to even stand immobile, while characters such as Ninn have a terrible time all around simply existing because her starting weapon pales so much in comparison?

Also, while we're at it with all these questions, why in God's name is the Elite spawn rate so low? Honestly, getting 2~3 chests per run isn't fun, specially when the weapon combination system in this game is based on weapon + weapon instead of weapon + item - kinda like Vandalier and Phieraggi, except all of them (that I know of).

These factors already make the game really underwhelming and aggravating, but the moment that specially feels like it's flipping you off intentionally is when it throws a Reaper with a massive health bar and speed which increases over time (I'm pretty sure it does, but don't quote me on that one) on the last two and a half minutes at you. This reaper doesn't instakill you as in Vampire Survivors, but get this: if it kills you, you failed the level and just wasted about 21 minutes. Are you serious at all? I mean, I didn't even make it through the first of eight difficulties of the first map in the game in two hours of playtime, and I'm a regular at this genre.

So yeah, the game looks astounding all around and derives a lot from other similar games, but the gameplay really lacked in my opinion.

Hephaestus
Hephaestus

After you complete the first map for the first time, this game turns into an absolute grindfest. Maybe it changes as you progress, but I'll never find out because I can't be bothered to grind out the cumulative tens of thousands of the various currencies required to level up enough to unlock even the second map.

It's unfortunate, because what's there is really good. The art, music, and design are all great. The progression just needs some serious rebalancing before I'll touch it again.

Stephanie Sad Girl™
Stephanie Sad Girl™

I dont want to say this game is better then Vampire Survivors, but it clearly takes inspiration from it and it shows. It is a very good game, it does alot different then VS and if you enjoyed VS its like a different flavor of your favorite snack.

Dark
Dark

Hands down the best action roguelike out there.

The art style is immaculate, gorgeous.

The gameplay is smooth and rewarding.

The progression system has grind, but you can barely feel it. With every run you can upgrade something, which is cool.

Since early access launch, this game has seen a lot of new features, and there are still a ways to go with it, and even the main map of the game which is titled after the game's name still hasn't come out yet. There's a lot here for a very small price.

Buy it full price, on sale, buy whenever, it won't be a bad purchase at all.

Omega
Omega

Truely a gem in the works here. This is shaping up to be the most fun and visually appealing bullet heaven I've been lucky enough to find. This game keeps me playing, and the dev is super active with fixes and updates directly from community feedback.

Droiagon
Droiagon

A VS game where you can actually aim your weapons! Yes, kudos! Such an simple thing that improves the experience tremendously.

Too bad you can't see where your cursor is, or even a small indicator with the direction it is from your character... what?

This game was set up to be better than VS. The graphics are actually good, everything feels polished (well let me see what I need for fusions on upgrades... and the popup sometimes stays visible), there's an advanced customization with multiple powerups, familiars, and character talents.

It's just too bad it still is more of the same, why are half the weapons the exact copy from VS? Have there not been a million other games to be inspired from? Why are half the weapons __ Staff or __ Scythe? Why are almost all enemies still just mindless zombies? Why do I need to do the same map or two over and over again with no goals to achieve for 25 minutes each time? Meanwhile I unlocked 3 heroes out of 8 in one run doing nothing special.

Simple fixes to the design and weapons would solve most issues with this game and make it fun and worth playing. I doubt it is changed, but hey maybe in a sequel.

Scintilus
Scintilus

Guys this game is the most worthy alternative to Vampire Survivors. Really polish graphics and smooth path-finding. If the devs keep updating this game and fully complete the game, it would be one of the best bullet heaven games ever. I swear just try this game for yourself and with a low entry price, why not?

pezcore87
pezcore87

great game. If you like vamire survivors its like that with more modern graphics. Unlike some of the other survivor clones this one actually is good.

Vampire Survivors is like Nintendo (nes)

Scarlet Tower is like Super Nintendo (snes)

Sunz_Up
Sunz_Up

pretty much my favourite grinding game of the genre.
if you like this types of game this one definetly feels right and smooth, builds have a lot of possibilities,
this one is also the most grindy from all those ive tried such as fantasy survivors-soulstone survivor- vampire survivor- striving for light survival

osaka
osaka

Scarlet Tower is an entertaining experience, a fun survivors-like game where you take control of a character and you have 24 minutes at your disposal over a day/night cycle spread over 12 minutes each, to survive the swarm of enemies coming your way and defeat the boss at the end of the wave.
Although this game brings fresh and interesting mechanics to the genre, there are several flaws that can impact your game experience.

But first let's start with the pros:
- fun maps to explore, each of them are memorable in their own right, especially Leviathan's Lair due to the presence of the oxygen stat, which encourages you to wander the map in search for oxygen bubbles, rather than stay in a single place
- interesting weapon combinations
- corruption system, it offers new and challenging ways to take on the game, progressively increasing enemy stats (however the enemy speed increase is not shown at all)
- visually pleasing, the character designs arouse your interest
- dash mechanic, a personal favourite of mine
- winter mode
- day/night cycle
- the World Eater, it's a welcome change of pace from the usual end game boss, you have to kite this boss from the beginning, careful not to run into him ;) (learnt that lesson at my own expense, although you can avoid this outcome by using Allure's Rising Charge)
- racial traits, it brings variety to the game and impacts your character choice
- runes and the enchanting system offer you more ways to be better prepared to tackle higher corruption stages
- familiars, they provide valuable buffs and aid to the player

