HoloCure: Save the Fans! | a Review
originally published on 13/12/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the vtub– The rum-tum-tuber, G.E.M.Simov, a plant stuck in the ground, here to tell you about “HoloCure: Save the Fans!”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
HoloCure is a horde survival game that appears to be heavily inspired by “Vampire Survivors”. However, the fact that it is heavily inspired by that game does not mean it is the same - on the very surface, it could be argued that they are similar, and on a very fundamental basis they are very similar, but when the mechanics start being considered, there are vast differences.
Let’s start with what is similar. The game revolves around the Player using a great number of different Characters to play through Stages, in the process unlocking new Stages, collecting HoloCoins and unlocking other new things.
Due to the fact that as of this point the game is still in development, even if it is not labeled as Early Access, it is likely that there will be more and more things that get added to it, however I am doubtful that those things will be new mechanics (I could be wrong, though) as a result of which I am going to say that there are 38 Characters, out of which 5 are available at the start of the game.
To play the game, the Player needs to pick a Character, and then that Character will be treated as the Player Character (PC). Having done that, the Player selects a stage and the PC winds up dropped in the middle of an endless (in dimensions) stage.
There is a bar on top of the screen, empty, but as it fills up it is blue, which showcases how much experience relative to the required experience for a Level up the PC has. Underneath that, on the upper left corner of the screen (the Player’s left) is situated the inventory and the PC’s Health-bar, showing both the current and maximum health of the PC.
If the PC’s health drops to 0, the Stage ends with a loss for the Player (unless the Player is playing on Endless mode, in which case the Stage just ends). The inventory features 6 slots for Weapons and 6 slots for Items. In addition to those, the inventory also starts featuring (once unlocked by being purchased with HoloCoins): 3 slots for Stamps and the bar for the Character's Special ability.
The goal is to survive until the timer situated centrally, right beneath the experience bar, reaches the 20th minute and to kill the boss that spawns at that moment. To do so, the Player must avoid getting killed by countless enemies that walk at them threateningly, whilst also avoiding funky ‘events’ that feature bosses (not as strong as the end-boss), walls of enemies that limit the space that can be navigated by the PC, or mobile walls of enemies that have some holes in them, allowing the Player to avoid getting hit by said walls. To survive, the Player moves with the WASD buttons and also kills enemies via Weapons (and Skills).
Each of the 5 Characters available from the beginning starts off with a Weapon unique to them, which Weapon automatically attacks at a set interval. By default, the Weapon attack fires off in the direction the PC is facing. Alternatively, if he Player clicks the mouse’s left button, a pink crosshair will appear in the direction of the mouse, relative to the PC, which will serve as the new direction of the PC’s Weapon attacks.
Killing enemies makes them drop… Arrows (or “Play” buttons) which grant experience when picked up. Enough experience collected and the PC Levels up. The PC can, potentially, level up an infinite number of times, but the number of “play” buttons dropped and the amount of experience provided is sufficient for, maybe, level 50, without any experience gain items. With items, that could go up to, say, 80 with those items. Upon Leveling up, the Player is presented with a menu allowing them to pick 1 of 4 offerings - those can be Skills, Items, Stat increases, Consumables or Weapons.
So, let’s start with what we already know. We have that unique Weapon - that is the Main Weapon for the Character - which can go up to level 7, at which point it can be “awakened”, which makes it even stronger and gives it an additional effect.
Other Weapons also have 7 levels, presenting many different modes of attack - fire a laser beam, spin a book around the PC, throw buckets of lava at random spots, raise a cutting board behind the PC. These ordinary Weapons can also be upgraded past their 7th level but only by being combined with another Weapon that is also on the 7th level. In addition to that, it needs to be a specific Weapon - not every Weapon can be combined with every other Weapon. More on that later - the key thing here is that when 2 Weapons are combined, that’s called a “Collab”, and the 2 Weapons merge, becoming 1 Weapon, taking up 1 Weapon slot instead of 2.
Skills are unique to every Character, and there are 3 of them per Character. The Character can have all 3 of them at the same time, and they provide very good bonuses (in many cases many times better than what Items provide as a bonus), so it’s generally a good idea to get Skills over items.
Then there are Consumables - those can either be 100 HoloCoins or 20% of the PC’s max health. These show up later on in the Stage, after the Player has filled up their Weapon and Item slots, though they can show up prior to that - it is a rare occurrence.
