You want to know a genre of games I normally don’t enjoy and would fall onto my list of what not to play or review? Deckbuilders. I never understood the appeal of deck builders and what made them so popular. You have to form a specific deck of cards to carry out powerful attacks of combos. You can only play cards that are in your hand instead of performing whatever action you want. It’s extremely difficult to predict what the enemy is about to do. Depending on what type of deck builder you buy it could end up costing hundreds of dollars, and I just don’t like card games in general. Looks like another subject of games I don’t like. That is until I started playing Slay The Spire earlier this year. A deckbuilder roguelite developed by an indie studio named MegaCrit. I mean it was bound to happen folks. One: it’s an indie game and I love to see the ideas and design decisions passionate small developers have. Two: it’s an indie game, again, and it’s an easy way to expose myself to new genres. For example, I used to not like tactical strategy games because a majority of them feel more based around chance and random number generation rather than actual skill and strategy. Meaning there's wasn't full satisfaction for surviving a difficult enconter. Then I played Into The Breach by Subset Games and magically I now have hope for the tactical strategy genre. S
The two lead developers of Slay The Spire are Casey Yano and Anthony Giovannetti who formed MegaCrit in Seattle, Washington. Giovannetti who was more in control of the project took inspiration from deck builders he enjoyed playing like Netrunner and Dominion. He wanted to combine the aspect of forging your own deck of cards with the procedurally generated random events of a roguelite like FTL: Faster Than Light. Problem was that it’s pretty hard to make a confident deck builder when the challenges that will be thrown at the player are randomized. So Giovannetti and Yano decided to ask some experts on what makes a good deckbuilder. They gathered around several Netrunner elite players and let them test their game as development went on. They gave each of the play testers the ability to send feedback back to their studio and tell them what did and did not work. Stuff like what cards and combos felt unnecessary or to overpowered, enemy predictability and attacks, and how the game functioned.
One system that almost ruined Slay The Spire was the ability to see how much damage an enemy attack would do and what action they would perform next. This is what led the two developers to make icons that would display what an enemy would perform their next turn. Helping make Slay The Spire more based around skill rather than on randomness. They also added other features like potions that dealt special effects, but were very rare to pick up throughout runs. Up to three playable characters, a fourth one that was added later, to add variety and more replay value to the game. And more random events that would add risk and reward to each run. It wasn’t until early 2019 that the final version of Slay The Spire would come out. How did Slay The Spire stack up against other big titanic popular deck builders like Hearthstone Really f*cking strong apparently. Slay The Spire was praised across the board. Critics claimed it to be one of the most well designed deck builders to come out in years. It garnished it’s own playbase who have poured almost a hundred hours into the game. A majority of review scores came up to be 9/10 and the game was nominated for a bunch of awards by the end of the year. It wasn't a perfect game, but it certainly achieved something special.
I do have to clarify one thing right now. I haven’t achieved a proper successful run in Slay The Spire yet. Usually I try to finish a game before I go and review it, and in the case of roguelikes I try to achieve one or two successful runs. Slay The Spire seemed like a game I shouldn’t have enjoyed, but the more I play it the more I begin to love it. I have clocked in a total of eleven hours into Slay The Spire so far which doesn’t seem like enough for an official review, but since my last review was more than one and a half months ago I decided it would be a good time to talk about another exciting game. Today we’ll be talking about why Slay The Spire is an amazing deck builder and why it deserves your attention. So ready your blade, stir up your poison, and channel your lightning. A mysterious spire towering towards the heavens awaits to be slain.
Story
We aren’t given that much context to what we are doing and what is really going on. A mysterious stone spire is seen floating into the sky and a raging storm is forming along with it. There are several monsters who lie within the spire who will kill any trespassers who try to reach the top. At the top of the spire is a being who powers it and a reward so incomprehensible that it seems to be dragging the attention of adventurers willing to achieve it. Three mysterious adventurers make haste to the spire. Their goal is to slay whatever beasts may lie within the spire and hopefully make it out alive. There is the Ironclad, an armored warrior who has come with an array of weapons. The Silent, a skull masked witch with sinister tricks and alchemy. And the Defect, a robot who was cast away and now seeks the will to fight. One of these adventurers will be chosen to go into the spire, slay everything that stands in their path, loot whatever they can find, and reach the top. They will be aided by several sinister beings along the way, some of which will try to trick them. However, their goal is clear. The spire awaits.