Now it's time for the cons:
- you can only have 4 weapon fusions at max, because the starting weapon occupies a slot and you can't even fusion it with another weapon, a good solution would either be separating the main weapon from the slots meant for regular weapons, or creating possible fusions which include the starting weapon
- the lack of a speed up mechanic turns the game from a fun challenge to a grindfest, especially when you need to progress through 1-10 corruption stages as well as simply hoarding enough resources for the much valuable upgrades
- although I previously praised runes, enchanting system and the racial traits (I still do, it's a fresh and welcome feature of the game), I find the cost a bit too steep and it only adds to the grinding process
- the dice rolls have a chance to despawn right as you're about to pick them up
- if you purchase any buff/weapon from a shop, all nearby shops instantly despawn as well, which can be annoying if you tend to hoard your souls before deciding to spend them

I'm very eager to change the rating to a positive one, since I believe this game has a lot of potential and a capable dev team. I sure hope this game will become an ever more worthwhile experience in the future, I'm looking forward to the future patches, cheers!

RinkZate
RinkZate

I had this on my wishlist for a while but decided today that I would give it a try seeing as it was on sale a bit.
Looking at a lot of the negative reviews people seemed upset that it was grindy, and that's what I expect from this genre and I am totally ok with that, so I should love it!

So, 5/10 so far, and I have only just started but I think everything I will dislike I've already found.. If Steam had neutral I would give it that because there are already some things I see that I like, I just really dislike what I dislike about it.

In this game you play a character that walks around in an expansive map while endless hordes of monsters come at you from all sides and you kill them for experience to level up and every time you level up you get to choose an ability. You have six active slots and six passive slots.
These abilities include fireballs, icy projectiles, a holy bible that orbits you, a knife you throw that pierces enemies, holy (oops I mean sacred) water and, lightning strikes, etc.
Shortly after you start the first level you reach a point where a circle of encroaching plant monsters spawn all around you and... Wait, haven't I done this before?

This game takes wayyyyy too much from Vampire Survivors. I get that vampire survivors started an entire genre and I play just about every one of the new horde/bullet heaven games that I see, because I really like them, and I get that they will always have a lot of overlap with eachother, but this just immediately felt absurd. The abilities are virtually EXACTLY THE SAME. They almost even have the same names. The lack of creativity is staggering. There are so many ways they could have lessened this, with little to no difference in work while initially making the game.
-Instead of circling books make them swords that circle you
-Instead of fireballs make them blood projectiles or dark orbs
-Instead of holy (oops did it again) water make it sacred fire or burning oil
-instead of knives make it a pistol
Of course these are all really just cosmetic changes but at least it could lessen the effect.
I truly can not fathom why they would have so directly copied the core ability pool of vampire survivors to this degree.
On other notes...
-gathering range is very uncomfortable short, even with the power up stat maxed and the maxed upgrade passive.
-a lot of the upgrades are for very puny amounts - 3% cdr per level being the worst offender.
-There is an attack speed passive and a cooldown passive, the attack speed passive only affecting your primary weapon - why? Why not just have cooldown and have it affect everything.

Now on to the good - the reason the previous stuff bothers me so much is because I want to see more games like this but I think they should all be innovating and improving, and this game already appears to do that in several ways

-multiple screens where there are ways to power up over time available, including racial passives, stat boosts, glyphs that give bonuses, etc. Long term progression is awesome and the more different kinds are available the more gameplay people should get out of this game.
-Elemental ailments such as burning and freezing. Neat!
-an actual map with the zones across it so it just innately has more of a progression feel than just "here are maps," even if it's just cosmetic
-You can feel the difficulty rise pretty well and pretty quickly, dying feels inevitable, this will result in more play time.

After playing a little bit more and reading some more negative reviews, I don't feel confident that this game will improve and it makes so much more sense that it was so lazily done and copied from vampire survivor after reading that the developer has a history of abandoning half-hearted attempts at games. I'm gonna try for a refund.

vladw
vladw

Probably the most underrated bullet heaven game out there. The graphics are great, the gameplay loop has just enough hints of originality in order to make it stand out and there's a lot of depth here already to suck you in for a couple dozen hours.

Give it a shot! Vampire survivors and brotato will still be there when you're done. ;)

Lucyller
Lucyller

In really short : Vampire Survivor, but easier and prettier. There's nowhere near as much content but it's well done and in early access so more to come. Bonus point for the july update who look to be really cool!

My only downside is the lack of characters (7 right now, it's "enough" but the more the merrier) and the lack of weapons which are both in progress and more will be added later on so I do not worry about it.

ArcaneSoup
ArcaneSoup

Although this game is graphically better than Vampire Survivors, and includes some cool features such as being able to turn off auto aim, it offers less than 1/10th of the content and replayability of that game. There are only a handful of characters and stages, as well as no way to speed up runs (every run is a half hour long). As someone who really enjoys he VS style game this one just doesn't have anything special to keep me playing, it just makes me want to go play VS.

(Jaden) AceAngel TTV
(Jaden) AceAngel TTV

The first 3 hours were awesome.
But, soon you will run out of main upgrades and all you will have left is rune upgrades, which are weak, so basically 4 hours in you are at 99% as powerful as you ever will be.

Also its way too easy, I've done up to 6 difficulty and not died once, I even skipped ahead to the ocean area and barely took damage.
One problem is this octopus staff you unlock a few hours in, it does 99% of your damage.

ITS A TRAP. This game looks great, plays great, but it really is a "one day game", you won't be playing past 5 hours max.

Although it is early access, so I might change the review, but as it is the game is just scaled to end too quickly. (apart from gambling upgrades on runes)

lotusbird
lotusbird

Here's my overall review of the game.

