‘Slay the Spire’ Has More Game Than You Can Handle | Review
Truly Bottomless Fun in this Rougelite Deckbuilder
Truly Bottomless Fun in this Rougelite Deckbuilder
Addicting, bottomless fun, with nearly endless combinations and synergies, will keep you coming back for more… and more… and more… until you’ve completely burnt yourself out. Loved it. I full-heartedly recommend it.
Iwasn’t in the initial swarms of players who played Slay the Spire. I spent years waiting… for it to go on sale. Sometimes it would and I still wouldn’t pick it up. I guess you can say I’ve never felt pressed to do so. Until it hit the right price in a Humble Bundle package, and that’s where my journey began… As I booted it up and started playing I found the experience felt… oddly familiar… turns out, I had waited so long that I have played games inspired by Slay the Spire, or were straight copycats of it. Especially in the mobile sphere. In a way, it was a triumphant start of my journey through one of gamings most influential roguelite deck builders.
If you’re unfamiliar, the mechanics are simple, use your deck of card attacks and abilities to defeat dungeons of enemies. Truthfully, you don’t have to put in a lot of playtime to start to enjoy it, because it’s extremely approachable, but it has a surprisingly high skill ceiling. Learning its systems and “loopholes” are really engaging and absolutely addicting. Because of that, I feel comfortable recommending it to just about anyone. It’s got a solid core concept that I think may continue to stand the test of time yet — seeing its influence everywhere after all these years (with a sequel on the horizon) certainly proves that.
But I do feel its age is showing. After playing many games that have been influenced by Slay the Spire, I would say that it is lacking in some quality of life features that have since snuck their way into the genre. I’ve found myself thinking about and almost preferring other roguelite deck builder copy-cats for their ingenuity in how they’ve furthered this game's formula into something greater. While I think improvements are possible with Slay the Spire (through something like Steam workshop, which I applaud greatly), it was almost hard to play without some of those things I have become accustomed to. I hope we see innovations in the sequel that improve on this front.
The other thing I found that bothered me more than the last point, is that I got terribly burnt out. I got hooked, and played it to death. Very natural to do with some games though, have you ever been there? Having so much fun with a game where it’s the only thing you want to do, so you binge it until you’ve beat it, and further still, you want to push the boundaries of its system, and you play it and play it so much so that before you know it… You’ve fried your enjoyment playing it to a crisp. After I completed the campaign with the three main heroes, I know, there’s a true ending or whatever… but as of now, I just don’t feel the motivation to go back in and get it. Maybe one day! But there’s something about the progression where I feel content with how I’ve beat the game currently, and experienced these gameplay systems. I imagine this could also be partly influence by genre burn out, or could be something else, but nonetheless, I feel it’s worth bringing up.
All in all, Slay the Spire is a great game, and it’s easy to see why it’s been ruling as king over this genre for so many years. I think that no matter who picks it up, they’ll have a good time with it, and get many hours of enjoyment from it.
Originally published at https://backloggd.com.