This article is part of our new experimental series, Backlog Club, where we (Nintendo Life!) pick a game that's likely to be on our list of "games we should get around to playing", and then we (NL + you!) spend the next month playing that game. This is the halfway point, the Part One of two, where we stop for a minute to check in with the game, and how much we're enjoying it.
For the month of April 2022, we're playing Slay The Spire! Not to completion, necessarily, but we'll try to give it a fair whack all the same.
I don't believe in "slow and steady wins the race". I think it's a stupid sentiment, even if there is a nugget of truth in it: Take time, and be careful, and you'll get better results. I just don't think it wins a race. The fable of the tortoise and the hare only works because the hare takes a nap! The hare deserved to win by virtue of being much, much faster, and the nap had nothing to do with whether or not the tortoise was good at racing.
All of this preamble is to say that I've had to re-examine my need for speed in the face of roguelike deckbuilders, a genre that I'm very much enamoured with. Slay The Spire — the choice for Backlog Club this week — is one of those, and a damn fine one it is. (Oh, and if you're not sure what I'm talking about, check out the Backlog Club introduction I wrote a couple of weeks ago. It'll make sense in a bit.)
In roguelikes and deckbuilders, slow and steady might not win the race (i.e., a speedrunning tournament) but it certainly wins the game.
My usual tactic is just trying to get things over with as quickly as possible
In most strategy games, my usual tactic is just trying to get things over with as quickly as possible, filling up my list of attacks with whatever does the most damage, and hoping that I'll only have to make a few moves to kill my opponent dead. In RPGs, I'll usually take a rogue or DPS build, because those allow me to hammer on the "attack" button until my enemies keel over in defeat. I am no strategist, most of the time; I am merely a spiky tank, content with swapping damage for damage as long as I come out victorious.
And that just does not work in turn-based deckbuilder games like Slay The Spire. So I'm having to try something new, even though it's not new to most people, and that tactic is something I like to call "actually caring about defence". It's this genius thing where I actually try to nullify the attacks before they're even made, instead of tanking the damage like usual.
Slay The Spire is not about taking hits — with only 80HP to your name, you can't really afford to. Instead, you'll have to use multiple strategies to survive, because survival is key to making it to the next fight, and the next, and the next. You are the underdog.
Other video games, especially RPGs, tend to position you as the World's Most Strongest Punch Man, but Slay The Spire instead gives you The Ironclad as your starting fighter, a mid-range character whose deck is fairly balanced between attacking and blocking without any majorly off-the-wall strategies (the other unlockable characters vary this up, but since we're only a couple of weeks into Slay The Spire, I'll just focus on the beginner character). His tactic leans toward the tit-for-tat combat style: Strike, block, strike, block, and so on. The challenge is to survive long enough to strike down the enemies with 80+ HP, since your attacks usually only do 6-15 damage in one go.
And surviving means taking things slow. Where I would normally hit hard and take just as much damage in return, I'm instead having to spend a large part of my turns mitigating the damage instead. I have just three "energy" per turn, and I can use that to hit, defend, or use various other unique cards that increase stats, decrease enemy stats, and so on. It's tempting to use all three energy points to use my cool damagey cards, but slow and steady wins the race, so instead I use two of the energy points to defend, and the remaining one to attack, slowly whittling down the enemy HP. Key word: slowly.
Sometimes all you can do is do your best to block damage, so you can make it to the next room, or the next day
The thing about Slay The Spire so far is that it's not a race at all. You don't get bonus points for being fast or efficient. All you get is the reward of making it to the next room. But sometimes, that's all you need — the next room could heal you, buff you, make you stronger or more resilient in some way. You just need to survive.
And yes, I am going to make a clumsy analogy here, buckle up: I feel like Slay The Spire's gentle insistence that you should probably take care of yourself before you try to slay monsters is a pretty useful lesson in general. It's that whole "put your oxygen mask on first before helping others" thing, sort of. When you're in a pickle — whether that pickle is that you're having a bad day, or that you're fighting a bunch of weird little goblins who keep cursing you to take more damage — sometimes all you can do is do your best to block it, so you can make it to the next room, or the next day.
Defending, protecting, and surviving feel a little boring and passive, but they can be the difference between defeat and success — even if that success is by the very skin of your teeth.
So, that's how I'm feeling about Slay The Spire after a couple of weeks! I'm excited to try out the other characters — I just unlocked The Silent, and though I enjoy The Ironclad's no-nonsense strategies, I'm interested in The Silent's passive poison attacks. With The Ironclad, I managed to get to the boss of the second area, and he absolutely pummelled me. Tips and tricks welcome!
And, of course, this is just the halfway point: come back at the end of the month for our full thoughts on Slay The Spire, and for the discussion portion of the Book Club Backlog Club!
Comments 31
I downloaded the game from gamepass but haven’t played it yet, but plan to maybe today?
Same with Darkest Dungeon. Only trying to deal damage will get you killed in no time.
Defense is definitely your top priority in STS, as it should be in most strategy games. It doesn't matter how powerful your fighter's attacks are if they die before they can use them. You really only need a few heavy damage cards. Try to pick up cards that accelerate card draw so that you always have access to the cards you need. And keep your deck as tight as you can. With deckbuilders, smaller is almost always better.
The Ironclad is not my favorite character, I much prefer the Silent and the Defect. I think you'll like the Silent, Kate. She can build up devastating attacks with poison but still has enough defensive options to be viable.
Still reluctant to get into anything deeper than timewasters, Disco Elysium left quite an impression. I did buy Beautiful Desolation at its current incredible sales price, it sort of kind of seems a little bit like it... But that's when things go wrong, when your next love looks like your latest ex you still haven't recovered from, will uou love the new one for who they are, or hate them for not being who you deep down still miss...
