Spicebomb Night Vision
Eau de Parfum, Viktor & Rolf (2020)

Overall, this is a vast improvement over the EdT. The fruity sweetness is youthful, versatile, and clean without being cloying or scratchy. The best comparison I've found is that it opens up like Polo Red Intense, but with less candy fruit. Into the drydown and you get a subdued, modern (sweet dryer sheets), masculine crowd-pleaser, which is to say it smells very pleasant and most non-basenoters will enjoy when getting close.

My only issue is the performance. It projects well enough during the first couple of hours. Afterward, it starts to fade away too quickly. I really enjoy the opening and the drydown scent but it becomes pretty hard to pick up after a few hours.

This is the one to get, forget the EdT.
I never cared much for the flankers of Spicebomb but this got my attention. It is sweet, deep, a bit dark and overall a yummy fragrance. There are some similarities to JPG Ultra Male, which is a good thing.
Must try, full bottle worthy as a night scent.

Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb Night Vision Eau de Parfum (2020) is a bit of a pleasant surprise because the preceding Spicebomb Night Vision (2019) was a train wreck of overwrought and uninspired dreck that substituted class for confusion as to what it wanted to be, while this one shows that much of the same listed notes can be reshaped into something much better with a bit of care. It's a similar trick that Yves Saint Laurent pulled by giving us the horrible Y (2017) that I utterly hated, then making a few key tweaks that resulted in the vastly superior Y Eau de Parfum (2018), which I liked enough to buy. So too here does Victor & Rolf fix what was broken with the eau de toilette offering of Spicebomb Night Vision, at least that which members of online community found broken since mainstream guys loved it, and subtly re-imagine the Spicebomb Night Vision concept into something more discerning enthusiasts will likely get behind. The biggest key difference between Night Vision EdP and the previous EdT is the fragrance being moved away from being a mere Paco Rabanne Invictus (2013) wannabe that has some confusion gourmand elements mixed with green fruity 90's vibes, and towards being more of a true clubber/nightlife fragrance like the market copy suggests in ham-fisted manner. It works, but will be less overall mass-appealing than the EdT methinks.

The opening of Spicebomb Night Vision Eau de Parfum is truer to the legacy of the original Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb (2012), featuring amped-up version of the listed chili pepper note from the EdT but tied in with black pepper and some of the cinnamon from the flagship Spicebomb. There's sweetness right away from green apple, and something like ethyl maltol and ethyl vanillin doing some candy-like smoothing thing a la Versace Eros (2013), but it's still a better take than the sour candy Invictus crap going on in the EdT. From there, an odd nutty creamy note that really hearkens back to when stuff like Gucci Rush for Men (1999) stalked shelves, or perhaps closer to Azzaro Visit (2003), and the house lists this note as pistachio. I guess this pistachio works because the nut tends to be associated with green anyway, but I see this note as more nutmeg and coriander than anything, with the resins and tonka of the base keeping it level. Speaking of that, a ton of natural things too expensive for a designer these days show up in the base, but whether or not peru balsam, mastic, and olibanum are actually in this fragrance, the base has a rich warm quality similar to another Azzaro, being Wanted by Night (2018). Wear time pushes past 10 hours and performance is clubber-worthy, which makes sense considering the theming. Best use is going to be fall, winter, and spring at you guessed it... night.

Now I enjoyed smelling Wanted by Night but assessed that ownership wasn't for me, because I scratch my clubber itch with stuff like the aforementioned Eros, Paco Rabanne 1 Million (2008), or perhaps off-the-wall things like Ted Lapidus Altamir (2008). This will also be why I am unlikely to seek out Spicebomb Night Vision Eau de Parfum, as it just crossed the threshold of too many other more distinctive choices for my personal taste. However, with someone not so overloaded with a huge fragrance collection and wanting a solid sweet but not-cloying night time fragrance for partying and romance, I think Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb Night Vision Eau de Parfum could be a good choice, especially for someone looking to not wear the identical thing to every other date night hopeful in the club. The bottle itself is dressed up like a green version of the motif featured on Spicebomb Extreme (2015), so this already looks far better than the toxic slime colors adoring the bottle of the EdT. Lastly, there still isn't anything mega-exciting going on here, so people tired of designers being designers in the 21st century and making all their new men's releases based almost purely around marketing and sales analysis will find no additional comfort here, but if well-made examples of commercial fragrances still check your boxes, this may be worth a sniff even if the original was a pass. Thumbs up.