Now I know this doesn’t seem like much information to work off of. It doesn’t do something like Dead Cells or Bloodborne where the player is rewarded the more they look into the world and characters. It’s not Hades or Returnal where the goal is simple at first, but the story and characters expand the more you play and get sent back to the start. It doesn’t even offer campaigns for each playable character. In my Risk of Rain 2 review I complimented how well put together the overall game was, but complained how the game would have immensely benefited from more well put together lore and actual world building. Slay The Spire doesn’t have any world building or lore, but it’s a game I think benefits from it’s vagueness. It’s more about having your own legacy. Who are we and what do we want to achieve by going into the spire? Who do we want to befriend and what type of person do we want to become? What reward does lie for us at the end and is it truly worth dying for. We get to imagine our own adventure. Another roguelite, which I haven't played yet, that could be used as a good comparison is Darkest Dungeon. It’s a game less about what is going on and more about what is going to happen. Will your companions betray you or will their own fears and doubt be the things that get them killed? Slay The Spire doesn’t hold a torch up to how complex Darkest Dungeon is, but it certainly made me broaden my imagination.
Gameplay
Well, time to try my best to explain how a deckbuilder like Slay The Spire works. Whenever you start off a new run you choose from one of three characters, get your starting deck of cards, choose a special gift from a multiple eyed whale thing, and select a path you want to start with. Each of the three characters you play as have their own unique playstyle and require a specific way to play. The Ironclad is your basic physical damage based bloke. He has a multitude of attacks that deal physical damage, can apply ailments that either strengthen his attacks or weaken foes defenses, and can charge up his defense extremely high to survive deadly attacks. The Silent isn’t as strong as the Ironclad or Defect, but she can afflict more special ailments between the two and apply poison to enemies. The Defect is more of a support based character. He can channel up elemental orbs that can either inflict damage, build up his defense, etc.
There are several paths in the spire and the one you decide to take will either provide you with a safer or more dangerous path to the boss. There are a total of four acts and at the end of them is a boss. The catch is that a safer path is much easier, but will provide you with less equipment to stand a chance at the boss. Meanwhile a more dangerous path is much more difficult, but will give you more rewards. There are several icons on your map and each icon means what type of room you will go into. Devil symbols are rooms where you will fight enemies. Sacks of money represent a merchant where you can buy more cards and relics. Bonfires are where you can rest or upgrade cards. Finally question marks are either combat encounters or random events.
The random events in Slay The Spire are a risk/reward system. Some events will offer great rewards, but you may lose something in the process. For example you may find a dead body in the open and be given the opportunity to search it for gear, but have a chance of a monster returning and ambushing you. A gang of thieves may try to rob you, so you have the choice of giving them a portion of your gold to escape a fight or fight them again potentially more gold. You may encounter a cleric who will heal you or remove a cursed card in your deck, vampires who will trade your attacks and maximum health for a different type of attack, a devil with a roulette wheel with both rewards and punishments, snacks tied to the ceiling, and much more. Shall you accept every reward you stumble upon or get pummeled in the process?
The combat in Slay The Spire is what matters most. Enemies will display what action they perform on their turn and you get to play whatever cards you take out of your draw pile. Play cards are placed in the played pile and when your draw pile is empty all the cards in the play are placed back into the draw pile. You really have to make use of whatever you have. Each card you play requires a certain amount of energy points and you only have three energy points per turn. Enemies will try to attack you, but you can build up the defense to withstand the damage they try to deal. Defense in Slay The Spire works a lot differently from most RPGs. If you have an equal or higher amount of defense than the amount of damage the enemy will deal then it won’t affect your health bar. After the enemy is done attacking your defense goes away. Let’s say I placed up ten defense points and the enemy is about to deal six damage. I will have four defense points after they attack, but it goes down once my next turn is up. You can attack using whatever attack cards you have and apply buffs using ailment cards.
