Last month, I found and highlighted a trailer for an ambitious game that sought to merge Vampire Survivors and Diablo into one enticing package. Recently, as promised, the demo for Tower of Babel: Survivors of Chaos went live on Steam. Now, what kind of games journalist would I be if I didn’t follow through on my initial find? So, I’ll come right out with it: Tower of Babel is definitely on my radar.
First, I want to talk about the moment-to-moment gameplay. So, Tower of Babel sets itself apart from Vampire Survivors early in small, gratifying ways. Yes, you’re still navigating an open area with spells and weapons flying all over the screen while you collect shards to give yourself incremental stat boosts and different abilities or weapons. But, you begin with a Basic Attack you have to manually aim with the right stick and a Special Attack you activate with one of the shoulder buttons. Having those two points of player agency does help Tower of Babel stand out from its vampiric brethren.
That added autonomy makes each run more tense. Most of your attacks and abilities are still automatic, but now, it feels less like a fun jog and more like a panicked sprint (in the best possible way). Something else I enjoyed was the Diablo-inspired loot pickups. Tougher enemies will likely drop equipment or weapons, which you’ll be able to allocate between runs. The catch there, though, is that if you’re beaten before you clear a Floor, you lose some of your loot. You can buy that loot back from a merchant, however. While the Diablo/Vampire Survivors mix-and-match worked well, I did have a few minor issues.
though it’s a demo, i’d love to see more variety in the full game
If you’re a Vampire Survivors fan, you already have a pretty good idea of what skills Tower of Babel will throw your way over the course of a run. Fire Breath, Electric Shockwaves, Spinning Blades, etc. I don’t know if I just had a weird RNG streak, but I saw quite a few duplicate skills. Also, while we’re here, I want to cover the difficulty.
Tower of Babel isn’t necessarily harder than VS. But, it’s less… clear about what your overall goal is. In the demo, you have access to the First Floor. You go up, do your thing, and the run keeps going. And going. Going still. I never cleared the First Floor — no matter how beefed-up my character was between runs.
At first, I thought it was a personal skill issue. However, when I watched a few people play the demo on YouTube, nobody cleared the First Floor. Granted, it may just be that we aren’t supposed to progress further. The devs likely wanted folks to have a taste of the Diablo-style loot and the variations you can add to your build. Just something I felt the need to point out in case y’all download the demo for yourselves and wonder why a run feels like it’s taking forever to complete.
‘tower of babel’ has the juice to stand out from both ‘vampire survivors’ and ‘diablo’
Tower of Babel has a strong proof-of-concept. There’s so much going on in the Main Hub before you start a run that I’m eager to see play into the game’s bigger picture. (The demo makes it so these features are inaccessible.) The ingredients are fresh and flavorful, but the stew needs more time to cook and allow those genre nuances to properly blend. Go give the demo a try!
The post I Played the Demo for That ‘Vampire Survivors’ X ‘Diablo’ Game I Mentioned a Month Ago — And I Have Thoughts appeared first on VICE.
