Ground Zero Hero Switch 2 Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2
It’s no secret that here at What’s It Like, I love a great Vampire Survivors-style game. We’ve recently been spoilt for choice with a few of them, including our recently reviewed Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel. But when I heard about the Aussie-developed Ground Zero Hero, I was particularly excited to give it a try, because Ground Zero Hero promises a nuclear apocalypse, but one that looks a little more wacky and wild than your typical end-of-the-world scenario. But does this game deserve to stand alongside Vampire Survivors and the other great bullet-heaven games, or should it be exiled into the wasteland? What’s It Like? Exit your bunker, choose your power-ups and prepare to get irradiated as we play Ground Zero Hero for Nintendo Switch 2.
Ground Zero Hero drops you into a bizarre post-apocalyptic world and throws you straight into the action. There’s not a huge story to get in the way of the gameplay, with the focus instead being on surviving the wasteland, becoming increasingly powerful, and taking on thousands upon thousands of enemies… and I really do mean thousands. The game follows a traditional survivors-like format, where you run around a wasteland while your attacks happen automatically, defeating enemies and collecting the radiation they drop in order to level up. Every time you level up, you get a choice of power-ups. These can add a new ability to your repertoire or strengthen the abilities you already have. It’s familiar territory: to get as strong as possible and survive an onslaught of ever-increasing enemies, but where Ground Zero Hero starts to deviate from the usual formula is by moving the goalposts from surviving for a set period of time to defeating 9,999 enemies in order to summon the boss, and this isn’t an easy task. You will fail… a lot. Thankfully, every time you fail, you can use the coins you’ve earned to upgrade your character through its roguelike progression system, then jump straight back in and try again.
It took me a little while to get used to this format, but I have to say, it’s incredibly addictive. There’s something about watching that enemy counter at the top of the screen slowly tick down that creates a real sense of excitement and urgency, especially when you finally start getting down into those last few thousand enemies. Another way Ground Zero Hero deviates from familiar tropes is with its day and night cycle. When night falls, more powerful enemies begin to appear. For example, the first level introduces vampires, while the second level brings in werewolves and so on. These stronger enemies can really get the best of you if you’re not prepared or haven’t built your character up enough. Thankfully, you can seek refuge in a bunker, which lets you sleep through the horrors of the night and restore a little bit of health. At first, that was absolutely my strategy. As soon as it got dark, I started looking for a bunker so I could hide away from all the nasty things coming out to kill me, but as I got to know the game mechanics and became more comfortable in my own irradiated skin, I started revelling in the nightlife. I absolutely loved smashing through all these powerful enemies, because killing them gave me even more radiation and therefore more opportunities to become stronger. Eventually, fighting through the night almost became essential. If I wanted to take on that final boss, I needed to get as powerful as possible.
There were a few times where I had actually maxed out all of my abilities before I had even managed to get below 5,000 enemies, and those rounds felt fantastic. Part of that is because your abilities also have a chance to go bonkers, which is one of the most wonderfully Aussie things about Ground Zero Hero. When something goes bonkers, it’s essentially a mega attack for that particular ability. One ability, for example, has you punching the ground and sending out a shockwave that damages enemies in an area around you. When it goes bonkers, it leaves behind a massive mushroom cloud and does a lot of damage, and when multiple abilities go bonkers at the same time, particularly at night, you can absolutely decimate entire hordes of enemies while levelling up even faster.
It works particularly well because, unlike Vampire Survivors, Ground Zero Hero doesn’t have the same system of combining abilities to create increasingly powerful ultimate weapons. Your abilities are essentially what you’ve got. You can make them stronger, but they don’t evolve or cross-combine with one another. There’s also not a lot of them, which can make playthroughs feel very similar. I do hope that we see future updates that add even more ridiculous mutations and abilities to add more longevity to the core gameplay loop. That said, there are definitely specific builds you can work towards, and you’ll quickly find combinations that work particularly well with your playstyle. I really liked using the radiation ability, which reminded me a little of Garlic from Vampire Survivors, alongside vultures that swooped around me in a similar way to the King Bible. It created this almost entirely melee-focused character where, if enemies came within a couple of metres of me, they would vaporise, and it was so satisfying when the RNG went in my favour and I managed to power through a level with an absolutely ridiculous build.
What really makes Ground Zero Hero stand out is its wonderful art style. The game uses highly detailed 2D sprites that almost look like Matt Groening’s Simpsons-style artwork, combined with Fallout-inspired post-apocalyptic imagery and an Australian nightmare… and I absolutely love it. There are moments where you’ll accidentally set off a nuke, for example, and for some reason, an alien head, much like Mortal Kombat’s “Toasty!” guy, will pop up on screen and stare at you with disappointment. It’s full of offbeat humour, ridiculous animations, and a fair bit of Australiana that all add to the ridiculous charm of the game. Your hero also evolves visually alongside your power-ups. Get an extra strength power-up, and his arms start looking shredded, or choosing a medusa ability mutates your hairstyle into snakes. Should you fail, a statue appears on the end screen showing your fallen hero with all his unique mutations.
On the Switch 2, like most survival-like games, when the action gets really heavy, the performance can sometimes suffer under the weight of its own ambitions, dropping the framerate and introducing loading hitches during gameplay. While they are noticeable, in my personal opinion, they didn’t get in the way of me enjoying the game. For my Ground Zero Hero looking into accessibility, there aren’t really any official accessibility options to speak of. As always, I recommend doing some further research to find out whether Ground Zero Hero suits your individual accessibility needs. I did find myself struggling a little with the visual clarity during particularly hectic moments. The hit indicators, enemies, and effects can all become quite difficult to distinguish when the screen gets busy. There’s also the visual difference between certain enemies and effects, such as the green blood from some enemies compared to the red indicators when you’re hit, which can make things a little visually messy. I realise that’s something that comes with the territory of this genre, but it feels with Ground Zero Hero that things can get pretty chaotic.
At $13 AUD, Ground Zero Hero offers decent value. I managed to finish all five levels in around 4 hours, and I actually did it in one sitting, but that also opens up some surprises, including endless mode for those with nuclear ambitions. I also still have plenty of achievements to unlock and skills to max out.
While at face value, Ground Zero Hero could easily be dismissed as a Vampire Survivors clone, it steps out of the safety of the shelter to add interesting mechanics, along with its unique art style, to set it apart. Sure, it doesn’t have quite the same depth of weapon evolution and combinations as something like Vampire Survivors, but I don’t think it needs to. Instead, it has its own wonderfully addictive bullet-heaven survival gameplay, wrapped up in a ridiculous Australian apocalypse that is packed with personality.
So, What’s It Like? Ground Zero Hero is like Vampire Survivors crossed with Fallout, crossed with The Simpsons.
In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.
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