Vampires used to be cool, didn’t they? Mysterious immortal beings who could transform into bats and bite necks to feed on blood. Then, somehow, the world decided they’d make great boyfriend material and these poor bloodsuckers became laughing stocks of the horror genre. Finally, in 2022 indie smash hit Vampire Survivors brought vampires back to their full power. But what about all the memes and secrets of Vampire Survivors, what is that all about?.
The game was developed by one man team Poncle, working on weekends, since he wanted to develop something he could pass the time with, inspired by casual games like Magic Survival and his work on online slot machines. Since he never really intended the game to be profitable or the smash hit of 2022, he filled Vampire Survivors with obscure memes and references to Italian jokes that only a few would actually get.
So, after several months of early access, with Vampire Survivors doing pretty well for itself, are we actually able to decipher all the memes and secrets of Vampire Survivors? Let’s take a look.
Vampire Survivors: All the Memes and Secrets
The Weapons
While some of the weapons are quite obvious references to the Castlevania series, like Holy Wand and Bloody Tear, let us take a look at the more obscure ones. The flying bombarding bird Peachone, for example, is a phonetic transcription of the Italian word “piccione,” which simply means pigeon. The watery attack La Borra is a reference to one notorious Italian meme, a strange phone call on a quiz show which turned quite ridiculous as the contestant was supposed to say “beer,” but instead kept repeating “borra,” which sounds – in its original language – sounds like a sexual reference. As for Gatti amari, I can’t be 100% sure but I’m pretty sure it is a reference to the saying “cazzi amari,” which is, well, quite an impolite way of saying “being in trouble.”
The two four point weapons are both references to the same thing, which are quite obscure even for Italians. Phiera Der Tuphello is named after the parody song “Alla Fiera Der Tufello” by Roman band Latte e i Suoi Derivati. Besides the name, there does not seem to be other connections, but it does make quite a pair with “Eight the sparrow.” Translated in Italian, that would be the title of one of the more famous Latte e i Suoi Derivati songs. Pummarò, while not really useful to attack enemies, is still necessary to create evolved weapons, and it is actually a reference to tomato puree. As a product used in many Italian homes through the ‘80s and ‘90s, it does make sense that it is used to recover health points in Vampire Survivors.
The Characters
There is no shortage of obscure references in the characters’ names as well, especially since the Belpaese family was supposed to be just a placeholder for more serious names. But, in the end, Poncle got stuck with them as the game gained a following and it became too late to change them. For example “Poeratcho” is a sort of English phonetic transcription for the Roman term “poraccio,” literally “poor guy.”
Mortaccio is also a similar case, basically a play on the roman insult “mortacci,” which one would literally translate to “your dead ancestors.” Definitely quite appropriate as Mortaccio in Vampire Survivors is a skeleton. O Sole Meeo is an earned reference to classic Italian song “O’ sole mio,” but since the name belongs to a dog, it is probably no great compliment to the song itself.
Moving on to anime, the sturdy Yatta Cavallo is a clear allusion to classic series Yatterman (Yattaman), quite popular in Italy throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. Cosmo Pavone also joins the rank, a character from the series Yattodetaman, also produced by Tatsunoko. But that’s not all for anime, as Boon Marrabbio is an even more obscure reference to one of the characters in Italian TV series Love me Licia, which was the made-in-Italy live-action sequel to anime Love Me, My Knight. Yeah, don’t ask.
Finally, we get into television. It does make sense that Suor Clerici’s main weapon is “La Borra,” as Antonella Clerici was the host of the quiz show of the “borra” incident. Sir Ambrojoe is probably a reference to Ambrogio, a butler/driver character which appeared in several Italian TV ads. Divano Thelma is instead a clearly direct reference to peculiar celebrity “the divine Othelma,” a notorious TV magician who got convicted several times for fraud. Big Trouser, instead, is a reference to classic Italian Carnival character Pantalone, a name that actually means “trousers” in Italian.
Items and Levels
Finally, we come to some of the passive items and levels. Ndjua Fritta Tanto is a boon for many players, the perfect way to dispose of a lot of enemies in a short time, but where does the name come from? It actually comes from a special cured meat, usually made in the south of Italy, which it is well known for being incredibly spicy. Even well, Vampire Survivors goes in for the kill, since “fritta tanto”, actually means deep fried. One would definitely expect that a fried spicy salami will burn your mouth and turn you into a fire spewing survivor. For another food item, “Tiragisù” is actually a pun on the classic Tiramisu, which in Italian actually means a “pick me up”, while Tiragisù would read as “let me down”.
