Survival against a vampire or two.
While Vampire Survivors didn’t pioneer the genre, it was inspired by another game called Magic Survival, an android game released in 2021. Regardless, the popularity of Vampire Survivors has allowed it to become the inspiration across a wealth of titles all looking to capture that same acclaim. While few have even come close to doing so, a few decent titles have still surfaced, providing just enough of a different concept to stand out and be fairly enjoyable experiences. While Fellowship has some allright ideas, it’s likely destined to be one of the many to be sadly forgotten, I mean… type Fellowship into a search engine and even attempt to find the game.
Fellowship follows the same auto-attacking structure that you find across the Vampire Survivor’s genre. You’ll explore a colorful and wide-open map as you destroy hundreds of enemies and eventually conquer bosses and move onto additional regions, repeating that same gameplay loop as you flesh out your team of adventurers, outfitting them with new gear to make them survive just a little bit longer. What makes Fellowship stand out, however; is that you explore as a collected group of heroes, rotating and taking formation to destroy all those around you.
Fellowship has you exploring several fantasy locations across your adventuring, defeating hordes of enemies as you collect crystals/magic gems to level up. These crystals/magic gems come extremely fast, but you’ll also need to be agile enough to move around the battlefield collecting unless you encounter items that you can collect that cause a flood of leftover crystals/magic gems to be pulled right to you. Again, this is a formula we have seen several dozen times already.
As you level up, you’ll choose from a series of upgrades that reflect the character you have chosen. You can also choose to have another companion join you instead of a weapon or ability upgrade. From rangers to barbarians and various spellcasters, you’ll build your team out of how you want that particular run to go. This is a rogue-lite, so you want to make your time count. Each subsequent upgrade reflects your team and layout, causing you to upgrade your powers and abilities to increase your odds of survival. As you can build your team out of five, it gives you a decent amount of variety and varied attacks to aid you in a pinch.
Each hero that you bring to your party has its own range of distinct skills, a colorful anthropomorphic design, and the ability to become stronger as you unlock new equipment that remains with you on additional runs. While your progression through the level dies with you, your progression as a character can live on in some ways. This allows each run to be a chance at improving your odds on the next one, making your progression a game of inches.
As you explore, you’ll track down new heroes that can be added to your ever-growing rotation, allowing for a decent sense of experimentation as you start to realize certain party combinations that may prove useful as you start to fine-tune a possible build. While the bulk of this adventure is RNG, there are some constants that you can sometimes come to rely on.
Adventuring as a party can be done by placing your companions in a formation, allowing you to take control of certain heroes or as a whole unit, allowing them to aim their attacks in a general direction. I did have to change my initial controls on the Steam Deck as it wanted to use Mouse and Keyboard as the default, but switching it to a standard controller made a world of difference, especially in the aiming department.
Apart from your standard attacks, such as a bow strike from the ranger or the magical attacks from your spellcasters, you also have synergy attacks that are powerful combo skills between your party. These vary on your team’s composition as they will unlock unique and passive synergy attacks, devastating your foes. All in all, combat is fine here, mostly enjoyable, but always feels unoriginal nd very by the numbers.
As you defeat enemies, you’ll earn gold. You can also find gold in destructible objects, but your procurement of gold is still nonetheless largely minimal. Gold is used to improve the power of your attack skills per character. This allows the upgrades you choose during combat to be at a higher level than their default. However, the costs that are associated with these upgrades can become extremely grindy, largely due to how pitiful your gold haul can be on a single run. Gear itself is also rather grindy as you can only reliably find it once you have defeated the various minibosses or the final boss of the zone. Sure, you can stumble across some in the wild, but it is remarkably rare.
One complaint that I certainly have is that the UI for your party icons is simply too small. While it is great to see more of the battlefield, the timers and health bars for your group are simply too small. I would love to see a UI slider to allow for the UI to be a bit more readable as it is next to impossible to see on the Steam Deck, let alone on a decently sized laptop screen.
Currently, the game features 8 heroes with the full release meant to host 12 heroes across 10 diverse regions, filled with more than 100 mobs that also include various mini-bosses and the more formidable bosses that will certainly put you to the test. Early access for the title does start this November, with additional content to roll out as it is completed.
The visual look of the game is certainly appealing and works well, but I do feel that Fellowship is going to be a title that succeeds on word of mouth more so than natural discovery or advertising. What is currently part of Fellowship is pretty decent without being as memorable as I think it could be. It doesn’t take a lot of risks with the formula, and while the formation system is unique, I’m not sure it is enough to really garner the game a lot of much-needed attention.
Developer - Elraim Studio. Publisher - Elraim Studio. Released - November 1st. 2023. Available On - Steam. Rated - (N/A) No Descriptors. Platform Reviewed - Steam Deck / Steam - Windows. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.