I will admit, I know basically nothing about Hololive, VTubers or anything like that and yet I'm now completely sucked in by the free fan game HoloCure - Save the Fans! This is a Vampire Survivors clone made for fans of Hololive, but don't let that dissuade you, it's also a surprisingly great game to kill some time with.
You pick a character, and go through various stages to beat a boss and then move onto the next stage when you unlock it. Or you can pick the endless mode and just keep going. It's an auto-attack game, with defeated enemies dropping little arrows to pick up to level you up where you can pick from a randomised set of new abilities or character buffs. So, you know, it's Vampire Survivors in another skin. For the most part anyway, it takes VS and does its own thing with it.
Direct Link
There's various extras inside it too with an upgrade system, a sort of in-joke about gacha games with you buying extras with the entirely in-game earned currency too. Quite a lot of characters too, I counted 38 of them to unlock with 5 given to you at the start free. Again though, all of it you earn in-game, it's entirely free as a fan game.
On top of all the characters, and the many stages to play through there's even an extra part with the Holo House you unlock. This is like an extra mini-game, where you can do extra activities some of which will also give you a boost in the main stages gameplay.
So many things to talk about the design of it, because honestly it's amazing. From the different enemy waves, to the anvil that drops down from the sky to let you augment your weapons. Who would have thought that one of the best free games this year would be a VS clone? At one point I was able to create flames just by walking, and I turned my sword into a great big flame too:
Clip captured on Kubuntu 23.04
So many fun combinations you can do with the characters and the upgrade system. I'm only really just starting to properly get into the game, absolutely loads more to unlock and I really can't wait to spend some more time with it on my coffee breaks.
Really impressive stuff and it's proven popular with a peak player count today alone of 18,868 people.
Pictured - HoloCure - Save the Fans! on Steam Deck
It has no Steam Deck rating yet, but as far as I can see it works great! Performance is good, it looks great and everything I can see works as expected. It doesn't have full controller support, so you may see some keyboard icons but it still works just fine out of the box. On desktop Linux, it's much the same. No issues there and with Proton 8 it works to perfection.
Lots of unique cute characters, all with their own abilities and styles. Totally free, no micro-transactions of any sort. Great retro beats to bop your head along to as well. What's not to love about this? Go check it out and thank me later.
Check it out on Steam.
Direct Link
ssj17vegeta Aug 31, 2023
But on a more serious note, HoloCure is the best VS "clone" out there, by far. And because it's not nearly done yet (this is 0.6), we can expect it to become the bestest VS clone out there in the end, and I can hardly wait.
Last edited by Essoje on 31 August 2023 at 8:37 pm UTC
I'm now playing Soul Survivors, which was already shown here on GOL and while it is still on early access it has the nice concept of classes with specific powers(like Halls of Torment) in which make the gameplay really fun and also a retro styled pixelart aesthetic.
While you have some specifics on statistics and starting powers on Vampire Survivors, at the end of the day all weapons are available to anyone, and in Soul Survivors they are really class bound and you will not see for example an Archer power available to Necromancer.
Last edited by nwildner on 1 September 2023 at 10:43 am UTC
People always creating random cool stuff from franchise they love, which the best part of otaku/ACG culture.
I guess I should play little bit more to form proper opinion. Most likely I was quite confused during playing Halls of Torment too, especially during first fifteen minutes.
Quoting: nwildnerI'm now playing Soul Survivors, which was already shown here on GOL and while it is still on early access it has the nice concept of classes with specific powers(like Halls of Torment) in which make the gameplay really fun and also a retro styled pixelart aesthetic.
I'm bit curious, what makes Soul Survivors click for you? I played the prologue and while it was fun, it was ultimately bit forgettable.
Quoting: AnzaBased on the first fifteen minutes, Holocure just cause any addiction for me.I'm going to assume you meant that to be a negative based on the context from the rest of your post.
From my perspective as a Gameplay Andy, the true 'meat' of most VS clones are locked behind meta progression, so it's rare that you'll have a complete experience of the gameplay loop within 15 minutes - with exceptions, of course.
To remain on topic, HoloCure doesn't give your characters Specials until after you have enough coins to unlock them in the shop, and those happen to be character-defining powers. Similarly, other mutators are also locked behind the shop (with the exception of food buffs, that are locked behind meta-meta gameplay), and most weapons and items are locked behind achievements - as you can see, you are unlikely to experience the current best a VS clone has to give you until you are at least a few hours deep in then. Do with this information what you will.
Last edited by Essoje on 3 September 2023 at 2:50 pm UTC
Quoting: EssojeQuoting: AnzaBased on the first fifteen minutes, Holocure just cause any addiction for me.I'm going to assume you meant that to be a negative based on the context from the rest of your post.
From my perspective as a Gameplay Andy, the true 'meat' of most VS clones are locked behind meta progression, so it's rare that you'll have a complete experience of the gameplay loop within 15 minutes - with exceptions, of course.
To remain on topic, HoloCure doesn't give your characters Specials until after you have enough coins to unlock them in the shop, and those happen to be character-defining powers. Similarly, other mutators are also locked behind the shop (with the exception of food buffs, that are locked behind meta-meta gameplay), and most weapons and items are locked behind achievements - as you can see, you are unlikely to experience the current best a VS clone has to give you until you are at least a few hours deep in then. Do with this information what you will.
Quoting: EssojeQuoting: AnzaBased on the first fifteen minutes, Holocure just cause any addiction for me.I'm going to assume you meant that to be a negative based on the context from the rest of your post.
From my perspective as a Gameplay Andy, the true 'meat' of most VS clones are locked behind meta progression, so it's rare that you'll have a complete experience of the gameplay loop within 15 minutes - with exceptions, of course.
To remain on topic, HoloCure doesn't give your characters Specials until after you have enough coins to unlock them in the shop, and those happen to be character-defining powers. Similarly, other mutators are also locked behind the shop (with the exception of food buffs, that are locked behind meta-meta gameplay), and most weapons and items are locked behind achievements - as you can see, you are unlikely to experience the current best a VS clone has to give you until you are at least a few hours deep in then. Do with this information what you will.
That could be the root cause of the problem. Going in more less blind, it's hard to know does the game throw in something unique or is it again just more of the same. I have played demos of few Vampire Survivors clones and problem with demos that they're just small slice of the game.
I'll keep playing Holocure for a while. Halls of Torments has just got update, so that's going to take chunk of my time too.
PS: I confused Soulstone Survivors with Soul Survivors, I actually haven't played the latter
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