Twilight Survivors - Much better than I thought it would be!

 I have a problem.  I have a lot of roguelikes/lites.  A lot.  Some I've only played for a few minutes.  Some not at all.  And many I've sunk hundreds of hours in.  I'm not a huge fan of the anime aesthetic in most media, HOWEVER, Twilight Survivors has some mechanics that drew me in.

TS boasts a nice payload of 13 characters, 28 maps, 188 achievements, and multiple mechanics for upgrading characters and skills.  A VERY solid foundation to a well-made roguelite and survivor-like.  The characters have a good range of styles; you start with a hammer wielding anime girl, then a shuriken throwing shiba inu (I think?),  a sword wielder, a bow wielder, several caster types, and gun robot, and more.  Each has a different main weapon AND some have alternate skills that aren't a dash (although some have a dash).

The game does very well to lay out an upgrade system that keeps you playing for just that little bit more.  To start, every character has their own upgradable skill tree, using gold found in missions.  Not all survivor-likes give you class-specific upgrades, so this is always welcome.  On top of that, the Lore system gives you a couple special objectives for you to get for each character, which several levels of Lore to fulfill.  Completing these gives you bonuses like additional upgrades on the class skill tree, gold bonuses to spend, and direct evolutions to your class skills.  

Runs play fairly similar to Vampire Survivors.  Hordes of baddies come at you in progressive waves.  You have 5 weapon slots and 5 passive slots.  Every weapon has an evolved version that's unlocked by having the matching weapon or passive.  The game does a nice job of showing you what matches you already have, so you don't miss an opportunity to make a super weapon.  Maps also have a number of POIs on them, some of which give you an extra weapon or passive, allowing more than 5 supers if you do it right.

Builds can definitely vary, and I found many styles could be successful.  Not only do you have your meta upgrades and then weapons/passives during the runs, you also have 4 card slots where you can equip specialized upgrades to stats and skills.  Cards are unlocked during runs by beating bosses and finding POIs, and each class can unlock up to 4 slots by using gold.  These kinds of build layers allow for a lot of customization and synergy between types, as well as filling a gap if your preferred build needs a little oomph in a certain area.

If you like survivor-likes, I'd say Twilight Survivors is a great choice.  I really like that, of the 188 achievements, all of them seem to be tied to bonuses within the game, giving you more gold for meta upgrades for every achievement.  I also loved that round times varied.  Some as short as 10 minutes, going up to 17.   Check it out here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2788310/Twilight_Survivors/