Monster Rush Survivors Review: Is This Bullet Heaven Absolutely Worth the 5 Bucks

Today I’m coming at you with a review of the Top Down Bullet Heaven, Monster Rush Survivors. How does the gameplay handle? Is the enemy variety good? Where does the car come from? Thoughts from my offspring, and more in this article.

What is Monster Rush Survivors?

Monster Rush Survivors is Rogue-lite Top Down Bullet Heaven, in the same vein as Vampire Survivors. You pick a character and walk around a seemingly infinite, I never found a wall, space while killing monsters with attacks that go off automatically. After a ten minute timer you fight a boss, and once you beat the boss you either go back to the main screen or pick another level to go to.

The character roster has 12 characters that all start with one of the basic attacks you can choose at level, and a unique active attack. Every character has the Blitz ability, which spawns a little car for your character to bulldoze monsters with for a short time. The main objective during a level is to collect XP to level up and Item cards that give passive items you can equip and level up from the main menu.

The Fine Points of Monster Rush Survivors

When you first start the game, you only have access to Raijin, an Orange Masked Ninja who starts with the Ancient Scepter auto attack, which emits a red beam of light that deals low damage, and an active ability that causes two pools of Grey Smoke that deal damage over time for a few seconds. Every character has the same Dash ability; they hop in a little car and drive around, causing enemies to fly into the air and sometimes hit the screen.

Lots and Lots of Items.

Monster Rush Survivors employs an interesting item system. In-game monsters drop items that fall into several categories. Weapons, Helmets, Armors, Necklaces, Rings, and Gems all fall from enemies in card form like veritable metal candy from a Piñata. Within those 6 categories lies some variance as well. Several types of Hammers, Swords, Daggers, Bows, and even Guns will fill your inventory quite quickly, and you want your inventory filled.

The other half of this item system is upgrading. You need multiples of your item of choice and some gold coins to combine and upgrade. Each upgrade provides better stats to your weapons, such as Critical Hit Chance or Health Rejuvenation. Once upgraded, these stats can be further modified by Gems, which can even add a chance at Resurrection.

The Gameplay of Monster Rush Survivors

The objective of the primary gameplay is to survive hordes of enemies for 10 minutes so you can fight the boss. The Enemies come in many flavors, such as Green Slug, Bat with a human face, Legally Distinct horned Koopa Troopa, Orange Ball with Eye Stalks, Angry Orange Mr. Potato Head, Wattie Buchan if his Mohawk was Purple and he had Melanin, and your character’s movement speed. Raijin isn’t fast. He can be made to be faster, but when you start, he’s incredibly slow. I also, admittedly, only really played as Raijin, so this entire section is from that viewpoint.

Upgrades People, Upgrades

When you load in as Raijin, you’re immediately firing slow red beams of light, the Ancient Scepter attack. Raijin’s low speed and low constitution make him more apt for ranged attacks, like the Throwing Axes or Silver Swords. My personal favorite, Shooting Star, rips through hordes with higher levels. The main problem with the upgrade system, and the game in general, is XP gain. Once you hit level 15 or so, your level gain takes so incredibly long that you hit level 15 by about minute 5, and are usually level 19 or 20 by the time you hit the boss. That’s not very many level-ups, given that you have six upgrade slots.

Six Upgrade slots to divvy up between attacks, health, shield, buffs to attack and speed, lowering of ability cooldowns, increasing of ability durations; there are a lot of power-ups. You have to prioritize. I do like this part cause it incentivizes focusing on build, really learning what your character and item choices are good with. The problem with the upgrade system is that you can also get upgrades from chests, and it will fill your upgrade slots. I’ve suffered the frustration several times of accidentally picking up a chest and filling the last slot I was saving for a Health Increase.

Thought from the Offspring

My offspring sat and played Monster Rush Survivors for a while over an afternoon car ride, and so I asked him his thoughts. I will inscribe them verbatim, “I thought the game was fun, and the monsters were cool, but I wish the timer was more accurate. I most definitely played for an hour, but the timer kept resetting when I died. 10 and a half out of 10.”

Straight from the mouth of a Babe, there you have it. Monster Rush Survivors is a decent Bullet Heaven with enough variety to entertain for a while. Overall, I’d say it’s a solid 7/10 game, definitely worth five bucks if you like the Genre and it’s currently on sale from Nintendo until July 11th. But you can also get it on Xbox and PS5.

For Total Apex Entertainment, this is Aj Day, signing off. Make sure to follow my Socials for other articles on Gaming, Entertainment, and more. https://beacons.ai/ajday