---{Graphics}---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Paint.exe

---{Gameplay}---
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It‘s just gameplay
☑ Mehh
☐ Starring at walls is better
☐ Just don‘t

---{Audio}---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ Earrape

---{Audience}---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Human
☑ Lizards

---{PC Requirements}---
☑ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boiiiiii
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{Difficulity}---
☑ Press nothing and play
☐ Easy
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{Grind}---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isnt necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You‘ll need a second live for grinding

---{Story}---
☑ Story?
☐ Text or Audio floating around
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It‘ll replace your life

---{Game Time}---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ To infinity and beyond

---{Price}---
☐ It’s free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{Bugs}---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{Detailed Comment}---
While the promise and the screenshots felt very appealing for me to play the game, it seemed more like a "Vampire Survivors" copy with some extra steps. The starting autoattack and autoaim make the gameplay useless. Starting page makes you wonder how you should be building the character without even know what you're supposed to do. The long cooldown on the basic attacks make the roguelite experience not so enjoyable.

OAZA TOKSYCZNOSCI
OAZA TOKSYCZNOSCI

I'd like to hit the thumb up, but in current state the game is just plain boring.

There are cool ideas regarding weapons/upgrades etc. but the first 10 min of each run is so boring that i can't just stand this game.

Sir Psychosis Plays
Sir Psychosis Plays

Brilliant bullet heaven game! I love the 8bit anime pixel art style visuals and th egameplay is tight with good mobility and assortment of varied weapons. The meta progression is also really good, though maybe abit slower, if your used to Vampire survivors. Overall a really good game!

Boss
Boss

This game needs a solid year of development before I would consider recommending it. The balancing is completely out of whack.

First of all the game doesn't even let you get your feet grounded. You have about 30-35 levels to get your build going across 10 item slots (5 actives and 5 passives) before experience gain plummets. Each of which has 5 levels AND with the recent weapon fusion update those fused weapons have an additional 5 slots.

If you want to make it far you have to plan around the first 30 points, don't spread yourself thin. Focus on no more than 3 weapons and 2 passives. Or 2 weapons that can be fused and 2 passives.

Speaking of the passives you don't really feel their impact at all except for cdr and attack speed. Besides that you're not going to notice any real difference in gameplay.

Treasure chest drops feel like they're there to pad your inventory. The chances of getting 1 seems very slim since elites only show up at specific intervals, and even if you do manage to get one you're most likely going to get some random rank 1 green passive that serves no purpose.

All in all the game just doesn't feel SATISFYING. You don't get to feel strong before the game starts to slow you down. It's just pretty pixels in an otherwise fairly generic survivors-like. Brotato, VS, Soulstone and Genesia all fair far better than this in its current iteration.

joffsie
joffsie

This game is very polished despite it's early state, fun to play, challenging beyond just "scales beyond the player" and offers great variety due to characters having unique weapons to differentiate the playstyles. Looking forward to seeing where the game goes towards release 1.0. Worth the $$ to get it cheap now.

Rakashua
Rakashua

So, this is the first "bullet hell" game I've ever played. Saw it on a youtube stream and thought I'd give it a shot.
For $5 it's AMAZING, even in current form, way more content than I expected for that price range. The best part is that there's clearly less than half the content currently out than is planned (only 1 of 3 maps, 4 of 10 difficulty levels, 1 of 3 character passives for only 2 of 7 characters, no pets (to be added), and not all weapons/objects/interactions).

That said, I have to disagree with every review on here that talks about this game being "hard" or the experience not being "fast enough". I have no idea what these guys/gals are doing wrong, but for me:

1) Until they nerfed "burn heal" I could literally just stand still on highest available difficulty at like 6 minutes in and kill everything including the final boss.

2) Even after the nerf I sill hit max items all at max level at about 16-18 minutes, leaving a full 5-10 minutes of random gold chests to collect.

Graphics are very nice, sounds and effects feel very satisfying.
Totally worth 5$.
Completed game I'd be happy to pay 15$ for, much more the current price!

deocardio
deocardio

it is a funny game however the difficulty make dark souls look kinda forgiving . the difficulty spikes way faster than you can deal damage to the point that even using all available upgrades you cant get out of the lowest difficulty .

it is gourgeous and it has potential , i'm looking foward to future updates

Honey (Supprt)
Honey (Supprt)

I unlocked just about everything in v0.2.0 in ~14 hours and so far it was worth it. I'll keep checking back on this game every few weeks (seems to be their update schedule) as getting more fun out of this. 5/5

Schism
Schism

This is a very solid showing for a game in this genre. While it's very much in its early stages, it's got a solid 8 hours of great gameplay with more promised. I love that upgrades aren't tied to passives and the chest system is fun and rewarding. Also the character designs are slick and the characters themselves offer good variety with their main weapons. I'm eagerly awaiting more updates.

protasim101
protasim101

Game is so amazing and makes replay so much better each time as the upgrades push you just a little further and then you unlock a new character to try out. But when the game switches and night time comes and you hear the werewolf's howl is when you better know you have the right weapons and passives equipped or your in for a quick death. Overall i love the game and the visual effects is what i love the most, 2nd would be the characters personal weapons are so on spot to each one.

Ps turn the audio on for this one and if its your first time for you, listen for the howl when night comes it gave me chills! So Cool! Great job Team Scarlet Tower!

Warlok
Warlok

Another reverse bullet-Hell arcade action title.

Fun!

