Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - Aujourd'hui 00:01

Achilles: Survivor – Preview

It’s most definitely not our first rodeo when it comes to (p)reviewing Vampire Survivors clones, and we have a feeling it won’t be our last time. We featured quite a few titles over the course of last year, and some managed to impress us and became our go-to titles if we wanted to unwind, while others proved to be rather underwhelming or outright rubbish. Today we are looking at a spin-off Survivors title of Achilles: Legends Untold, and we were rather curious to see how the action RPG survived its transition to a Survivors-like experience. Achilles: Survivors is currently in Early Access on Steam. In terms of presentation, Achilles: Survivor immediately stands out thanks to its fairly polished 3D visuals and its adrenaline-inducing soundtrack. While you can spot some graphical inconsistencies here and there, the game already looks quite good. We do hope some more area variety is added in the future, but other than that, this is one of the prettier Survivors-like games out there. There is also a bit of story value present, as the start screen already paints the picture of what has transpired, and before each stage, there is also a text blurb in the stage select screen. It’s a simple way of delivering the story for those who are actually interested in the lore. It’s a story that revolves around Achilles, who was resurrected by Hades to be used as an expendable soldier against the other gods. When Achilles was no longer needed, he was once again banished to Tartarus, but decided that he wouldn’t sit around idly undergoing his fate. In a God of War-esque fashion, Achilles is now taking on hordes of monsters from the underworld, while also freeing other souls to join his fight. For the most part, Achilles: Survivor is a by-the-numbers Survivors clone where you run around, automatically attack enemies to gain experience, and choose upgrades and new skills as you level up. New skills are only available at fixed levels, much like Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. While this does ensure that players get additional skills and not just random power-ups, it also limits the feeling of having a lucky run and becoming extremely overpowered thanks to extra skills. One mechanic we did very much like was the fact that you could build structures. The game has mines you can construct to gain building materials, but you can also build defensive structures that allow you to upgrade your skills (every five levels), heal your HP, attack enemies, and so on. It’s an original twist that does add a few strategic elements to the mix. On top of that, every stage also has a few optional objectives you can complete to earn bonus materials or passive upgrades. Even though Achilles: Survivor already feels like a very polished and interesting Vampire Survivors clone, it does already show a few kinks that we hope will be ironed out in the future. Two main issues stick out, and those are the limited upgrade options and the fact that all characters are exactly the same except for their starting skill and base stats. The latter is probably the one that could damage the game’s longevity. We were quite stoked when we saw the diversity of the characters, and we couldn’t wait to try them all out. Sadly, when doing so, our excitement quickly wore off. We were always offered a new character with different base stats, such as having more HP, being able to construct structures quicker, and so on. This was a nice change of pace, as well as the starting skill these characters come with. Sadly, when we hit level 5 to choose our second skill, we were offered the exact same skills as the other character(s) were offered at level 5. This eventually made us pick the character with the base skill we liked the most to then further play the game with, ignoring most of the other characters Achilles: Survivor had to offer. This is then directly linked to the limited passive upgrades, and it would have perhaps been nicer to also have character-specific upgrades you could unlock with rewards you reap during runs. By doing this, characters would feel more unique. We do hope some changes happen in terms of character abilities and the current passive upgrade options. Performance isn’t up to snuff either, as during the final few minutes of a run, frame drops become a lot more frequent. Conclusion Achilles: Survivor is well on its way to becoming a very interesting Vampire Survivors-like experience, but some kinks need to be ironed out, and hopefully some additional content will also be added down the line. The gameplay loop proves to be highly entertaining, and the ability to construct structures is an original twist that makes things quite a bit more intriguing. Sadly, the characters do not feel unique, except for their base stats and starting skill, and the current upgrade tree feels a bit limited. Even so, for an Early Access project, this one is already worth looking into.