The lightning success of Luca Galante The Vampire Survivors inspired many imitators: new games like HoloCure – Save the fans! and Halls of Tormentas well as spinoffs of existing popular titles such as Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and league of legends‘ temporary Swarm game mode.

A new competitor has arrived on the scene, and it’s pretty fun – if you’re willing to give it a few hours. Karate survivorreleased by developer and publisher Alawar on October 30 for PC, is a The Vampire Survivors-also takes inspiration from 80s action movies and especially Hong Kong action movies from that era. The game completes the brief aesthetically – the designs for the player characters, enemies and environments (supermarket, bar, rooftop, construction site and subway) look straight out of the movies the game hopes to evoke – you’ve got plenty of denim, vests and atmosphere general 80s animation style. In addition, the movement of the action is smooth and fluid, which is a must for any game that plays after the heritage of Hong Kong action cinema from the 80s.

That The Vampire Survivorsin Karate survivoryou control a character trying to, well, survive a swarm of advancing enemies. You start with a martial arts move that automatically goes on a cooldown, and as you defeat enemies with it, you gain experience. When you gain enough experience, you level up, unlocking either another martial arts move as an attack (you can have up to six active) or stat bonuses (such as boosts to dodge, block, hit damage, environmental item damage, etc. .). Defeating enemies also earns you a currency, Teeth, which can be used to upgrade your character with ailments that you can save throughout the games.

Unlocked martial arts moves aren’t the only weapon at your disposal. One of the most fun parts of the game is picking up random objects to use as weapons – bottles, bricks, baseball bats, ranks. It’s like trying to use everything around you to get through combat in a way that’s very suitable for a game inspired by the Jackie Chan movies.

I’m having a great time with Karate survivor about eight hours, but it took a while to start enjoying it. After about an hour of playing, I almost gave up on the game because I found the few actions available to me to be boring and far too limited. But I gave it another shot (because of how much I love the aesthetic and this era of action movies) and was surprised to discover how many crucial mechanics were blocked from progress.

Now after a few hours I can roll over obstacles, kick people on the other side of them, or kick objects on the ground into enemies. But it took me about six hours to unlock one of the core features of the game. Each martial arts move has a color that, when matched with other moves of the same color, synergizes for extra damage. This item is unlocked quite early. But each move also has a number attached to it, and if you order the moves in the correct order (eg red 6, then red 7, red 8, 9, 10, and 11), you’ll get a strong advantage for each move. in succession.

The entire system is only unlocked after defeating the first level boss. It wasn’t clear to me how crucial beating the first level’s boss was to unlocking one of the game’s core mechanics, and I unlocked each of the next two levels (and played through them a few times) before beating the first boss. If I had focused all my energy on beating the first boss, I definitely would have unlocked that mechanic sooner, but I was still getting used to playing the game with the limited tools available and trying out the different levels I had unlocked.

I understand the motivation behind locking things behind game progress – it’s good to unlock new abilities and features. But these feel like core mechanics integral to a good experience with Karate survivorand starting them up makes the game feel pretty lifeless at first. Fortunately, once you get past that, it’s a worthwhile addition to the burgeoning survivor genre.

Karate survivor was released on October 30 on Windows PC. The game was reviewed on PC using a pre-release download code provided by Alawar. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. They do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.