The same applies to Stat increases - they are flat increases to a certain Stat, with there being Health, Speed, Critical Strike Chance (Crit Chance), Damage, Cooldown Time (lessens the time between instances of a Weapon’s attack being fired) and Pick Up Range. A lot more common when Weapon and Item slots are filled up, very rare when that is not the case.
Lastly, Items. Items are odd, due to the fact that they don’t have a universal max level - some go only up to 1, others go up to 3 - then there are also SUPER Items, which are incredibly powerful versions of ordinary Items. The oddity with items comes from the fact that some of them have clearly defined drawbacks, while others do not. In addition to that, the super versions of Items happen to not have these drawbacks, making it almost feel as though some Items are only viable options as supers, or even giving off the impression that taking any item that is not a Super Item is self sabotage.
There’s something that needs to be said now - we’re getting back to it - and that’s the means of obtaining Super Items or Collab Weapons.
Whenever an enemy is killed, it drops the Play button. However, it also has the chance of dropping an Anvil. Anvils can be used to raise the level of an item that has not yet reached its maximum possible level, Enchant Weapons at max level (which gives them some bonus to damage, size or speed) and Upgrade Weapons at max level, increasing their base damage by a certain value.
Enchantment and Upgrading of Weapons with Anvils costs HoloCoins, and each Upgrade beyond the first has a chance of failing, increasing with every time the Weapon has been successfully Upgraded. That’s both neat and somewhat bothersome, but these Upgrades are only ‘necessary’ when trying to push for a high score on Endless Mode.
That almost exhausts the options for empowerment the Player has access to during a Stage. The last thing would be Stamps, which, much like Anvils, can drop off of enemies. Stamps can be attached to the PC’s Main Weapon, providing either a beneficial effect with some kind of drawback, with no drawback, or a purely cosmetic effect. The Main Weapon can have up to 3 Stamps equipped at a time, and each Stamp can be leveled up from level 1 to 3, which is done by using another Stamp (preferably one that the Player does not want to use). Additionally, Stamps can also be sold for 100 HoloCoins, which is neat.
Lastly, there are also Collab Anvils, which have an incredibly high chance to drop after the Player gets 2 Weapons that can be merged into a Collab Weapon to level 7, typically within less than half a minute.
Now, rounding up the things that can drop from enemies are boxes. Boxes drop from bosses exclusively and they can either contain 1 Item or Weapon, 3 Items and/or Weapons OR 1 Super Item. These Items (and Weapons) can either be in the form of level increases for Items and Weapons the PC currently has in their slots, or they could be entirely new ones. The best thing about these boxes is that they feature the opportunity to drop the Item/Weapon, allowing the Player to really control what their build looks like, and making sure they only get what they want.
The very last thing that I’m going to mention in regards to the options the Player has during a Stage is the special ability. This is a unique skill, with each Character having their own, which does something incredibly beneficial for the Player - maybe it stops the enemies and makes the PC do massive damage, maybe it increases the PC’s damage done by a large percentage, maybe it allows the PC to die and be reborn - with the only drawback being that it needs to charge up after used, which charge-up either occurs based on time or is also aided by the amount of damage OR the number of hits the PC lands on enemies.
With that said, those are all the options in a Stage. After dying, or beating a Stage, the Player might get an Achievement - those are very plentiful and tend to provide some kind of reward whenever they are gotten. Now, Achievements vary from leveling up a Weapon to level 7 and beating a stage, or they could require dying to a specific enemy, or killing a specific enemy. Some Achievements award new Items and Weapons, others award HoloCoins.
HoloCoins, as mentioned, are this game’s currency… Well, one of the game’s currencies, actually. They are used for almost everything, and, fortunately, they cannot be bought with real money, due to the fact that HoloCure is a non-profit project, which means that obtaining them is easy and convenient.
What one does with HoloCoins is very hard to explain, because there’s a lot of stuff that gets done with them. The Player can unlock Characters with them, unfortunately through a “gacha” mechanic, which means that the Player goes to the game’s store, buys a “pull”, which is like buying a pack of Pokemon Cards, opening it and seeing what the purchaser has gotten.
Essentially, the game does not allow for a direct purchase of a particular Character for a certain amount of HoloCoins, instead requiring that the Player get lucky or spends around 5 times more HoloCoins than they would need to otherwise. It’s annoying, but it’s not game ruining. However, due to the fact that there is a Gacha mechanic, there must be a reason for it to be there - as a result of which Characters can be “pulled” multiple times, with each pull after the first increasing the Character’s stats by 1%, up to a total of 20%... Though the bonus is unclear, as a Character keeps growing in a certain value.
