While I suppose I applaud efforts to make budget versions of games that are more ambitious in scope, if a substantial amount of heart, or some sort of major innovation doesn’t come along for the ride the results tend to be pretty lackluster. I vaguely remember playing the original Ultra Pixel Survive, and being a bit underwhelmed by its implementation of side-scrolling survival that felt so incredibly inferior to the likes of Terraria specifically. Weirdly enough, now years later with this sequel, if anything I’m walking away even more unimpressed, if only for the fact so much time has elapsed and yet this is still so flawed.

In theory, this is a survival game where on a day and night cycle you’ll want to do some mild exploring and resource collecting while the sun is out, hopefully allowing you to prop up some defenses if you’re able, and then by night simply trying to survive the things that will be coming to ruin you. I suppose it’s simple enough, but somehow with you managing a rotating crew of 3 heroes, each of them having limited stamina for using skills or attacking, it feels unnecessarily hard. As in just having a single hero would have been preferable, which sort of undermines the ongoing action with a bit of irritation.

Worse, it feels like the developer’s assumption is that somehow people will inherently understand what they’re doing, how the game works, and even how everything plays control-wise. It isn’t that there’s no direction at all, in fact the screen is practically dominated by different gauges and control help, but that still fails to be instructive on what you’re doing in the first place. Sadly, even once you work it out, the clumsiness of the controls and just what feels like a lack of general ambition sinks this experience before it really even gets started.