That's the main hurdle. Quality animation and artwork, accompanied by a fairly Castlevania'esque score. I really like the abilities so far... none of them seem arbitrarily limited (for example, firing in a single direction), and all of them are fun to acquire & use. The rpg upgrade scope of the game seems quite profound: we aren't going to max everything out within 5 hours.

If anything is (so far...) missing, I'd look to Horde Hunters for more meaning and interaction on the maps.

Some destroyable/deformable terrain would be nice in these games. :)

Good job so far. Quality title.

Mike3008
Mike3008

Dieses Spiel macht süchtig! Immer noch eine Runde, noch etwas mehr sammeln. Nur noch einmal. Ihr kennt das. Wirklich gut umgesetztes roguelike, dass sich nie unfair anfühlt, immer nachvollziehbar ist, ein wahres Effektfeuerwerk entzündet und einfach Spass macht! Absolute Kaufempfehlung, vor allem für den geradezu lächerlichen Preis!

Argos
Argos

- The game has build in recipe system but tells nothing about it. No recipe description, no information of what crafted item will do. Very bad, awful. I could not even imagine how people could make such a decision to completely ignore any descriptions of what their game do. You have to read that on a 3rd party website or scroll through steam release notes, to see at least some information.
- Limiting amount of skills in a rougelike grinder is bad, like actually limiting anything, learn from Rogue: Genesia, they have done it much better.

Sothe
Sothe

The game is kinda fun, but has some easily noticeable issues, which ruins the overall experience.
Some game breaking bugs:
-Being able to drop 2 new weapons when you only have 1 slot available, and if you try to keep both the game will only give you one, so one drop gets wasted.
- Some items still get received even if you refuse them in a dropped chest, ruining your current build in the process.
- The fusion system is both poorly explained and feels erratic. Like, the holy book (totally copied from Vampire Survivors BTW), can be fused with multiple items, and if you have 2 possible fusions when you drop a chest, you can get both fusions at once and only lose the book once. I'm not even sure that's intentional.

The mechanics are very poorly explained, there is no way to know which fusions are possible, or which item will allow for a fusion, tooltips are very often useless (e.g. ice queen summon, you buy levels but have no idea what it does), or wrong (some talents say you get a 0.3% increase per point for example, then you spend your point and understand that's not the case at all).

Overall, IMO the game feels still too early in the development to be available in early access.

Doubleforte
Doubleforte

A game designed to bully you. Almost all the weapons and maps feel lifted directly from VS. Dodging does almost nothing. AOE hitboxes are strange and unfair.
HOWEVER the game is so smooth and stylish all of this means almost nothing, it's still a blast to play.

Westman
Westman

Another Clone but well doesnt feel good for me.
No matter how many upgrades you do, you feel weak all the time.
Way to much grind and not rewarding at least for me.
if you like such kind of games give it a try but for me at the current status - nope.

Rex
Rex

Very good arena survival game. It is harder than the usual, but once you start investing in some upgrades it starts to feel much better(still challenging though).
The game is visually stunning (except for the purple ring thing, I personally hate it), and the devs seems very passionate about it and willing to listen to constructive feedback. On the bad side (but I think and hope will be polished out during EA) is that despite the characters being well made and full of personality (in their design, there's no lore... yet[?]), other than their starting weapons there's nothing really unique that affects how they interact with the other spells. This game also REALLY needs a werewolf character that only transforms during nightime (please).
Overall its already good and a steal for this price, I'll happily continue playing and eagerly waiting for new content as development unfolds.
8/10

And maybe give us dwarves (ROCK AND STONE!).

Makrel
Makrel

High potential, but too early to recommend.

Crimson Dawn + Vampire Survivors = Scarlet Tower

5 hours to unlock everything and balance is currently all over place.
Ninja and Scythe deals incredible damage, but both Elfs are doing barely anything.
UI is missing tooltips so you cannot even check your current spells and what you have.
Chests are broken and give you new skills without wanting them.
Too much AoE on ground in last 5 minutes.

OmegaFish
OmegaFish

boss is impossible. nerf that shit . plain old regular level 1 :D and i wasn't even talking about death, just that puker boss. i finally cleared the whole level for the first time. maxed out upgrades, and maxed out 3 tiers of offense, 2 tiers of defense using the vampire guy. that crap was hard

Qthulu
Qthulu

As of this recent update I can finally suggest this game in good conscience. Give it a try and I think you'll be happier with a tougher but now more rewarding Survivor experience. Given time I can see Scarlet Tower surpassing Vampire Survivors in content and scope.

Monster Zero
Monster Zero

Big fan of Bullet Heaven games and unfortunately this game needs a lot more time in the oven. Floaty enemy pathing is a glaring issue that needs addressing, unless of course it's a deliberate choice, in which case it needs to be reconsidered. Many weapons are directly lifted from VS which is disappointing as well. Enemies give the impression of being very health heavy and spongy, which I feel missing the entire point of the genre, which is to supply an adequate power fantasy.

Ahti
Ahti

I got this game as of 22 nov 2022, the day of the 0.1.0 weapon fusion release.

And overall i think this game has a great baseline since this still is a beta release. but its definitely lacking in content and has some balancing issues. Regardless however for the 4$ price point i would still recommend it for a few hours of fun.

there are 7 characters, but at the moment they all play fairly the same as only 2 of them have passive effects, the only difference between the rest is the starting weapon.

You can diversify your playstyle through talents and character specific glyphs, however the summons/minion talents currently lack synergy with any available items and the ignite talents are over tuned. as they currently let you afk through the game. this is mostly due to there being little healing available within the game and the ignite heal is really good since all attacks apply it and then it spreads on its own. which in turn overshadows any of the other talents available since they are pretty much always a worse choice.

