Slay the Spire

Slay the Spire has positive reviews from all over. It is a game that was in development for roughly 3 years and in early access for a long time. It is a dungeon-crawler rogue-like card game. You play one of three characters as you climb the tower. It is extremely hard. There is no easy mode. The normal difficulty is barely passable with the randomization of cards, enemies, merchants, events, relics, and potions. There is technically a 4th final Act that requires three keys that must be obtained in exchange of a rest, elite relic, and a treasure relic. Then, if that isn't enough, you can always make it harder by going through the Ascension Tiers.

Let me first say that I played the game for 20 hours. The first time I played with all three characters, I successfully passed all three Acts around 2 hours each. Then I proceeded to fail the following 16 rounds. I managed to reach the final Act once but was unable to beat the ridiculously difficult heart. The strategies were sound. I played a hard-hitting warrior, a body-slamming tank, a vampire, a confused striker, a dagger-wielding rogue, a toxic hunter, a zero-energy robot, a tactician, a power-wielding mage, and a drone equipped with a slew of energy orbs. Sometimes I got just the right upgraded cards and relics to give me an advantage (like switching my starting relic for a relic that transforms all my beginning strikes for better cards). Most of the time I got an enemy that countered my tactics or dealt more damage than I could handle.

Let me list some examples of how my runs ended short. It is entirely possible to run into an elite by the name of Gremlin Nob that has about the same amount of health as you, deals about the same amount of damage if you use your three energy points on normal strikes, and increases damage when you block (or use any skill for that matter). Your only option is to take the hits and continue attacking. Book of Stabbing is another elite you can encounter that increases their attack per round. Without knowing this beforehand, I somehow had him up to 6x9 damage with my barricaded warrior. One round I obtained three merchant relics increasing health per visit, giving gold per floor, and decreasing the cost of cards. I must have had 500 gold when I died because the only merchant available was right before the boss.

That isn't to say I made my fair share of mistakes. One time I accidentally doubled my -1 strength to -2. I pressed the wrong button on the controller and ended my turn without playing a single card. I didn't read the fine print on something, like Corruption changes all skill card costs to 0 but you can only play them once per combat. There was a number of times I didn't count the energy costs in my turn or didn't realize that vulnerability was still in effect (because the increased damage only shows up after you target the enemy even if all current enemies have it applied). I may have rested a few times when I should have upgraded a card. I also may have picked a few too many cards or never removed any of my beginner cards.

Summary: Originally the game was marked at around $15 throughout its early access phase. That might have been a fairer price. The game, currently marked at $25 on Steam, is too expensive for something I couldn't even beat. The only way to succeed is to hope the Random Number Generator is advantageous to your cause. Sadly in my case, the house always wins.

 

5-5-2019