In addition to that, some pulls unlock different outfits for the Characters, which adds another reason to buy them. Lastly, there is an additional Currency - Tears - which allows the Player to buy particular Characters, though the process of obtaining Tears is very esoteric, due to the fact that for every “pull” that is purchased a Tear is awarded, and the cheapest Characters cost 5 Tears (for 1 purchase), which is just slightly bothersome.
The Player can also buy upgrades with their HoloCoins, which upgrades apply to all Characters. Increased health, damage, speed of attacks - pretty much everything. The Player can also buy means of manipulating the random chance element of Leveling and being given 4 options, by being able to get rid of a particular option or by rerolling the entire quartet, getting 4 new options. There’s also an upgrade that increases the number of enemies that spawn.
Now, onto the really funky things. This game offers a “house” gamemode, which features a number of mini-games and a very big number of opportunities for HoloCoin expenditure and acquisition.
That can be done through Fishing, Farming, Cooking, Managing and Building. HoloCoins are mostly made through Fishing and Managing, with the latter being a means of turning food (made with Cooking) into HoloCoins through Workers, which happens over time (and not 30 seconds of time, hours and hours, so treat this aspect of the game like an idle game). The former is a means of just getting Fish, by Fishing, which can then be sold for Sand, and that Sand can either be used to buy new fishing rods, which allow for the catching of more types of fish, or it can be exchanged for HoloCoins.
However, Fishing in this game, much like the idle game aspect of the Managing “mini-game”, is not good. It takes way too long, because first, the Player needs to click the “fishing” button. Then, the Player is forced to wait for an indeterminate amount of time until a fish bites, followed by an exclamation point over the PC’s head and the beginning of a mini-game.
The mini-game itself is not bad, though the rate at which it grows harder and the amount of effort required is obtuse - it is not reasonable for the difficulty of a fish catch to go from 3 proper inputs to more than 10 proper inputs, considering that those are the easiest and 2nd easiest fish to catch. The fact that the real Fishing mini-game is preceded by this need to click and wait more than 5 seconds is incredibly disrespectful of the Player’s time and is bothersome, because it is slow and keeps the Player away from the Gameplay.
Now, the Gameplay in question is just pressing the right button at the right time, but it is still something more engaging than waiting for the bobber to go “bloop” and to click. Regardless, the Fishing mini-game, overall, is trash.
The Farming mini-game is also quite bad, because it, much like the Managing “mini-game”, is non-existent. The Player buys soils and seeds, then plants a single seed in a pile of soil, and then waits for at least 5 REAL TIME minutes.
Cooking involves putting Fish and farmed crops into a pot and creating a dish, which dish provides stat bonuses for the PC on the next attempted Stage/Endless Mode run.
Overall, stuff in this section - the house - is very ill fitting and should have been designed in such a way that it revolves around Stage completions or Endless Mode runs. Simply put, the way it is now is very clearly inspired by the worst in games, and the timers on most things are not appropriate for the type of game this is.
Lastly, there are some oddities with the Gameplay, particularly the fact that the PC's Main Weapon feels unreasonably weak by comparison to the other Weapons that can be obtained through leveling up. It works for the start of a Stage, but as the timer progresses and the enemies grow stronger and stronger, there's a very clearly defined sensation of weakness and even uselessness coming off of the Main Weapon, no matter how upgraded it is.
That feeling of weakness actually applies to most PCs at the 18th minute mark, as the power increase of the enemies is not proportional to the power increase of the PC, leaving the Player feeling as though they were doing something wrong, even though the tools at their disposal indicate otherwise. This issue is remedied, somewhat, with upgrades, but then later Stages simply start off with stronger enemies, thus negating the remedy.
In addition to that, the PC is slow, and feels slow even after the acquisition of Items that increase its movement speed. On top of that knockback effects appear very inefficient, even when enhanced by more than 60%. It appears as though the game has some problems that leave it feeling less engaging than it could otherwise, even if the complexity that is in place works as a good prerequisite for fun.
That, coupled with the weirdness of the House, and the semi-necessity of engaging with the mechanics of the House, so that HoloCoins can be optimally harvested, is problematic enough to leave an odd taste in my mouth. 2/3
Presentation
HoloCure does not look bad at all. It makes use of a pixel-based artstyle to convey its visuals, and maintains a decently high level of detail in regards to the Characters on screen, as well as the appearance of the Stages themselves.