The games current strong point is its aesthetics, visuals are amazing, music is great, game runs smooth overall (except for a screen filled with DOT then the game starts to lose frames).

Altough the visuals are very pleasing they currently are also quite cluttered later on during a run. the original VS was alot simpler and didnt really suffer from this. but in this game its faster paced and it expects you to utilize a dash to dodge enemies. so its important to be able to see them properly which gets tricky at times.

i would also like to recieve all my item upgrades before lvl ups and chests start giving me gold and gems. rather then getting 15k gold while still carrying lvl 2 items. chests near the end of the run also dont open properly its either delayed or you have to walk over them mutliple times to open.

And thats pretty much all there currently is, i mean its a VS style game so its nothing too complex.

one last note: currently the steam store screenshots are showing content that isnt (atleast to my knowledge) available in the game yet. the characters only have 1 glyph instead of the 3 shown in the screenshots and the second map with the dead trees isnt playable yet either. the in game difficulty slider goes up to 10, but only 4 are currently available.

Rebbeca
Rebbeca

So I initially wasn't going to write a review. That is until the dev deleted my feedback and criticism of their game. I will now write that all here in this review. Enjoy Devs!

My initials thoughts on the game were positive, for a clone. Looks pretty and has some flash to it. But the game is super rough once you reach min 5 and beyond. The difficulty spike goes from 0 to 100 without warning and the enemies are a never ending swarm that as soon as you kill them, new ones spawn. So it never ends and there is no break. After some runs it became apparent that the game was going to be just really grindy and require immense amount of time invested just to be able to survive going from min 5 to 10. I am not interested in large time gates or grindy messes of a game. Especially when it is a clone and its predecessor, Vampire Survivor, does everything way better than this game. I say skip on this and check out others or play the original Vampire Survivors.

EDIT: HUGE WARNING ABOUT THIS DEV!! THEY BANNED ME FROM THEIR FORUMS FOR AND I QUOTE "PROMOTING OTHER GAMES" GTFO!!

Geirhart
Geirhart

Still early progress but I do like what I see, Some changes I would love to see but we will see how things turn for this game in the end. If you like Vampire Survivor you most likley want to get this.

Saturn
Saturn

I have to say this is one of the best Early Access experiences I've had thus far.

The gameplay is smooth and entertaining, but also challenging. If this is the start-point, this game can easily rival Vampire Survivors.

The only issue I see right now is that you are allowed to unlock things you can't use, like other Heroes. That's kind of a frustrating feeling, when you unlock something new and exciting, but then can't actually use it.

Anyway, buy this, support this dev, it's 100% worth it.

Oliviai_
Oliviai_

Well, i have to say this game may probably be the best survival-like game in my heart. It contains many elements, but it also has its own sparkle. Love it so much!the quality of the game, the art is definitely the top in my heart!
Keep updating, and i believe it will be best-selling in the following days.
as for me, i have some personal suggestions:
China has a large group of players and also it is a potential market. if you want to make it popular, i think a good localization is indispensable. Then i am looking forward to seeing more unique elements in the game.
加油!期待下一次越来越好的更新

L4so (Adept)
L4so (Adept)

So basically this game is very punishing for the first few hours until you get upgrades, once you start beating it gets really satisfying if a bit easy, the devs are updating very frequently and adjusting to player feedback well which is nice, definitely join the discord its a good time also if you didn't already play mists of noyah do that its a banger

Critzngritz
Critzngritz

Starts off very challenging. Once you farm up some coin and get some stats the game becomes much more enjoyable. Only complaint is i keep killing the grim too fast and don't actually make it to minute 24 for the achievement. :(

Edit: Was finally able to not kill too fast get the achievement to unlock the other maps, assuming they are not actually released yet I will wait to update this more later.

h3.
h3.

A strong horde survival game that feels very similar to Vampire Survivors. Bold to price above it. However there is a lot of content here, some gaps & 'coming soon's that are a bit disappointing but the developer seems to update the game frequently. Meta-progression seems pretty good & you do start off pretty weak in the initial runs but not to the degree that you are immediately flattened, definitely compels you to return to the game particularly to progress through the 'talent' tree to discover new buffs.

As it stands of all the survival-esque games I've cluttered my library with as the genre has taken off this is currently the one I am most keeping my eye on along with Rogue: Genesia. I've found that with a lot of these games after a handful of runs you can feel pretty 'done' & not particularly interested in returning to play further. So far this one has me wanting to keep going.

Will be interesting to see where the dev takes this one, some more weapon/upgrade variety would be nice, and it could do with differentiating itself more from VS. At times it feels a little too much like a clone.

Aizen Onimaru Rem
Aizen Onimaru Rem

A little rough starting out playing, but that's how it is. Ya gotta learn how the game works and then it'll be fun.

The problem i have is upgrading spell when it is maxed level. I am still unsure of how I even got an evolved skill.
I would like a list of information on those ingame so I know what I would like to choose.
Health pickups arent strong but the human traits that gives them regen at certain health threshold is a live saver!
and other upgrades as well to help you stay alive.

armor and movement speed upgrades are definitely needed to outrun aoe and fast mobs or boss
I would like auto aim to be removed especially for the character with wand/staff. it is a problem to kill one boss quickly because of auto aim

Vaeovis
Vaeovis

Pros:
- Gorgeous pixel art with beautiful animations
- Incredible varied roguelite progression - there are offensive and defensive talents, passives, power ups, racial traits, and other additional unlocks to obtain, along with many different unlockable characters
- The runs, so far, feel quite satisfying and progression feels like its moving forward at an appropriate speed
- Option to unlock or lock auto aim at a whim
- Unique day / night cycle with associated changes in enemy groups, additional currency drops (and like more I haven't discovered as yet)

Cons:
- Some descriptions in the upgrade menu could be better fleshed out - for example, power ups do not explain how much of a boon you will obtain until you actually upgrade the selected item. Minor detail at this time that I'm certain will be corrected.
- I honestly can't think of anything else - I've had a lot of fun so far!

