Megabonk (2025)

It's 3D Vampire Survivors. So, you can jump over enemies. That doesn't really add as much to the game as you'd think. Because jumping over one enemy quickly means you're just landing on another enemy.

The graphics are "3D bad" in the same way that Vampire Survivors is "2D bad". And the music actually includes some pretty good tracks, often very-clearly inspired by classic games from the 8bit era & beyond.

The mechanic where you have to find the boss on the map is a bummer. You can be having a amazing run, but if the boss shrine is hidden behind some obstacle in a corner of the map you haven't explored, you might be screwed anyways. Because after a certain amount of time, a horde of black ghosts overwhelm & kill you -- kind of like Death in Vampire Survivors.

Additionally, if you absolutely hate Internet meme humor from the last 20 years, then you might despise Megabonk instantly. There's a lot of it in this game.

I got a good week of fun out this game. Then the second-stage boss ("Amonbruh"), with its homing death laser and insane 500K HP bank just started to drain on me. And I still have no idea what the "Thorns" or "Difficulty" upgrades actually do.

Megabonk is "what if vampire survivors was risk of rain," or the reverse if you like. Your objective is to navigate the map, find the exit portal, kill the boss, proceed. In the midst you'll have to fight off an ever increasing horde of enemies, and much like both, you'll select items, be they offensive, or defensive, to sustain your attempt.

A few issues crop up immediately. Firstly, movement is terrible. Most characters start off miserably slow, both for navigating, and for mobility. Can it be satisfying to hit a cool slide into a jump, or make a jank mega jump? Sure. But unless you obtain the movement speed tome, or spawn next to the portal, you can just get locked out of a successful run by the layout of the map. Additionally, you and your enemies have collision; they will lock you into place if they overwhelm you, which, especially early on, they will.

Vampire Survivors affords the player 6 inventory slots for both weapons and items. DRG:S expects you to have 4. Now, is it fair to compare games together, and to fault one for simply subverting expectations? Absolutely! This game also clearly expects you to have 4 weapons and 4 tomes. But you will not be allowed to for a while, unless you get a lucky random drop. Why? The game locks two slots for weapons and tomes behind meta upgrades. Those meta upgrades do not also lock off an increase in enemies in the waves; no, instead the player is meant to face everything at the beginning of the game in a significantly worse position.

Meta upgrades in rogue likes are nothing new; some games have had them for a lot longer than Survivor-likes have emerged as a subgenre. In my opinion, they're often not balanced for the eventual power creep they introduce, but they can add a satisfying goal to work towards. Locking your full kit behind meta upgrades, while expecting you to have that full kit, though, is a horrible decision.

I get it. You need people to play your game, play it more, and more. Much like arcades, the best way to make someone play a game again is to leave them unsatisfied- either too hard or too restrictive in the time given to make beating the game a fool's errand for anyone looking for a casual play. I can respect it for most games, but not that much for a PC game, and especially one with virtually non-existent skill expression. This isn't a souls game where direct player input matters, when it comes to difficulty. Sure, if you give no input, you'll die. But just like most Survivors, your weapons are auto aimed, and auto fired. You can influence it, but your skill is going to be expressed in dodging attacks. Which is no different to any other Survivors game.

You also want people to experience more builds, to enjoy what you've made. But in this case, again, when the game necessitates a movement tome just to make getting around not miserable, how much are you encouraged to experiment? Some things are clearly better than others, it simply is not balanced well in this regard. Your motivation as a player is to experiment is to check off a list of objectives, not anything else. Might as well when you're grinding out the silver to get the meta progression you need to actually make a serious attempt.

Finally, the game's vibes are atrocious. Irony poisoning seeps out of every pore, and aside from some visuals, nothing about the game feels sincere. The charming elements feel forced, as with the skeleton on a skateboard or ape with sunglasses- and they're place alongside stuff like magnet shrines being called "shrines of succ" the "chad" character, or all the "lol so random" text in the descriptions. I half expected this game to have an item called half-eaten cookie with the text "i made u a cookie, but i eated it o.O" The term cringe is often used just to rag on people for having fun, but again, MegaBonk does not feel sincere in it's existence, and that is what makes everything else feel so cringy. Another point against the games vibes is the "lol git gud" shite when you fail a run. Again, your inability to win earlier in your play time largely has nothing to do with how good you are at the game, yet the game clearly seems to take some pride in its completely arbitrary difficulty spikes.

If I had to boil this games vibe down, Id say this; Megabonk is like a white dude who voted for Harambe in 2016 and is proud of it in 2025, and then turns around and tells you "yeah I believe in equality, but feminists and SJWs took it too far."

Ultimately, as far as worthwhile experiences, you'd be better served playing Risk of Rain or something like DRG:S, as those games are better balanced, less arbitrary in their difficulty curves, and don't make playing them a drag. This game can hold your time, not unlike cheap fries can fill your stomach; but that doesn't make it good.

Latest viral game. Look, it can be a fun game to mess around with, and the 3d environments are cool, but this really doesn't compare to the quality or content of Vampire Survivors, even when Vampire Survivors was first released, mind you. The best thing the game does is the progression tree/achievement system, but the actual gameplay feels like a mix of a discount vampire survivors and a discount Risk of Rain. Why in the world people would choose this Roguelite when Hades 2 and Absolum were released in the past few weeks is beyond me.

EDIT: I went back to this game and enjoyed it quite a bit more, still think content is lacking and difficulty is too unforgiving. Updated from 7.5 to 8

8/10

this game has a huge contrast between how i feel while playing it and how i feel after im done playing it for the day. i recall playing it for my first 4 hours just feeling like it's the best game I've played all year. contrast that with how i feel now which is the familiar aching disgust i feel in my system processing this junk food, lol (like with other forever dopamine tasks/achievements games like vampire survivors, minecraft, and the majority of botw's recycled slop). this is drugs on me. gotta watch myself.

or, they really need to make a game like this that i have to control by exercising my body. we need a garlic like sequel to ringfit