Every year, there seems to be a game that comes out and does something to really grab gamers attention, to where every developer wants to capitalize on it in their own way; From the many Half-Life style games to those aping Doom Eternal’s gameplay. This year, it seems the game to take inspiration from was Vampire Survivors. Now, we had Vampire Hunters which took the core concept but put it in first person (and, speaking personally, was one of my favorite games of 2024), so what happens when you take the concept of Survivors and, say, put it in space? That’s where Greedland comes in: A game, outside of accidentally calling it Greenland, is another fun ‘Vampire Survivor-like’ game, if not just slightly rough around the edges.
The gist of the game is that you play a mercenary, tasked with doing jobs on the titular planet Greedland while facing insurmountable odds and rising enemy forces. The story is basic and won’t win any awards for originality, but it gets the job done. I will say I am slightly disappointed there isn’t any voice acting, but that’s one thing, among others, I can let slide. This is a solo-developed game, after all, so I shouldn’t expect to hear voice acting. Tell the truth, for a one man-developed game? This is a pretty good game. I’m always jealous of those solo devs who can crank out games like this while also thinking that maybe I could do something similar, then realize I do not have the time or, admittedly, patience to code anything. Depressing facts aside, like I said, there are some things in the game I’m going to let slide due to it being a one-man development job. Stuff like the lack of voice acting and the, at times, iffy animations do show the cons of solo development, but it was never enough to hurt the game or ruin my experience. Honestly, I’m just impressed with the scope of the game and how, throughout my gameplay, I never had any major crashes or framerate drops, with it staying at a solid 60FPS, even when there were over a thousand enemies on screen at once. Admittedly, the game did get a bit too chaotic with that many on screen to where I had trouble even spotting my guy (unless I had a bubble shield on), but it’s a manageable chaos, if that makes sense, thanks to some of the equipment you can acquire during gameplay. If anything, I think my main real complaints with the game are the spotty difficulty and the upgrade system.
The upgrade system, I don’t think I’ve seen in a game before, outside of maybe some mobile titles, though don’t quote me there. So, in order to level up anything in the game, you need to level yourself up, which that’s OK. But, in order to do that, you need to complete side objectives, called Advanced Tasks, and when you complete three, you rank up (Or you can just pay the general off, which is actually a cool feature and I may have used this alot). Some of these tasks are easy to do but others are not, which is where paying off the general comes in really handy. However, even when you rank up, you may still not be able to level up anything as you may either not be at the right level or you’re out of the in-game currency, which there are two: Coins and Crystals, both of which are easily obtainable in-game and I found myself swimming in both after every level. Still, the fact that you need to be a certain level to level up a basic rifle to +1 is just an odd design choice and I don’t think I ever seen a game do this, outside of mobile games. This also goes with the modding system, though I will give the game credit that each mod does change up your character and I do actually see some substantial differences during each run with the mods. Each mod you can equip offers a different buff to your character and you can equip a good bit onto yourself to really become a superbeast. On the other hand, the armor and weapons you can get I’m not a fan. Starting with the armors, while each one offers a different active and passive ability, like Vanguard being able to freeze a group of enemies, none of them felt radically different from each other and I honestly stuck with Vanguard as his ice wall ability came in very handy throughout every level. Same goes with the weapons which is a shame because there is a good selection of weapons to unlock and play with, like shotguns, rocket launchers, and flamethrowers. But, again, I found myself sticking to a small few as they did not only the most damage, but were better at controlling the crowds. Also, the damage output on each gun just feels off at times, even when leveled up. Like, you’d expect a shotgun to be able to do more damage, yet the Laser Gun out guns it by a mile. Even when upgraded, the damage output just never felt right, except if you upgrade the weapons on a whole in the mod menu. Once I did that, I did notice some better damage output then, especially when maxed out.