The Characters, for the most part, are done in a manner that focuses on making the look quirky, in the case of the enemies, and when it comes to the Playable Characters, they've got big heads and a large amount of effort put into making sure that they are recognizable. That is owed up to the fact that everything in this game is heavily inspired by Hololive, which is a prevalent vtuber talent agency.
In this game one can find a plethora of memes and references to inside jokes from the streams of the vtubers of Hololive, as well as the vtubers themselves, which is wonderful for fans of vtubers and a reason to be envious and impressed for those who aren't fans of vtubers, because their fandoms are not intense enough to make a decent game based entirely around the fandom.
Regardless, aside from the very respectable visuals of the Characters and the Stages, there are also visual effects. The visual effects vary from satisfactory to pretty cool, but they have a very prevalent problem - they become too many and move too quickly.
One thing I did not mention is that the game is bright and full of cheerful vibes, which is fine on its own, but when that brightness is coupled with quickly appearing and disappearing things, or swiftly moving objects, then it becomes a bit problematic. In simple terms, whenever the Player has more than 4 Weapons, the game starts becoming painful to look at.
That is owed up to the brightness, coupled with the fact that the effects of the Weapon attacks grow bigger and more intense with every Weapon Level and almost every Item or skill that the Player gets, creating a mess of visuals that could prove lethal for a person with epilepsy, and for those without - it will make their heads pound by the 20th minute of playing.
Unfortunately, there is no option in the settings menu to lower the brightness or to do something about the intensity of the visuals, aside from lowering the opacity of the Weapon effects to 0, which would, however, be an incredible handicap in regards to playing the game. However, this brings up another issue - visibility.
Not only does the game hurt to look at, over at least half of the time spent playing, but it also fails to show the Player what it needs to show them. There are objects in the Stages which can be walked behind, and they obscure not only the PC, but also enemies, allowing for very unpleasant surprises from said enemies. The same happens with Weapon effects - if the Weapon is not strong enough to kill the enemy in one hit, and does not knock the enemy back too far, it will instead cover the enemy up and kinda hide it, this limiting the Player's visibility and leading troubles with figuring out if an enemy is too close or far enough.
Then there’s the issue with the fact that the game is horribly optimized and by simply playing it properly it starts to lag. The framerate drops to a staggering 10, or 5, and everything goes in slow motion.
With that said, some other issues with the game's presentation would be related to information about things and mechanics. There is no explanation as to how the Player gets Tears, there is no statement regarding the event that might occur once the Player gets all characters of a "pull" pool 20 times, etc. Things that are relatively minor but are, still, bothersome.
Though it's not all bad - the tutorials provided for whatever there is a tutorial for are good and quite informative. There is not much more that needs to be known to engage with cooking or managing than what the game tells the Player.
Lastly, music and sound effects. There are a few musical tracks which are not bad, but the fact that there is exclusively one track per Stage means that the Player will have to listen to the same song over the course of at least 20 minutes, which, when done once, is manageable, but anything after that and we've got a problem. The sound effects are a lot less intrusive than that, being reasonably well done and oftentimes winding up a bit subdued by the blaring music, which is a bit loud by default.
Overall, the game does not do a bad job at presenting itself, but due to the fact it hurts to look at it, it's got some major issues. 1/3
Story
There is a very rudimentary premise, maintaining that the fans of the Hololive vtubers were mind controlled by some evil force, and the vtubers need to save them by beating them up.
Other than that, though, there is nothing. It could be said that there is room for some emergent storytelling, but that would not be as genuine as it could be for other horde-survival games, due to the fact that there is already a story surrounding the Characters.
Alternatively, the story surrounding the Characters could be pieces together through their Skills and Main Weapons, but that's not enough for anything at all. Unfortunately, there simply is no story here. 0/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? I was feeling convinced by the increased complexity and engagement required by the Player, due to the fact aiming is done with the mouse's cursor and there are usable abilities in addition to just attacking, but the fact that the visuals of the game induce headaches is more than enough to dissuade me. No matter how passionate this fan project is, I will NOt give it the Legendary Point. 0/1
Conclusion
3/10. It's actually not a bad game. It's more average than not, but due to what it is lacking it is harshly rated. Still, for fans of top-down hack-and-slash or beat-em-ups, this is a very good bet. Fans of horde-survival will also be able to enjoy it, and fans of Hololive can definitely gobble it up, though the visuals and the reliance on vtubers and Hololive as a whole could turn other people off.
I will place it in the bag of mediocrity, content to leave it there until it grows or stagnates.