Overall, a beautiful pixelated VS clone with incredible roguelite progression. The devs seem very involved, are frequently updating, and appear to be engaged with player feedback. I would highly recommend!

Mdage
Mdage

Give it some time to mature. There's still a lot of balancing work to be done and the gameplay is rather punishing unless you have a bunch of upgrades under your belt (read grind required). Very few tooltips and explanations for a pretty much everything. Needs a bit of work but might get there...

Slickdeviant
Slickdeviant

Game winning build here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X9vBCLzz04&t=1771s

Positives: The game itself has some nice elements such as bat transformation and the ability to enhance character traits through race. As the game stands, I would say it's not a bullet heaven in which you reverse then dominate late game but more of a bullet hell as you'll constantly be running.

Critiques I think the 1st spitter boss destroys 90% of players as the aoe attacks trigger too quickly and the plant circle needs a nerf on damage it causes to players. Why plants? perhaps something else as plants are a direct copy of vampire survivors. To survive you must have high agility/speed trinket or else you will get destroyed by boss aoe- what if you don't want to do a speed build? = you can't outrun the boss attacks and die immediately.

All and all the game is getting updates, however it needs some change to pull in casual players which will increase the playablity/replayability

APE[RIZM]
APE[RIZM]

progression is slow at first but it opens up once you start using all the different powerups and other modifiers. Just be ready to grind a lot initially but then its fine.

Cant wait to see what 1.0 will look like :)

Noodles
Noodles

Fun, but plagued with issues. As usual, I wish there was a Neutral review.

I've cleared the game at Corruption 4 several times now, and while it's fun, there are a lot of issues. Balance is atrocious, many of the tooltips are incorrect, and several weapons and talents do not work as advertised. I'd give the devs some more time to figure stuff out before purchasing the game.

haden.savanti
haden.savanti

A shoutout to Splattercat for highlighting another game! Not a clone of VS, but using some of the same items because they are classics. Original looking sprites, amazing sound design, super tight hitboxes and some very well done ideas to come down the road. I eagerly look forward to what this game becomes, I'm already having fun with what there is so far.

Helios
Helios

It is a very early access game but there is more than enough content to warrant a purchase. There are a few balancing issues that can be fixed very easily, but the game is still not as hard as I thought based on some of the other reviews. The art style is more enjoyable to me than Vampire Survivors and I think the upgrade system is much better than in VS, however I hope they add more enemy variety and add more textures to the map.

GodEater
GodEater

So far i absolutely love this these types of games, i hope the updates are rather quick but so far it took me 8hrs to unlock everything, actually i have to kill a few more silver werewolves but there gonna die so yea.... but i hope there are a lot more secret unlocks to found later on hopefully more characters, but i think if your into this genre it would be a good buy

dandrews2288
dandrews2288

I really enjoy the horde survival type games and this one is great. I recently have conquered everything that Vampire Survivors has to offer to date and wanted to try something similar but different. I saw Never Nathaniel playing a bit on YouTube and decided to give it a try as another $5 game in this genre. I know it is early access so there is still much more content I am hoping to see but what we have so far is really good! I like how the mobs tend to behave as they are not so much just directly rushing at you and have a bit of a delayed response to your movement. This creates this kind of back and forth sling shot style movement which is a little different compared to other games. I like the overall appearance and theme with the Gothic styling with a touch of anime.

All the characters are distinct with their own personal weapon and unique abilities and passives which encourages varied play styles across the characters. The power up tree is the typical tiered buff system that is applied to all characters you play but the talent tree is quite nice. There are up to 5 tiers of defensive talents and up to 5 tiers of offensive talents with 3 selections in each tier that can each be brought to level 5. This, for me, is where the creativity of desired play style and variety of character nuances are combined in a way that makes this survival game stand out. There are quite a bit of ways you can put these talents together and also min/max to each particular character depending on what they do.

Another part I liked were the weapon evolutions and fusions, similar to those in Vampire Survivors except I don't think accessories are required to evolve weapons, however, combinations of max leveled weapons will fuse in the same way. This is still in it's infancy but has a lot of potential to be fun in a way that I am familiar with.

Final verdict of my first impression: Very fun! Definitely worth the $5 if you are curious and if you are on the fence about it maybe just keep checking up on the updates as content is added, don't give up on this game just yet!

JimboTCB
JimboTCB

Fun game but the balance is kind of all over the place at the moment - once you unlock some of the better characters and items and get some points invested in the talent trees, you can pretty much steamroll the rest of the content with extreme ease. A few annoying bugs which will hopefully be ironed out, and lots of characters who are missing passives and other unlocks, but it looks and plays a lot nicer than a lot of other Vampire Survivor clones and has the potential to be very good.

Greyed
Greyed

Vampire Survivors kicked off a new genre of game, and this is a competent second entry.

Dodge creeps, kill creeps, pick up XP drops, level up, choose upgrades, rinse, repeat, survive until the end of the round. Spend gained loot on between round meta progression and do it all again.

