Hero Survival from Sometimes You and PigeonDev is a fast-paced arena-style auto-shooter now on PS5. Check out our Hero Survival review!

 

Hero Survival from Sometimes You and PigeonDev is a fast-paced arena-style auto-shooter now on PlayStation 5. Yes, it’s a game that will remind you of Vampire Survivors since you’ll be controlling a character that will gain access to different pieces of equipment while progressing through increasingly more difficult waves of enemies of all colors, shapes, and sizes, as you go over the roguelite gameplay loop on offer.

This particular publisher and indie dev combo has previously given us a handful of games for PlayStation hardware, such as 2D action platformer Witchcrafty on PlayStation Vita – which happens to be one of the last set of PS Vita games ever released! – the challenging puzzle game Dungeons & Bombs on PlayStation 4, as well as retro-styled 2D platformer Awesome Pea 2 on PlayStation 4, so Hero Survival is certainly a different type of experience!

 

Since your character’s currently equipped weapons will shoot automatically at whichever enemy is closest to it, all you’ll have to worry about is using the left analog stick to dodge as needed to avoid the monsters from cornering you and ending your run. You’ll find ghosts, werewolves, huge versions of Frankenstein’s monster, giant headless knights, vampires, magical pumpkins, skeletons, and more to defeat during each wave.

After leveling up once, you’ll get to choose a class for your character. You could go with the Gunslinger, who focuses on making the most of the guns it gains as you progress further and further. The Bomber has a chance of a bomb spawning after defeating an enemy, which will then explode and deal damage. Your last option is the Cryomancer, a very useful class that has a small chance of encasing an enemy in a huge block of ice, thus stopping it from moving. Once you upgrade that skill, you could end up freezing dozens of enemies at once!

Leveling up your character will allow you to choose one of three skills to aid you on your adventure. You will get to choose from skills that are specific to the class that you’ve selected or from more generic skills that all characters can share, but that will only last until the next time you level up. These include gaining a speed boost so that you can more easily avoid enemies or being able to get more gold for each coin you collect. You could also get a health boost to heal your wounds.

Whenever you complete a wave, you’ll get to either choose a new weapon to equip on your character’s four available slots or an accessory that will boost a stat or boost a stat while lowering another one. I suggest you first fill up all four weapon slots before you start considering substituting this weapon for that weapon. After you have four weapons equipped, you might want to switch the starting revolver for a more powerful but short-range shotgun or add an SMG in there to deal short bursts of damage.

As you defeat the hundreds of enemies in each wave, you’ll notice that some of them drop coins. Along with defeating enemies to gain experience and level up, collecting coins will be a must if you want to make some progress during each run with Hero Survival so that you can defeat the Devil during the final wave. Coins can be used to unlock more powerful starting weapons so that you can slowly but surely have an easier time disposing of the first handful of waves in an arena. Coins can also be used to unlock additional characters.

The game has a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy waiting for you to add it to your collection. The list includes 5 Bronze trophies, 11 Silver trophies, and 7 Gold trophies for you to work on. The trophies will pop for defeating 100, 250, 500, 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, 10,000, and 20,000 enemies. Another bunch is for getting your character to levels 10, 20, 25, and 30. There are also trophies for unlocking each of the additional characters in the game, as well as for defeating the boss in each arena, who arrives on wave 10.

Hero Survival is a fast-paced arena-style autoshooter that will definitely remind you of games such as Vampire Survivor or REMEDIUM: Sentinels, which we got to review on PlayStation 4. As you try to survive through each wave, learning how each enemy behaves and how elements in each arena can get in the way, you’ll collect coins to be able to unlock new starting weapons as well as additional characters to play as. Hero Survival is out on PlayStation 5 with a $4.99 asking price. There’s also a PlayStation 4 version of the game available as a separate purchase for the same price.

Disclaimer
This Hero Survival review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Sometimes You.