***This game was reviewed on the PS5 with a key provided by the Publisher***

Trying to catch up on my backlog of these

Primal Survivors is a top-down roguelike shooter. The game was previously released on Steam and is getting console releases on the Playstation 4 and 5 (the latter of which I played on) as well as Xbox One and Series S/X.

Comps: Vampire Survivors and Army of Ruin, but if you want a sore finger

Heavy elements of Vampire Survivors with this one. The main difference is that this game is not an auto-shooter like Survivors and Ruin, you aim and manually fire your weapon of choice.
Big disclaimer up front - this is not an auto shooter. You need to pull the trigger repeatedly on your own which has benefits and disadvantages

16-bit vibes are very clean and clear on the PS5. Load times are not noticeable if they even exist at all.

Waves of enemies come along with increasing difficulty as your time climbs towards your pre-determined time limit.

Leveling works similarly to others in this genre.

What's funny for me is playing this game on the 5 when I played Vampire Survivors on my phone (oh boy did my phone battery love those 30 minute+ runs) and Army of Ruin was on my Switch. It was a different experience seeing this one on the big screen but I'll fun.

Each level earns you a chance to pick one of three randomized cards. It was very easy to stack abilities. Pick a poison attack. A few pulls later get a boon that causes enemies impacted by poison to take more damage for longer. A pull or two after that you can have the poison spread between enemies. The cards that pulled spirits were always priority for me in my gameplay.

I will say the hit boxes could be a bit frustrating. There's an extremely large Wooly Mammoth boss and they were nearly impossible to get around taking up such a large portion of the screen. Health is extremely limited even with buffs and boons.

This thing is $5 on Steam.