[[2026 Games]]  ## 2026-05-03 It’s like condensed into videogame form. I don’t have much to say about this game other than to play it. And also that it, weirdly enough, is similar to my favorite card battling game of all time, [[Thoughts on the Baten Kaitos Origins Battle System|Baten Kaitos Origins]]. Similar to that game, you use the numbers on cards to start combos, and use wild cards to extend those combos as long as you possibly can. The crawler synergies are a ton of fun, and it’s very easy to break the game once you start figuring out its rules. It took me about 25 hours to do everything, and it’s interesting to see that people complained about that being a “low” number. Gotta be an instance of people forgetting what the original [[Vampire Survivors]] was like, before it got a billion updates. It’s also a more “actively” played game, which makes a difference in playtime — even after you break the game, you still have to figure out what you’re going to do each turn, as opposed to just setting the controller down and letting the game play itself. There are a few QoL things that I’d like, like sorting your hand and deck to better see combo potential, but none of those niggling issues stop **Vampire Crawlers** from easily being one of the best games I’ve played in 2026.