It is a nice, zen like experience that expands on the genre. It is early days and the game is incomplete. But the Dev is cranking out updates and a great pace and the game is very much in a playable state. Not bad for a fiver.

Mortac
Mortac

Fun and worth the money, but there isn't much content or progression right now. I've played for about 6 hours and have unlocked nearly everything in the game already except for the highest difficulties on the single map that is available right now. There needs to be more progression or there's little use in collecting further resources. I still recommend the game because it's easily worth €4 and the game is still in development.

barger01
barger01

I love this game! Coming from vampire survivors, this feels different enough. I love the art style, its 2d style is cute but the effects (lights, particles, powers) have a nice glow and ambiance to them. The gameplay loop is fun, love the day/night cycle and level up mechanics. Each new update adds new abilities, fusions, passives - I am looking forward to more maps and hopefully a limitless mode, to further upgrade ability passed the max currently available. I am max level for my characters, with all talents that I can buy - so I hope to see more to spec into that makes me want to keep coming back. Def recommend!!

NinjaCooil
NinjaCooil

Perhaps the most enjoyable "Vampire Survivor"-like game I've played other than VS itself. Very stylish characters that all feel like they play differently enough. Great music, and visual effects. Lacking a bit in the items department, but I suspect that won't be a problem for long. Very very fun and worth it!

RanDan
RanDan

Lovely title that has solid variety in characters and a good deal of perks and items to fiddle around to find a play-style that's engaging for you. The Devs a frighteningly fast with their updates, making this one of the games I have fun playing through the stages of Early Access as there is always something new around the corner to try and integrate into your runs.
I'd say it's more than worth it's money, especially given how it keeps getting better so far :D

Apokalix
Apokalix

Artstyle is great. effects look good. hitboxes are sht. passives don't work AT ALL. progress is super slow. it becomes really hard super early. upgrades are buggy. for example level 1 frost staff pierces infinitely but at level 2 disappears after 1 hit. I've been watching the damage numbers and you can upgrade weapon lvl 5 multiple times but the damage don't really change.

THIS SHOULDN'T BE IN EARLY ACCESS AT ALL.

ХУАН_ДИГ
ХУАН_ДИГ

-Edit-
I can tell the devs are putting in alot of effort with patches and bugfixes.
While there are still some big performance issues, the visual polish of the game is undeniable.
Keep in mind that the game is in early access.

-Old-

The game has alot of bugs and performance issues but I see alot of potential.
Wait a bit until the bugs/issues are fixed.
Keep an eye on this one. I think it will be pretty good, in the future.

doomTRON175
doomTRON175

***Update as of 11/12***

In its initial state the game was difficult to recommend. Problems with hitboxes and drops, general bugs etc.

But the past couple of updates have really this game into a much better state and after having had some more time to play around in it I can safely recommend this game.
While its not wildly different from other games in the genre, its got a very great aesthetic and a set of characters drawn from previous games from the Dev and I expect we'll get more with later updates. Really enjoy the high mobility aspect of this game, enjoy that enemies have a sort of heaviness and momentum to them that I haven't seen in other games which as a kind of novelty to training them around the map. While more will no doubt come, its pretty great as it is. And the dev is one of the most responsive Ive come across. Excited to see where it goes from here.

Thoglom
Thoglom

This game seems like it has a lot of potential. Out of the other games like Vampire Survivors, this one definitely seems a bit more challenging. When some of the enemies are behind the trees, it's hard to tell and you take quite a bit of damage. The hit boxes feel a bit off too. I'll recommend this game, but hopefully they make some improvements soon or else this may just sit in my library.

BugTatters
BugTatters

I would like to see this game succeed, as the base concept is really good. Execution needs a bit of tweaking, as movement and hitboxes feels a touch stiff compared to other "Magic-Survival-Likes". I think some people might have a bit of a hateboner due to the devs questionable work on some aspects of their other game, Mists of Noyah. This becomes a double edged sword, as, people are right to have their suspicions, but it should also provide the impetus for devs to really refine this game into something special.

Phalange
Phalange

Works just fine on Steamdeck since the last patch. The game also shows a lot of potential for who likes this genre. I like the graphics which are inspired from Castelvania Aria of sorrow on GBA but the music could be a lot better. Now I hope the devs will deliver some stuff of their own and deliver some nice skill combo, evolutions, loot etc...

> First month of EA 7/10 looking promising.

Juneend
Juneend

My opinion about this game is mixed. It has some positiv and negativ things in it. On the one hand it looks just like a Clone of a Vampire survivers. Some abilitys are the same and stuff but when you look deeper in it you will see some systems that are entirely Different. I didnt play much games like this but i can say for sure with the ones i played that its Different. It has some Bugs but the Devs have a Semi active Discord. Semi because of the lack of ppl that interested in the game itself also to give it a shot. All bugs that i reportet in the discord were Fixed and the Devs are Working on it. Cant say that about every Dev Team that they active work with the Community to make the game better. Also it's a pretty grindy game at the moment so if you dont know what todo wiht your freetime give it a shot.

Holy Pow
Holy Pow

Okay so I bought the game when it came out and in 2 days it's gotten much much better, when I first bought it I was going to refund it but I waited and I'm glad I did, if this is how it continues to go I'm going to be very impressed with this game when it's done!

Lyisse
Lyisse

ok it's hard, and raw
and a little buggy, but there are daily updates and Devs who listen to the community, I literally posted an idea on discord in the morning and at night it was in the patch notes.
In the end, buy it, you may think it's bad now, but in 1 week it's another game.

