My Hero Academia United Survival beginner’s guide for going from zero-to-hero

• My Hero Academia United Survival sees the hit series take the plunge into the Vampire Survivors-like
• Battle your way through hordes of enemies as your favourite characters with iconic abilities
• First time trying the genre for yourself? Well, read our beginners guide and find out the basics!

While the ending may not have satisfied every fan, I think it’s fair to say that My Hero Academia has earned a place in shonen history for a good while. And despite wrapping up both its print and screen versions, there are still plenty of gaming spinoffs to enjoy, such as the Vampire Survivors-like My Hero Academia United Survival!

What if you’re an anime and manga fan dipping your toes into the genre for the first time? You might find yourself feeling a bit lost, but don’t worry, because that’s what we’re here for. So, read on and learn everything you need to know to become a true hero in our My Hero Academia United Survival beginner's guide.

Tip #1 - Knowing the basics of a Survivors-like

For the absolute newcomers, here’s a brief introduction to the Survivors genre.

Basically, in each level your job is to survive and complete objectives such as killing a certain number of enemies, saving civilians or gathering clues. During each battle, you gather XP dropped by enemies, and when you level up, you can pick from either weapons or support items.

Outside of battle, you unlock new heroes and create your own three-man squad using them. The one you control is always the ‘primary’ hero, with the others performing their own moves pretty much as you’d expect. You can even automate your gameplay, although why you'd want to do that I can't imagine.

Each hero has a ‘quirk’ (superpowers in MHA) that dictates what abilities they have. Their ‘skills’ serve as attacks, and can be levelled up when you gain enough XP or grab briefcases that can contain up to three of them at once. However, after each stage, this progression resets, and you’ll need to perform the same loop of gathering XP and upgrading in each stage.

Basically, it’s roguelike bullet hell, except you’re the one firing the projectiles. And while MHA United Survival does offer some twists, the formula is pretty much the same at its core as we’ve seen in other games emulating Vampire Survivors. But there are certainly some differences to keep in mind.

Tip #2 - What's different about United Survival?

For one, combining items works differently in MHA United Survival. Each character has a primary attack skill, and others you can unlock, although you do have a limit on how many weapons/support items you can unlock in each level. This primary attack is levelled up to a max of five stars, and after that it can be ‘awakened’ so long as you have the required support item, which you can check in the menu for the skill.

Not only that, but fittingly enough for My Hero Academia, you also have an ultimate ability. This can be charged either to 100% or to a whopping 200%, the difference being that the first only involves your primary character, while you can wait until you have it overcharged to perform a Team Plus Ultra attack involving all three characters!

You’ve probably already guessed that My Hero Academia United Survival also isn’t satisfied with just offering its own version of Vampire Survivors. There is a meta-progression angle, and plenty of ways to increase your power ranking with various upgrades.

Tip #3 - How to upgrade & increase your power

Surprisingly, levelling up and upgrading your characters is actually fairly straightforward. There’s just so many options to deal with that it can seem a little bit overwhelming. You have equipment, individual hero levels, collections and trust! And even then I feel as if I must have left something out.

Equipment and individual hero levels are self-explanatory. You can quickly use multi-level up to increase your hero’s general stats, while equipment can be auto-selected and applied for their use. Collections are cards that feature key moments from the series, and which can be levelled up themselves, eventually reaching an awakened state where they provide overall stat bonuses even when they aren’t equipped!

Finally, Trust is simply a series of rewards for playing your character more often. The best part of the rewards is that they all consist of growth materials, which means that using and levelling up your character will also grant rewards necessary to empower them further. Not bad, eh?

Oh, and I almost forgot, you can also individually upgrade a character’s skills and use shards to increase their rarity! But if you’ve played any RPG, strategy or action game on mobile, you probably guessed that already.

Tip #4 - Trying other modes

For a rapid-fire, here are some of the modes involved. Main story is, well, the story. It broadly follows the strokes of the manga and anime, but if you’re unfamiliar, it’s not really a great substitute for reading the original. Events consist of various sub-modes, with story events allowing you to experience new moments and interactions that are completely original to My Hero Academia United Survival. If you’re a longtime fan looking for more of your favourite series, that’s where you’ll want to go.

Finally, we have agencies which are, at their core, just guilds. Very helpful, but might feel a bit ancillary to many players. Still, it lets you chat with other people and acquire more rewards, which are always helpful.

Tip #5 - Be sure to grab other available rewards

To wrap things up, there’s one important reminder, which is to dig into the various ways to earn rewards in MHA United Survival. We’ve seen plenty of those already up above, like collection rewards, but there are also mechanics such as patrols that let you gather rewards by spending stamina, and which offer a free version every day. Naturally, you’ll also want to be checking for daily login bonuses and other goodies, which will be crucial to quickly upgrading.

And take it from me, if you’re playing a Vampire Survivors-like for the first time, there are two quick and crucial tips to help you out: Commit to one set of upgrades, and don’t be afraid to push through the enemy.

You’ll find that the former is important for getting the most out of your weapons and support items, while in the latter case repositioning can avoid much more powerful enemies cornering you, especially since the regular mooks are much less powerful than the equivalent in something such as the original Vampire Survivors.

And if you're looking for even more great games to play in this vein (hah, blood jokes), why not try out some of the picks on our list of the best mobile games like Vampire Survivors?