While I review indie games exclusively on the Switch, that doesn’t mean that I don’t keep an eye on indies hitting Steam that may or may not ever make their way to my system of choice. One game I remember playing earlier on PC that absolutely felt like a big deal at the time was Vampire Survivors, so I was thrilled when it made its way to Switch and I could finally give it the sparkling review it deserved. A title that made some noise on Steam last year that has many similarities to Vampire Survivors, but stands on its own, is Megabonk, which is in 3D as a start but also has its own feel even if it shares some DNA with the well-known indie mega-hit. What do you then get when you make a less technically-competent and generally watered-down version of Megabonk? An absolute case of diminishing returns.

Look, I can respect the challenge of implementing any game, and bringing it to market. Even lackluster titles took someone trouble to produce, especially when most new games bring their own ideas and design elements to the table. But what if you could shortcut that challenge quite a bit by simply taking the work of another developer and ripping it off almost completely, to the point that your final product simply feels like a weak tea, off-brand, Temu version of the original? Well, you get something like Ultra Bonk Survivors. It isn’t just the game’s format and style that’s a copy. The handling of the UI and menus is almost identical, the characters are pretty well a copy, as are the weapons and scrolls, and even the generalized layout of the stages, the design of the shrines, and how summoning the level boss works is simply a carbon copy.

The even bigger, and more embarrassing issue though? From the game’s general look to its performance, this is also an all-around trainwreck. Granted, one of my misgivings about the version of Megabonk I played was that the performance could be tricky at times, and I wasn’t always a fan of the camera. For Ultra Bonk, just multiply those concerns and frustrations by 10 and you’d begin to get a feel for the problems, and that’s even with the game’s visuals being pretty simplistic as well. In particular, the boss’s attacks struggled to render visually at all, bringing the game’s performance down horribly, laying bare the lack of polishing the game went through before being shat out into the eShop. In all honesty I don’t think games that are clearly a direct copy of others, lacking any originality or ideas of their own, should even be available in the eShop. Sadly, this is far from the first time I’ve run into this, but being very familiar with the solid original this is trying to rip off, I feel it’s my duty to call it out to anyone even considering giving this a look.