Slay the Spire Review
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Developers: Mega Crit
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Publishers: Humble Bundle
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Genres: Deck building, roguelike
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Platforms: PS4, PC, Nintendo Switch
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Release date:
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PC: January 23rd 2019
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PS4: May 21st 2019
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NS: June 6th 2019
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Playtime: 15 hours
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Reviewed on the Nintendo Switch
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Disclaimer: review copy provided by the developer
After playing the excellent SteamWorld Quest which converted the gameplay of turn-based RPGs to the deckbuilding genre, now here is a game that fully combines that genre with a completely different one: roguelike. If the former follows a semi-controlled path designed by the developers, Slay the Spire gives the player what is almost infinite replayability with randomly generated encounters and decks through not one, not two, but three unique characters.
Starting with the basics, Slay the Spire offers pure roguelike gameplay, where progress towards slaying the spire is reset with each death. Instead of collecting swords, guns or tear modifiers, the player collects cards to build its deck. Starting from a choice of three different playable characters (which we’ll get to shortly), each has their own static starting deck. However, during a run, the player will acquire more cards, usually by picking one out of three random cards after each encounter, remove cards from the deck, acquire potions to help out in battle and collect relics, that is, modifiers that affect gameplay quite drastically. Some will increase the available energy each turn (something we’ll get to soon too), some will upgrade random cards from the deck, others may give health regeneration, etc. There are a lot of relics to play around with and hundreds of possible combinations to try.
As I’ve said before, there are three playable characters, each with their own unique playstyle: the Ironclad, the Silent and the Defect. Before detailing the specifics of each, I think it’s worth pointing out that they are all viable choices, that is, they are well balanced between each other. Yes, I do have a favorite, but that’s because a) I spent 85% of my playtime with it and b) it has the most welcoming deck for beginners: the Ironclad.
What differentiates their playstyle are the pool of cards available to each character, as the Ironclad features more offensive cards, the Silent defensive cards and the Defect sits in the middle. Plus, the Defect has its own mechanic where it can have up to three artifacts for passive effects: deal chip damage to enemies, gain some block or have one extra energy per turn. But, at any rate, each character feels very different to play with. Mostly, because of the already mentioned distinctions, but even the card effects in general are fairly different. The Silent’s card effects may tend more towards drawing extra cards or gaining extra block, but the Ironclad’s cards will be all about keeping the pressure on the enemies with big damage numbers, while the Silent will feature his artifacts mechanic in a lot of card effects.
Gameplay itself is fairly straightforward: a run is composed by three levels (named acts), where each act is represented by branching paths which culminate in a boss fight. The paths are completely visible from the beginning of the act so that you can make an informed decision on which path to take and plan the journey ahead of time for the current act. During the run, you’ll come across not just enemy encounters, but also merchants, resting places to recover health or upgrade cards, treasure chests and unknown events. The latter can turn out to be any one of the other encounters, but most of the time they will be kind of random encounters, where you need to decide how to act in a given situation, mostly focused in high-risk high-reward scenarios.
Of course, everything discussed so far is quite important to support the success of Slay the Spire, but the most important aspect is the actual moment to moment gameplay. Drawing a new hand of cards is exciting as you can expect but never be sure of what cards you’ll get and thus adapt to situations in a turn-by-tun basis. Then, thinking up how to most effectively use those cards is challenging, entertaining and immediately rewarding. One successful turn and the boss is down to half HP, but play willy-nilly using only the cards that deal the most damage and you’re out in no time.
Cards are separated into three categories, so you better not focus on dealing damage. With that said, there are attack, power and skill cards, where attack cards deal damage, power cards apply effects that last the entire encounter and the skills counterparts have immediate effects like drawing cards or gaining some block. Speaking of block, that’s an essential part of combat. Block works as extra health that protects you from incoming attacks and resets each turn. Enemy attacks are almost constant, so you better have some cards at hand to gain block every turn.
Still on the topic of combat, the game needs to be praised for how well card synergies play out. In a game where the cards obtained each run are randomized, you’d think your deck can quickly turn into a mess of mismatched cards. Thankfully, characters have their pools of cards quite well thought out and so it’s extremely easy to create a good deck, whether you’re focusing on defense, attack, status effects, etc. But, beyond the effects and synergies of cards, you still need to take into account the playing cost of cards, as you only have three energies to spend per turn, as well as the remaining cards in the deck (called draw pile). After cards are played or discarded, they go to the discard pile, but when you run out of cards to draw, the discard pile is exchanged with the draw counterpart. In other words, there’s no risk of running out of cards and sooner or later cards will return to your hand (unless they are of single use per encounter).
Now that we can close the curtain on the action, there are a couple of topics that need to be discussed. For example, the controls. In a combination of excellent UI design with good controls, the game is a joy to play. Actions are quick, not overanimated, the game presents all the information in a visually pleasant design and the button layout is on point, so that you can get to whatever part of the screen you want with a single button press. But, if you are playing on handheld mode, I definitely recommend taking advantage of the touch controls, because Slay the Spire can be played 100% with touch controls.
Lastly, I want to mention the extra content that rounds up Slay the Spire as an excellent package. When not in a run, why not take a look at the compendium, to check the relics or cards you’ve unlocked? Or maybe the statistics? They are quite detailed and include character-specific stats, as well as leaderboards and even a detailed history of past runs. Oh, and the game also features in-game achievements. Wait, perhaps you don’t want to play a normal run, and instead want to try the daily run, with its daily modifiers? Instead, why not try a custom run, where you can create your own dream run? In other words, Slay the Spire is not a one trick pony by a long shot and offers players plenty of reasons to keep playing for a long time.
As you can tell from this review, I truly liked playing Slay the Spire. It does everything well, from the character balance to the satisfying gameplay, complemented by some neat features. A new run is always exciting, as the relics and cards acquired in the early encounters largely dictate what your deck will look like later on and so planning ahead is definitely needed. Of course, having a large pool of cards and relics plays a big part in making these runs interesting, but, when combined with the fun combat, it is a joy to play Slay the Spire. If you add on top of it the smart button layout and/or the touch controls and all the extra features available such as the statistics and the custom runs, Slay the Spire becomes a spectacular game that is easy to recommend to anyone. By all means, one highlight in my Nintendo Switch library.