Cucho
Cucho

Good game like vampire survivors style, still need some improvements but it`s very fun to play.
lucky sistem is not the best but some weapons have unique style and the developers are fixing problems and updating every day
Good and fun game

Son of Satan and Law
Son of Satan and Law

A very good game me and my friends are constantly playing since launch. The graphics are unique and this is not a copy of Survivors genre but a game with it's own innovations. This is the World of Warcraft of survivors genre.

Lurker
Lurker

In it's current state it's basically "unplayable". Why in quotationmarks? Because you 'can' play it but you most likely won't have fun doing it.
The power-curve is extremely lackluster and with reaching minute 6-7+ you're basically on your backfoot and try to hold on as long as you can without really feeling "stronger" than from minute one.

Compared to the other "Survivor"-games this definitely has the roughest start so far.
Let's hope they work on this quick and fast, because the potential is there.

Falcon
Falcon

I'm going to give thumbs up just because I think this game has a lot of potential. Right now it's a bit too grindy, but that's easy to fix. See my detailed views here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nMAW77k1R8

Raithe
Raithe

First of all, it is necessary to consider that this is a game in development. I'm sure new additions will come over time. To be honest, I can say that I played with pleasure even as it is. You should definitely try this game. Yes, although there are many games of this type, the important thing is whether the game gives you a good time or not. This game gives enough even as it is.

Note to the developer: It's unclear what some abilities do. It would be nice to have a note explaining what little benefits it gives.

FragileGlass
FragileGlass

Out of all the horde survival games, Scarlet Tower is among the most visually beautiful and sound design is very good. This isn't a mindless horde battle, you need to be awake. Even when you get to a powerful damaging run. You still need to be awake. The environment hates you, the enemies hate you, and time hates you. The VFX are easily enticing you to feel like a god. One wrong move. DEFEAT!! This is a game for the Git Gud crowd. Your poor controller will become familiar with the death grip. Or, your keys and mouse will experience the tap of death. Fun as hell. Souls-Like crowd rejoice.

The developers of the game, are also a big reason to buy this title. They are active, listen to the community and very eager to build the best possible game for the genre. I highly recommend putting this in your library and join their Discord channel.

MythicFox
MythicFox

I've only played a bit of this, but I can see the potential here. The meta upgrades (those that are permanent between runs) are quite costly, the difficulty curve is VERY high (Barely killing 3-4 enemies an attack out of swarms by minute 8) and while if this were a finished game I'd drop it quickly, it's very clear this is in the barebones stage of development and with some time and effort it could be a great game. Visuals are stunning, and the beginning of the game feels very satisfying to play, but again by minute 8 it feels like you're barely doing anything. It would be cool if it were possible to beat the game barebones without any meta upgrades, even if it were extremely difficult. For those who like the bullet heaven genre (survivors-likes), keep an eye on this one. Might not be the best out there now, but it could be later.

max.schad03
max.schad03

I like the system with racial talents and that it switches between day and night I would like a few more Charackters and talents because I like to "collect" talents etc. .But there are also things that bothered me like the texture of the trees on the map you could see enemies behind the tree and one time i started the Game and was stuck in a tree and i could only get strange weapons which i never saw in the Game before. In the end i wish for more content and a few fixes but it's only early access and so i hope for more in the future.

hotsause81
hotsause81

Has a lot of room to grow. Main problems are level of difficulty ramps up fast can't get past 15 min. Enemy movement is odd they seem to ball up a lot and when off screen they just reenter from all sides. Hard to manage the mobs. Healing is very limited and to little is given back when you do find it.

I have faith it will come around. These style of games are kinda my new crack so I hope they fix these issues soon. I will not refund $5 can go to hopefully a great product in the end

I am giving a thumbs up now because of a responce from team. Most companies would not do that.

games
games

Entertaining and addictive! Even in this very early evolution, there's a lot to progress through. It's difficult, yet, rewarding. Sure, there are some kinks to iron out... but the dev team is very responsive and have been pumping out quality updates.

I don't often post reviews for stuff. But for this, I've been hooked.

Happy Avocado
Happy Avocado

Being a big fan of Vampire Survivor and trying out other games related to VP, I found Scarlet Tower to be quite enjoyable while other similar games related to VP I felt kinda eh it was $3-5 ill get my money worth out of it. I don't have a long play time at time of this review but feel I have a quick eye to know if the game is for me or not off my preferences fairly quick.

Spend the $5 its worth it.

P.S. - Hey Developers! I don't know how to leave feedback for this game but if you are reading this - When you level up but spam clicking as you do, please adjust it to compensate for spam clicking followed by accidently clicking a skill that you may or may not want.

- When you upgrade a skill at character select, for example it'll show 100g to upgrade it, if you stay hovering over it it continues to say 100g instead of the actual amount to go from 1->2, 2->3, etc. You have to move your mouse curser off the skill then back on it to see the next true value to upgrade.

- When you obtain an ability or start with it based off your character, can you make it so if you hit escape and hover an avatar it says what it is?

FanOf_TheDeep
FanOf_TheDeep

So far very impressive. Great pixel-art graphics and a very nice gothic artstyle, if you like Castlevania, you will love it.
Gameplay is based on the survivors type, pretty fun, can hook you up for many hours. Only difference is you don't need a specific passive items to evolve a weapon, just level the weapon itself to 5. Soundtrack is neat too.

lunatic youtuber
lunatic youtuber

really fun game, I would say this is definitely more difficult then your standard auto battler game. If you are able to beat the first map without upgrades and perk upgrades, you are a legend. Very hard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qg_F3i2lKA