Il Molise is one of Vampire Survivors’ hidden levels, its description seems to refer to it as a place that doesn’t actually exist. That’s a clear reference to a well known meme about Italian region Molise which is so small that indeed, it is usually said that “it doesn’t really exist” and people that come from there are just making it up.
Hope this clarifies a lot of your questions about many of the obscure and hidden references in Vampire Survivors, but if any more are added in the game, we will be sure to update this guide.
Attain Rank 10 with Star Confidant 
Let’s get the simplest MultiVersus perks out of the way; Triple Jump is widely considered to be the best perk in the game, and is almost ubiquitous at high-level play. It’s not hard to see why either, a jump is a very powerful resource and having a third one is always going to be extremely powerful. The only character in MultiVersus right now who doesn’t benefit hugely off Triple Jump is Iron Giant, and even then he can probably still find some use for it. For characters who frequently get their KOs off the top or have fairly limited recovery options like Wonder Woman or Shaggy, this perk is a must have — and you should almost always be looking to stack it with your partner so you can have that sweet, sweet permanent third jump.
In a game with little to no defensive options; dodging is a core part of every character’s gameplay, and so we have another perk with very universal benefits in the form of Slippery Customer. It’s certainly better with characters with particularly long dodges like Superman, but a 10% longer dodge invulnerability window is a big step up for any character that you should notice right away. Slippery Customer may also be slightly more useful in 1v1, where you can dodge more effectively — but no matter which format you’re playing in, this perk’ll have you bobbing and weaving like it’s nobody’s business.
Ever so slightly more character specific than most of the other perks on this list, Coffeezilla is still very useful for a vast majority of the cast. Do you play a character like Bugs or Taz who has a lot of ability cooldowns? Then it’s simple, pick this perk and let the gimmicks fly! Only characters with few cooldowns like Shaggy or Finn struggle to make use of this perk, and even then there’s still some reason to consider it. Coffeezilla may also be better in a 2v2 format, as it’s likely that at least one of your team will rely heavily on abilities with cooldowns, and a 15% reduction is pretty huge.
A hugely powerful MultiVersus perk and without a doubt one of the best in the game. Snowball Effect works in singles and is still very effective, but is obviously only active when your opponent is at higher damage, which is something worth keeping in mind. In teams, though? This perk goes. A base 7% increase to anything is higher than the typical 5% increase most unstacked perks offer, and the effect is good enough that a 5% increase would probably still be viable on its own. The only caveat to this perk is to not run it when you have an Iron Giant on your team, as he will almost always be the fighter with the highest damage, rendering the perk null.
In a game where far more characters than you might expect have projectiles, School Me Once is incredibly useful for defensive counterplay. Giving you increased resistance against projectiles that you hit repeatedly is yet another universally helpful attribute to attach to just about any character, but is most useful for the larger characters with lesser mobility that likely to be hit more; your Iron Giants and Superman of the world. The likes of Tom & Jerry and LeBron James should be much less problematic should you slap this perk on against them specifically.
And finally it’s yet another mobility MultiVersus perk. Turns out mobility is pretty important in this game! And almost any perk that improves your mobility in any way is bound to be at least somewhat useful. Aerial Acrobat, however — is likely one of the best of them. And as always, you don’t want to use this in an attempt to patch up the weakness of an already slow character, but you want to use it to accentuate the already impressive air speed and acceleration of characters like Arya and Bugs. Min-maxing in a competitive setting; and further exacerbating your character’s strength rather than trying to cover your weaknesses is almost always the way to go, folks.
Let’s take a game like Smash Bros for example. When you roll it’s a commitment, and when you initiate a multi-hit attack, you can rarely follow the first hit of that attack up into whatever you want — you’re locked into the original move. This freedom is a privilege afforded to you in this game, and one you should take advantage of if you want to play like a MultiVersus pro.
Almost every combo in MultiVersus starts like this. Aerials are rarely ever what starts a combo, and if they are they often just combo into themselves once or twice (with the exception of most Down Airs). In a very general sense, MultiVersus’ aerials are for neutral and edgeguarding, and your grounded attacks are for starting combos. If you look into an advanced combo guide for your character (and you should!) you’ll find that a lot of them for almost every character, start with a Grounded Side Attack.
Some moves, like Superman’s Ice Breath and Iron Giant’s Blast Radius have elemental properties without perks. Some elements even interact with each other, like how Superman’s Ice Breath can put out Reindog’s firewalls. This’ll be taught to you in one of the game’s advanced tutorials, which is definitely something you should check out if you want to play like a MultiVersus pro.
