Slay the Spire: Oh Ho, You Attack Me?

I make it no secret that I by and large dislike rogue-likes or rogue-lites, to me the appeal makes little sense to me. Why would you play a game where any and all progress is effectively moot as soon as you die or quit? Occasionally however, there's a game that every so often breaks through my almost instinctual dislike of procedurally generated single-life games, and with odd happiness I announce that Slay the Spire is the most recent to have caught my attention for a good bit of time. A rogue-like by every dimension, Slay the Spire combines turn and card-based combat into an oddly compelling formula, one that encourages on-the-fly strategizing and unexpected experimentation/discovery with every (potentially) short run.

The Defunct is the most unconventional and initially weak of the three classes, but when the cards on your side, you really feel it.

As with most rogue-likes, there is a story to Slay the Spire, but it's essentially window dressing to the game. You're trying to scale this massive spire in order to slay it (I mean look at it, it has bad news written all over it), but beyond that there's really no story. The three (soon to be four) playable characters don't have much personality beyond their sentence-long backstory that shrouds them in mystery. Though the story itself is essentially nonexistent, there is a definite charm to the darkly whimsical atmosphere, and players of Munchkins will find some elements that are familiar here. My sole complaint of note in regards to the story is the payoff for completing your ascent, which so far I've only accomplished once. Basically it doesn't matter, and you are killed and returned to the start, which really puts a damper on the feeling of accomplishment when you die like in any other run. In the grand scale of things though, having an ultimately pointless-seeming story isn't the worst misstep for a rogue-like, I mean, does anyone actually play these games for the story?

Instead of defending you choose to attack me despite my poison and thorns? Fine, then come as close as you like...

In terms of gameplay, Slay the Spire managed to mix two things that I dislike with a passion, trading card games and rogue-likes, and have the product be something that I greatly enjoyed. Combat is fast, but entirely at your pace, with every turn you having a different hand based off of your deck and character each turn. Each of the currently three characters on offer have a different gimmick that you can play into or not depending on your preference. The Ironbreaker focuses on building armor, the Silent harms your foes when they attack, and the Defect builds up 'charges' for buffs or devastating passive damage. Each is unlocked extremely quickly, and outside of a few unlockable cards and relics you have access (Read: potential to encounter) to pretty much every tool the game puts at your disposal. The deck you start off with for each character is all-around garbage, and can't be changed/preemptively upgraded no matter how long you play. At the end of each combat however, you get a varying number of cards to choose from to add to your deck, and this along with easy access to viewing your deck makes it easy to strategize. Armor is key to your survival in this game, being essentially a buffer of hit points that protect you from damage with you losing all armor at the beginning of each of your turns. Luckily there are no shortage of cards that can help you boost your defensive ability, but with a small pool of 'energy' (which determines the number of cards you can play in a turn), you will frequently have to choose between whether to attack or defend, but some cards do both. For those of you who tend to veer on the side of caution, it is definitely the better way to play this game, though as your health refills every time you complete a floor, you can take some risks. Along the way, whether by fighting bosses, elites, or opening treasure chests, you will accumulate relics and potions throughout each run, and these are pretty damn good and worthwhile all-around, though it may be taxing to your hit points. Outside of combat however, there's essentially nothing to say. You're given a choice of where to move next on the map, always moving upward, and rest points do offer a nice bit of risk-assessment exercises in the form of choosing whether to heal or to upgrade a card (which makes them better, sometimes overwhelmingly so and other times not). It's really a game that's the definition of simple to learn and get the hang of, but at the same time difficult to get consistent success in largely owing to the random layouts and hands. It's occasionally frustrating, sometimes fortune smirks and occasionally she doesn't, but Slay the Spire does somehow manage to make the majority of your deaths feel earned and deserving, not due to the cheap-shots that these games often pull in my opinion.

I still haven't gotten the hang of the Ironbreaker, I probably just haven't figured out a good deck to build him around. It's tough when your deck is largely based around luck.

Slay the Spire's technical execution is probably my least favorite part of the game, not from any glaring flaw, but mostly due to how quickly (for me at least) the charming pastel luster wore off to me. It's an entertaining game visually and I got more than a few chuckles from the various quips of the few speaking characters, and there's a level of visual polish I haven't seen in one of these games in a while. As I mentioned before there is definitely an element of dark whimsy to the whole affair, but at the same time after the fifth or tenth run it all just feels like I've seen it before. From the music, the enemies, the encounters, and the environments, it just feels tired. It is a good looking and sounding game, but the appeal just doesn't seem to last past the gameplay. If I sound apathetic, that's how I felt to the experience by roughly the seventh hour of playtime, you'd be best putting on your own music by then I suppose.

Slay the Spire was a rogue-like that I did indeed like, and while I quickly tired of the look of the game and it's slight lack of variety, the gameplay is truly solid. Really, it just needs more content, but the existence of the workshop for mods and the devs continued work into the game is encouraging. It also runs both quickly and unobtrusively on a laptop, so that's a bonus. Hopefully one day should I return to Slay the Spire once again there will be more to see and try out. It's pretty fun, and definitely worth a buy despite my perhaps lukewarm-seeming attitude towards the genre.