Dark Point Games expands the Achilles series with a new top-down action-RPG roguelike game, Achilles: Survivor. In this dynamic single-player bullet heaven game, players battle thousands of enemies, create destructive structures, and enhance their character to become a more powerful force capable of surviving waves of foes.
The game features a straightforward lore: Achilles has escaped Tartarus and can summon Survivors for players. From Achilles’ powerful melee attacks to Paris’ precise shots, the destructive magical spells of the Pythia, or the brutal strength of the Cyclops Brontes—these are just a few of the heroes you can discover in the game. Each Survivor has distinct starting abilities, but everything else is available across characters.
Achilles: Survivor shares the same world as its predecessor, maintaining the familiar feel for fans despite being a different game type. The building mechanics were incredibly intuitive and proved invaluable during countless runs. The building was what set this game apart from one of the most recent popular bullet hell/heaven, roguelike shoot ‘em up game Vampire Survivors.
“Achilles: Survivor shares the same world as its predecessor, maintaining the familiar feel for fans despite being a different game type.”
The levelling system is reminiscent of Vampire Survivors, and the roguelike elements are something like Hades. Players collect blue orbs from defeated creeps, which provide XP for automatic levelling up. The pushback effect when levelling up is enjoyable, and the pause menu to select a skill allows players to think and plan their next moves.
The roguelike aspect is fairly simple for now; it is called “Favors.” It can be expanded later but, for the most part, affects the player’s starting Health, Armor, Dodge percentage, Luck, Power, Damage, Critical Percentage, Movement Speed, and other effects which speed up construction percentages and speed. Players can upgrade their starting trait skills using the currency Obols and use Adamant to upgrade building skills. What is great about these skills is that they carry across all playable characters, so it is not character-specific.
The types of structures to help the player had a great variety too. In tower-defence roguelikes like Endless Dungeon, you can choose from various randomly generated structures placed in different slots. They can be categorized as Turret, Support, or Challenge types. Turrets and Support structures are straightforward if you have played these kinds of games. Challenge allows the player to do things like spawn an enemy to get double rewards.
Achilles: Survivor features five main locations to play through, with five levels within these locations. Those looking to check out the Early Access content like I did will be able to play through the first two locations: Tory and Greek Coastline. Each location presented unique map layouts and challenges, providing varied opportunities to route through creeps and mobs.
In Achilles: Survivor, each character begins with a distinctive ability that perfectly aligns with their unique fighting style and backstory. I found some Survivors were a lot harder to use than others. To me, Achilles was the easiest to build up skills throughout a run. His attacks required less skill of pathing correctly and timing attacks to land a hit on creeps.
Survivors like Hector and Diomedes required a lot of this where some of my attacks were not hitting anyone. However, one of the Survivors that intrigues me the most is the playable Rooster Survivor. I am glad games like this have some element for giggles.
From a technical perspective, this Early Access experience was remarkably smooth. It is typically toward the last five or so minutes when the game’s graphics get a little choppy. This is when there are hundreds or thousands of creeps on the screen. The animation of the Survivors’ skills also adds another layer to render in real-time.
I noticed it could lead to certain skills clipping on environments, or it is a visual issue where the attack speed is so fast the visuals cannot keep up. However, the sound cues provide enough feedback that the attack is hitting and the creeps are dying, too. More on visuals, the map showing various things like Chests or Iron Mines was super helpful. Most gamers will find the symbols easy to understand, though a few may need a few tries to grasp their meanings.
Experimenting with skill synergies and enjoying smooth gameplay kept me coming back for hours. Dark Point Games’ Achilles: Survivor is a satisfying bullet heaven game, though some Survivors need better balancing. This may not be the most challenging bullet heaven game, but it has enough substance so far that keeps me coming back!
