I know I’m late to the party, but I recently started playing the 2022 horde survivor game, Vampire Survivors. While it wasn’t the first of its kind, its popularity did spawn a new genre. Do you know what else loves to spawn? Frogs. It’s then apt that the latest Survivors-like entry, Wielders of the Essence, is an amphibian-focused bullet heaven. Let’s hop to it!
Developed by Lavapotion, this is the second entry from the Swedish indie studio after their debut strategy game, Songs of Conquest. Wielders of the Essence is set in the same fantasy world of Aerbor, and even uses many of its assets, but is a vastly different spin-off.
You play as G’Roda, a little frogling fighter looking for his missing Uncle Rik-Tap. Falling prey to a swarm of rats, you’re saved and brought to a humble swampy settlement (it won’t be the first time). Your saviour is a mysterious talking egg called The Dormant One, who, in exchange for being fed experience gems, will teach you how to cast powerful magic. Lucky for you, your gold and other resources can also go to constructing new help-giving buildings.
It won’t be long before you head back out, face off against legions of enemies, and return one way or another. Each of these attempts are quite short, with a fully successful run taking roughly nine minutes. Back at the settlement, it’s time to feed the egg and get building. Each time you unlock a wielder or level up The Dormant One, there are a few lines of dialogue, but that’s about the extent of the story.
Like all good bullet heaven games, your controls are limited to moving around the map and facing your autoshooting weapon in a particular direction. Traversing one of five maps, you’ll stumble on a variety of traders, resource-laden control points, and buff-bestowing shrines. Special shout-out to the magnet shrine, which rapidly pulls all the missed resources to you, providing a huge IRL spike of dopamine. As you collect experience gems, you will temporarily level up and get to choose between new skills or improving existing ones. On a good run, this almost happens too frequently, as it constantly interrupts gameplay.
There are seven wielders to unlock, from the beefy tortoise P’Cha to the arrow-slinging frog Cheekham. All have different weapons, attributes and playstyles. Depending on the map and your personal preference, you’ll no doubt start gravitating towards one or two. Despite the focus on frogs, I will flag that wielders consist of both amphibians and reptiles. Are these animals closely related in real life? Not really. Do they have mutualistic relationships? Nope. But I digress…
One of the big points of difference for Wielders of the Essence is the troops system, which allows you to recruit allied creatures like burrowing acid-spitting worms or powerful mages. Just like anything else in the game, these can be upgraded at your base or temporarily throughout a run. There’s a cap on how many you can take into battle initially, but this increases as your settlement upgrades. Rasc, one of the wielders you unlock, is even focused on supporting these troops. What a joy it is to start recruiting your own small horde for a change.
What a joy it is to start recruiting your own small horde for a change.
When it comes to the titular wielding of essence, you’ll be able to use it to cast ten different spells, from Celestial Orbs to Chain Lightning. They all feel distinct and familiar in a good way, with some inspiration definitely taken from Vampire Survivors. There are three different types of essence, each relating to a type of spell: destruction, arcana and creation. More essence of the right type will let you cast that spell at a faster rate. There are also some fun synergies with the troop system, with each ally providing one or two different types of essence and therefore empowering certain spells.
Wielders of the Essence is well-paced for its size. Its incremental upgrading system makes for much kinder progression compared to other Survivor-likes. After most runs, you’re able to make upgrades that tangibly impact the next attempt. After a few hours, you’ll start to max out some of your abilities and finish all of the maps on the standard difficulty. This then unlocks harder difficulties, which eventually leads to end-game content.
Its incremental upgrading system makes for much kinder progression compared to other Survivor-likes
Regarding upgrades, improving your settlement is satisfying and a welcome place to spend time between runs, but it’s far from “base-building”. It’s more like a tangible upgrade and character selection menu, albeit a fun one. There are several easter eggs hidden across the settlement too, which adds further flair.
The pixel graphics are more detailed than Vampire Survivors but still what you’d expect from a game of this calibre. The sprites even look better in the game’s codex where they’re scaled down slightly. During a run, allies are outlined in yellow, but when things are at their most chaotic, it’s easy to lose them amongst the horde of enemies and particle effects. Does this matter? Not really; for the most part, they’re doing their thing and you’re doing your thing. All of that being said, the individual portraits of each wielder are fantastic. They give you a better feel for who you’re playing and, importantly, how cool or cute they look.
While most of the game’s elements are intuitive enough, some information about the wielders you have unlocked is frustratingly stuck behind getting the codex. Additionally, some symbols are vague and hovering over them to provide more information would be welcome. These are minor things, and given the game’s level of complexity, they never got in the way of obliterating foes.
Story via the original publisher. Read the original article
