Slay the Spire (2019)

After a week or so of playing.. I've completed several runs and unlocked all the characters (i think) but haven't done the quest to 'do the thing..' and invest in their keys and stuff is it really worth it? Fun game, but doesn't quite last as long as I was led to believe (i know someone who has been hooked on this forever which seems insane!)

Man the Sensei archetype character was pretty impressive conceptually. I had a realy tough time with that one, but was pretty woo'ed when i got a wining build!

Played a lot today! Beat up to Ascension level 5 with the Ironclad and the Silent, and tomorrow I'll be trying the Defect for my first Ascended run!

Definitely one of my favorite games of the year! Really scratches the tactical itch I've had.

Some say that no amount of practice and playtime will make you better at the game since it's too luck-based. But I highly disagree. The more I play, and the more I learn the synergies, enemies, cards, etc., the less "bad" runs I have. It's all about adapting to the cards you've been dealt, and you learn to adapt better by getting more experience with the ins and outs of the game.

Played on xbox game pass core and beat the basic run with all 4 characters, but not the secret heart boss. I took a break for months in the middle of playing this because I was not really enjoying it. I could only stand a couple runs or so at a time. This was not my kind of game, mainly due to the random nature of card games. It annoyed me that I often did not have the correct cards in hand to deal with a situation, and it often felt like losing was due to sheer RNG. This was why I always went for the runic pyramid, which allowed cards to be kept in hand between turns. It would have been better if there were permanent upgrades to grind in order to make runs easier; like improved max hp, energy or better cards available right from the start. I also found the maps for each act to be too much information to process at once. It was exhausting to have to evaluate the entire map at the beginning of each act in order the plan the desired route. This would have been much better with a hidden map that only revealed branches when you came to them; spread the decision making out.

I struggled to get much done in the standard mode so I went to custom mode to give myself every possible advantage; weaker enemies, free bonus relics, start off with powerful cards including cards from the other classes, flight to ignore the map. This mode disabled achievements so I could not unlock the other classes, but was a great way to learn the mechanics and grind unlocks. Eventually I looked up a guide online to improve my ability. There was strategy for each boss and tough enemy though I already beat everything in custom overpowered mode. The crux of what I learned was to prioritize elite fights in act 1 for easy relics, ?s in act 2, and to avoid elites in act 3. Using this rule of thumb I was finally able to beat the game as the ironclad. It was mainly because of the intangible ? from act 2 combined with barricade, which allowed block to persist between turns. With intangible reducing all damage to 1 and a number of high block cards I was able to easily crush every battle through the principle of the best offense being such a high defense that nothing could ever stop me.

Next I played the Silent, who was a rogue type. I actually made it to the act 3 boss easily but did not have enough survival to win. When I finally did win it was again thanks to that intangible ? The Silent was a more offensively oriented class with a lot of front loaded damage, cards that created multiple low damage shivs, and benefits for discarding cards in hand. So this class synergized well with temporary str boosts, relics that boosted low damage cards, and NOT taking the relic that limited the number of cards that could be played. After I won I did custom runs to grind her unlocks and had the best run ever when she started off with 10 backstab cards. Backstab was automatically put in the starting hand every battle, cost 0, and did high damage, so she killed almost every battle in 1 turn. Another favorite card of hers was corpse explosion, which did that enemy's max hp in damage to all other enemies upon its death. I abused the shit out of that. Her ultimate wraith form card sucked though because while it granted nice intangible, it debuffed dex every turn for the entire battle. Not just a 1 time penalty, but a penalty that became worse every turn and quickly made block cards entirely useless. This made it only worth using for short battles, unlike every other form card.

The defect class was like a mage, with orbs being an entirely new mechanic unique to this class. He had normal cards that functioned like those of the other characters, and others that directly interacted with orbs. He started off with 3 orb slots, which could be expanded with higher end cards. At the end of each turn each orb did a minor effect, or cards could spend orbs for a larger effect. Lightning did damage, which was not considered as coming from the character so it ignored things like thorns. Ice did block and gave the character a base amount of block every turn regardless of cards. Plasma gave bonus energy and dark did nothing passively other than buff the amount of damage it did when spent, so you could set up massive damage combos. My favorite thing about this class was the card that gave bonus energy based on how many cards I had yet to play, and combing that with "invoke X lighting" or "invoke X times". That latter was insanely powerful with a dark orb. Another great card was buffer, which was even better than intangible because it reduced damage to 0 and could be stockpiled rather than just lasting 1 turn. Melter was another favorite because it ignored all block.

The last character, the watcher, was clearly the most powerful. She had multiple cards that were automatically retained in the hand between turns, even having some that powered up when left in hand, and scrying that allowed me to look at the next cards to be drawn and discard some. Both of these mechanics partially negated the annoying random nature of the card game. She also had the unique stance mechanic, which added a new layer of play. Wrath stance was berserker mode, which caused her to deal double damage while also taking double damage. Tranquil stance gave an energy boost upon ending, and there was a super powerful divine stance that I never tried. Wrath stance was incredibly powerful but could easily result in game over, so I made sure to stockpile cards that ended stance or caused tranquil. It was fun setting up big combos like; tranquil, wrath, bunch of damage cards, then end wrath before ending turn. There was even a card that forced the enemy to skip their turn, potentially allowing 2 turns of double damage. This was also the character where I reset scummed the most, to make sure any wrath gambles did not screw me over. I got to the heart secret boss twice and 1st try got him below 50%. 2 other times I died at the battle before. I am sure I could eventually beat it with the appropriate combination of RNG, but I do not enjoy the game enough to bother, nor to master the mechanics and play on higher difficultly.

Despite me not particularly enjoying this type of game I can recognize how well it was made. There was some interesting atmosphere and writing, and the mechanics had a lot of depth. I would enjoy the game more if there was more player agency as opposed to randomness. Save scumming to go back to before each branch and the start of each act would help too.

7.5/10