Deckbuilding and Dungeons
Slay the Spire is a rougelike deckbuilding game that is the first game created by Mega Crit Games. Humble Bundle, Inc. published the game in 2019 and it can be currently played on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, iOS, and Android. The information of this review was gathered through playing the game on the Nintendo Switch, and port differences will not be covered in this review
Slay the Spire combines the popular tabletop genre of deckbuilders and the booming roguelike genre to make something really fresh and mechanically rich. Each run of Slay the Spire starts off with the player choosing one of four characters unlocked over time and that character’s set beginning deck. When the player goes through the branching rooms of the dungeon new cards and relics are acquired that make each playthrough different from the next.
Each of the characters has its own set of cards that follow different themes such as the Ironclad having a set of cards around the theme of building large amounts of armor to sustain the player from high damage attacks. The fun of Slay the Spire comes into how different cards from different themes synergize in new ways to defeat the increasingly difficult enemy encounters.
Throughout the player’s journey, relics will be collected that add new modifiers to the character, and this along with the cards acquired forces the players to come up with new strategies to fight the enemies of the game. This makes each new run of the dungeon feel different in little ways.
However, the diversity of the enemies the player faces leaves something to be desired, as by the 60-hour mark I had already developed strategies to mitigate the risk of each enemy encounter. This is compounded with the fact that the player should catch onto the fact that certain cards are leagues better than most. I found myself forcing deck builds in this game, and ignoring paths that would push me into exploring new combos.
One of the hallmarks of a good roguelike game is the immense amount of replay value that comes from the mechanics of the genre. However, if a loss of diversity in playthroughs comes through at the 60-hour mark then that gives me a poor outlook for this game being fresh in the future.
Minor Spoilers Ahead!
The first playthrough of the game is just beating the first three acts of the game with all four of the characters which can actually be a rather difficult task depending on luck. Once that happens a very challenging fourth act is unlocked for subsequent runs. A successful run of the game takes about an hour and a half if you were to complete all four of the acts, but with all roguelikes, the average session time varies quite a bit.
If you are looking for a game with a great story then Slay the Spire may not be for you because, for the most part, the game doesn’t have a story. Well, the game has a story but it is mostly in the form of scraps of information scattered around the spire as you ascend to the top.
The world of the Spire never intrigued me enough to look at the lore of the game. The character designs seemed fairly standard, and I was never awed by the art of the game at any point. The art of the game isn’t the draw, it is the mechanics, and if the mechanics of the game don’t appeal to you, then it is not worth the time investment.
Conclusion
Slay the Spire is a solid game that should entertain and challenge you for a while, but whether that enjoyment will last you hundreds of hours is less guaranteed. The mechanic system of the game is very well made and gives you a set of very interesting choices to make throughout each playthrough. However, the situations in which you use these actions are different flavors of the same thing and become stale after a while.
7
Above average and worth looking into