Alongside your firearms, you can also obtain various equipment that can aid you in combat. These can range from a flying drone to a personal shield to an orbital cannon that can rain fire down on the enemies. Each one can also be leveled up during a play session to a max of Level 8, where you unlock its special ability and that brings me to the in-gaming leveling system. Like Vampire Survivors and Hunters, you earn XP during matches and, everytime you level up, you get a choice of four perks to select, ranging from equipment to health/armor power ups to weapon boosters, and this is where I did see some more notable improvements with the damage output. Some of the perks you can get, though, I will say are kinda weird, like one saying ‘Crystal+10’, which I never figured out how that worked (I assume you get +10 crystals everytime you collect them, but I’m not sure), or one where you do more damage if you’re standing still. That last one, despite being a weird idea, does make sense as the game progresses as you will get swarmed by countless enemies, to the point where standing still is a surprisingly viable option. During the gameplay, you can also find air-drops that can really turn the tide of battle and these range from health repairing to an overdrive that really powers up your weapon and makes it fully automatic, which really helps when the crowds become too massive.
That brings me to the enemies and, Holy Enemies, Batman! There are ALOT to eradicate! I read there max can be 20,000 on screen and, if that’s the case, then the developer achieved this ten-fold! I know it’s not such a huge big deal, any more, seeing tons of enemies on screen, but believe me. When you see just how many enemies can fill your screen at once, you’d be impressed. Yes, it’s not to the levels of Vampire Survivors, but it’s still a lot and downright beautiful to see, in a morbid way, especially once the ground is caked in the enemies’ blood. The fact that, even with the massive hordes on screen, the frame rate rarely, if ever dipped, is equally as impressive and I applaud the developer for achieving this feat. But, this does lead to a bigger issue and that is the inconsistent difficulty. At times, I found it was very easy to die during a run from being overrun or just getting unlucky with the RNG, leading to many a level restart, while at other times the game became too easy because of just how overpowered I had become. Most of the deaths I had were thanks to trying to complete an objective, like destroying eggs or scanning an area (which alone took me multiple tries to pull off successfully), though, on that note, I will give the game praise for introducing missions into this genre to spice up the gameplay. Same time, I also love how each level can actually be completed, sorta like Vampire Hunters. When you begin a stage, you’ll see a countdown timer at the top and, when that hits zero, a ship comes in and picks you up, while also clearing away all the enemies for you, which is very nice and something I have to applaud this game for doing. I’m OK with horde shooters and trying to survive for as long as I possibly can, but sometimes I do like to be able to complete a stage and not overstay my welcome.
The enemy variety is something else I should praise, which brings me to the overall look of the game. Yes, it’s basic sci-fi but the enemies are varied and I like how they change depending on the location you're in. The game features three distinct areas to fight in - Jungle, Desert, and Ice - and each of the three areas features unique enemies for that region. I should add that if you're arachnophobic, then you may want to avoid this as the desert area features some spider-like enemies and, even someone like me who isn’t arachnophobic, I got kinda grossed out by seeing these creepy crawlies. Now, admittedly, the areas really don’t scream sci-fi, outside of the times you need to do a main objective, but they still do have a unique look to them to make them easily distinguishable from each other. Graphically, on the other hand, while this is a decent looking game, the art style is generic. Not a bad generic, just a basic generic sci-fi look. Same goes with the overall sound, which is just OK, though the tracks that play when the level is coming to an end are surprisingly good. I’m reminded of those direct-to-DVD sci-fi films or something you’d see on MST3K: Nothing Oscar-Worthy but you can see the heart and effort. Still, even with that comparison, the game is stable and I never had any major framerate drops, despite all the chaos on screen. I will say some of the translations to English are spotty at times, like when I had an achievement pop up that said ‘Opened 30times Treasure Chests’, but none of it really broke the game and it was still easy to understand what to do.
I really can’t rag on this game too much as I really did have fun playing it and can see the passion the developer had when making it. If anything, most of the issues I had can be chalked up to it being solo developed. Truthfully, if this was a game made by a bigger company, then I’d be raising some eyebrows and wondering what’s going on (Not in a negative way, but more in a confused way), but it isn’t, so there’s that. Still, like I said, I see the passion in both the game and developer and, for that, I can’t be too critical of it. I mean, I could and really be nitpicky, but that’s just not me. Greedland is a fun title and one I can see myself coming back to time and time again when I need some time to kill and aliens to squash.
