20 Minutes Till Dawn - Thoughts

[This is an Early Access Review, July 2022]

Despite the low price point, I was never compelled to pick up Vampire Survivors. From its silly, totally-not-Castlevania art style to its annoyingly long lootbox animation, I never felt like I was missing out on anything special. The player characters were as slow as molasses, enemy mobs behaved too similarly, and thirty minutes just seemed a bit too long for such basic gameplay. Of course the game has evolved plenty since release—a cursory search on youtube will reveal a kaleidoscope of psychedelic colors and yellow numbers—but Vampire Survivors always felt like it was missing something to me...

... something like a gun.

Well that's not totally true—20 Minutes Till Dawn also looks tremendously better than its spiritual predecessor. The 4-bit aesthetic is sleek as hell, using salmon pink (of all colors!) to wisely convey danger. That small touch allows players to read the battlefield, even amidst a violent storm of chaos. Rest assured, 20 Minutes Till Dawn will always get hectic, especially when you're new and unaccustomed to the visual effects of your numerous upgrades. But as long as you've developed an eye for shmupping, the game never gets too noisy—well, just make sure you avoid taking the Splinter upgrade with the grenade launcher (a mistake you definitely won't repeat again).

Speaking of upgrades, 20 Minutes Till Dawn offers a buffet of useful abilities, each of them important to at least one viable build. Of course you'll quickly latch onto some obvious favorites (I take Run & Gun, Kill Clip, and Frost Mage on nearly every run) while others may only find themselves considered in the most niche or desperate scenarios (Focal Point, Watch & Learn, Giant, and the entire Ghost Friend tree). But unless you're playing with the same character and weapon every time, you'll inevitably come across a tough decision to agonize over—especially since one wrong upgrade could cost you the entire run on harder difficulties.

More and more, I'm becoming convinced that granular difficulties à la Slay the Spire are the best fit for roguelites. Not only do they acclimate you to the game's changes one minutae at a time, but they naturally encourage multiple runs, ensuring you can't stumble your way into a lucky victory on "hard" and call it a day. 20 Minutes Till Dawn starts off fairly easy but really ratchets up the intensity, especially when standard enemies are given a minor speed boost. Darkness 15—the (current) final difficulty—forces you to experiment with different runes and upgrade pathways, which can be frustrating when you're missing that one powerup you really need, but invigorating once it all finally comes together. It's a good blend of RNG and skill, though some characters/gun combos will be notably easier to win with than others.

If there's something to criticize about 20 Minutes Till Dawn (besides elemental builds being the best and summon builds the worst), it's that each run always has the same peaks and valleys. Specifically, the second and fourth bosses will be your biggest obstacles, both of them a tense encounter that can drop your health in the blink of an eye. It's a cool challenge you have to consciously spec for... but nearly every other boss is a simpleton in comparison. In fact, the final three minutes are more or less a victory lap; if you can survive being caged in with the spinning laser blob, then there really isn't anything that can stop you outside of closing your eyes and letting go of your controller. Hell, in some rare cases you might win anyway (ah, the beauty of triple Glare)! It's just a shame that over the course of a twenty minute non-stop brawl, there's only a few memorable bits—and they're the same ones every run.

20 Minutes Till Dawn is a great game that offers considerable bang for your buck. It requires a decent blend of deft dodging and smart upgrading, promising a fireworks-like spectacle if you make it to the end. No doubt the game can be vexing when you aren't offered a pivotal powerup—speed upgrades are essential for Darkness 15—but it's thrilling to know that success isn't always a guarantee (again, at least on Darkness 15). While I look forward to seeing how 20 Minutes Till Dawn develops, I've probably had my fill for now, content to leave its banquet of bullets with my stomach stuffed and satisfied.

(Oh, and avoid Endless Mode—at least for now. It's a repetitive snoozefest that lasts over two hours, which is waaaaaaay too long for a game this bite-sized.)