When you clear the room of enemies you earn a small list of rewards. Gold, maybe a potion that gives you a buff during combat, relics that give you special perks, and a new card to place into your deck. These include attack cards, defense cards, ailment cards, and cards with more “specific” means. There are some cards that work best when played with others or in an order. A combo if you’d like to call it. Let’s use the Ironclad as an example, because he’s the character I play as most by the time of writing this. One of the cards he has is called Body Slam which deals damage equal to his block. It’s a card that is good for both protection and if you plan it out correctly, turning the Ironclad into a physical tank. You can unlock cards that give you high amounts of defense like Entrench, and maybe another card which doubles your defense. With the right cards you can end up forming an overpowered deck.
The bosses that lie at the end of each act will test your durability and what you brought along with you. They are designed to kill you as quickly as possible, so do the best you can to tank each blow and kill them quicker. Look, Slay The Spire is a damn good deck builder with combat and systems more well designed than I thought. Hopefully the choices you make will allow a powerful ascension towards the top of the spire.
Thoughts
Slay The Spire is a really good game and very well be the best designed deck builder ever crafted. That sounds like a lot especially since this is the first and only deck builder I have played, but I’m being serious when I say this. The developers knew what they were doing, knew how to take feedback from their play testers, and knew what design choices would work and not work. The combat is really satisfying once you get an understanding of it and is even more satisfying when you start to make use of the combo cards. The cards that require certain playstyles and can be turned into deadly weapons once mastered. Synergies is what they are called. Game Maker’s Toolkit explained it best when it came to defining what makes Slay The Spire and it’s “synergies” so amazing. You pop an idea into a player’s head and they begin to circle around it. That may sound extremely bad at first since you limit their brain to one option, but it can end up being great. You reward them for using their own knowledge to figure out what combination of cards work best, and you make them feel satisfied for achieving a state of empowerment. The feeling of empowerment, or having a power fantasy is what I like to call, is best felt when you make the player master the game’s mechanics and let their skills run wildly with the wind.
The random events is another factor I also really liked about Slay The Spire. It helps each run feel different and offer the risk-reward system I mentioned earlier. There’s also how Slay The Spire can end up being a personal adventure if you think about it hard enough. The art style is really good too. It’s not as appealing as something like Hades, Hollow Knight, or Ori, but it’s simplistic nature and colorful patterns is what made it stand out to me. The soundtrack, oh my god the soundtrack for Slay The Spire is almost god tier. The battle music, venturing through the spire, and the epic boss themes, and that angelic tune that plays whenever you survive through an act. It’s all just so damn good. With up to three characters to play as (four if you include the newly added one), procedurally generated paths, quirky written events, enemy variety, and much more Slay The Spire ends up being a perfectly put together deck builder with infinite amounts of replay value and endless hours of play.
From what I’ve listed it seems like Slay The Spire deserves a perfect score right especially with what MegaCrit has achieved? Well there are a few problems with the game and while those problems don’t drag down the overall experience I wouldn’t go as far to say Slay The Spire deserves a perfect score. Some of those bosses at the end of each act feel less like they were designed to be fair scaled or reward the player for preparing, and more like they were designed to cut your health bar down as quickly as possible. Who in the right mind thought it would be a good idea to let the second act boss deal thirty six damage? That’s like at least half of your character’s health bar. Sometimes you want to defend, but the cards you end up drawing are not what you need to defend. Sometimes you want to attack, but you also end up drawing cards that do very little to dish out damage. These problems could be mainly due to my part though. You want to get cards that make you overpowered, but you don’t want so many cards in your deck that you lower the chance of playing the synergies you want. The game reminds you to not be so greedy. Overall I highly recommend Slay The Spire. It is another indie roguelike that you shouldn’t skip and is the perfect start off if you want to get into these types of games. I give Slay The Spire a 9/10 for excellence at best.
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