Also got Quake, Pathway, Boreal Tenebrae, Tormented Souls physically, and a timewaster f2p game Coverfire, which I'm currently quite mindlessly mostly enjoying. On 3ds I finally inserted the cartridge of Etrian Odyssey with every intention of soon actually starting it, after playing every EO game before it and the Persona crossovers.
Well, has little to do with Slay the Spire, only with backlog...
Wow that’s actually a lot more % of people participating than I expected. I’m going through Triangle Strategy in my backlog, even though it’s a pretty recent game.
It’s not really my type of game at all tbh but it’s okay. I doubt I will fully get into it but will keep plugging away at it.
Such a great game and I voted wrong, read too fast (should have voted for already played it, but votes for I like it)
Been playing it for months and it has been my wife’s go-to game and still is. You are always making interesting decisions which makes it constantly engaging and you may find yourself in a game-trance not realizing hours have passed. Pretty great for a turn-based card game.
My problem with StS was that I first picked it up after having played Griftlands, which is simply superior.
I just beat the 3rd boss for the first time last night, using a slow, “thousand cuts” deck with The Silent. It really is a game where you need to take the patient approach.
Hey, 200+ hour sts player here! Two nitpicks: one, you do get bonus points for playing fast! At the end, there are two bonuses, Speedster and Light Speed, that give you a higher score if you beat the game in under 60 or 45 minutes, respectively. And two, for some enemies playing quickly is actually really important, at least in terms of how quickly you can get your engine moving relative to an enemy’s scaling; later run enemies can quickly outscale you if your deck is bloated, especially on higher ascensions. I’m so glad everyone’s playing this though!!
I like it but I'm just not good at it and I'm not the sort that looks for "optimal character builds" or whatever, so I doubt my strategies will get any better. Feels like you really need to build your decks with a certain playstyle in mind but heck if I'll ever figure it out. The early stages are still fun though.
@Tingle_The_Great I second your comment, there are some enemies that will scale fairly quickly, so patience is not always key (or in the case of Act 1 Elite named Lagavulin, he will lower your character's strength/dexterity every few turns, so you cannot afford to stall the battle, just try to rush him down instead).
And yes as others have mentioned, a small(er) deck is key! Strikes/Defends are no doubt any character's weakest cards in their deck, so the fewer of those cards you have (and replaced with better alternatives), the better.
@KateGray
Awesome game, I wish they would do a DLC...
I, uh... I would totally play this game if someone would buy it for me. Kate is earning the big bucks, right? Alex Olney? Mitch Vogel? ... anyone? Is this thing on?
I finally inserted the cartridge of Etrian Odyssey with every intention of soon actually starting it
@Shambo Which Etrian Odyssey game are you referring to? That sort of game looks tailor-made for me... but the series is so expensive as it is, and I need to do mundane things like actually buying a 3DS first...
Going to try this out today, I need this extra motivation to get to some of the games in my backlog.
@CANOEberry I'm starting V now, played every single one up to it, including the Persona Q games. If you want to try just one, I'd say... Go with Untold 1 (the 'untold' games are 3ds remakes of 1 and 2 on DS, but with optional story mode with pre-made characters and cutscenes), IV has an airship overworld, which is nice too, and the Persona Q games are the same gameplay formula but in a Persona setting, story, art style,... Very nice games.
I can't speak for V or Nexus yet, the latest 2. So they may have some further refinements or deeper customisation, but the earlier ones were great already, and if you want to play another one after your first one, it's always better to have more options instead of less.
So yeah, if you want a nice story, as an easier introduction, but with the option to ignore all that and play like regular EO, Untold 1 has got just that.
If you want the most open, pure EO, go with 4.
If you want a Persona game that plays like EO, both are good, but the second one lacks 3d visuals if I recall correctly. And the first Persona Q has my favourite dungeons of the two. Q2 adds character of Persona 5.
Basically, you can't really go wrong if you like it. I think some of them have demo's.
Edit. You'll probably never get the same kind of game on another platform, as it uses both screens and touch very well, to draw your own map and notes from what you see on the top screen. So IF you like it, it's very well worth the purchase of a 3ds, which is very much worth a purchase for many other exclusive games as well in my opinion.
I've been chipping away at this game slowly for years now. Its my favorite game to play when I dont feel like having to bother with reflexes and hand-eye coordination.
Just as of this morning, I've managed to somehow clear the Spire with The Silent on Ascension 15 with a poison heavy run, and then IMMEDIATELY after, beat it again on 16th Ascension with a Shiv heavy run. I'm astounded.
I've made no progress in weeks, and suddenly I'm so much closer to the 20th Ascension than ever before.
Already cleared all 20 with The Defect, and now I'm at 17 with the other two. (Watcher doesn't count. I'm only on 4th with her) Once I hit 20 with everyone, I may finally put this down for good.
@Desrever That’s impressive! I think I’ll give up before getting that far. The randomness means that there are likely just too many runs that don’t provide useful build options at those levels of difficulty. The daily runs and custom will probably be what keeps me coming back. (Though maybe I’m fooling myself as we have done a couple levels of Ascension …. )
@Big_Fudge Same here! (Nice Henry Hatsworth icon btw)
This week was my first time picking up this game and it's been.... a very long time since a game has hooked me so much. I did beat Act 3 with all the main fighters, and I JUST barely beat the final boss with Silent. I really enjoyed this game a lot, but now that I've beaten the final boss, I think I'm good.
The only other card-based game I've played to any real degree before this was Baten Kaitos.
As others have said @KateGray , there is a way to do that hard-hitting playstyle with Ironclad: focus as much as possible on strength-building and strength-dependent/multi-attack cards. Ironclad can actually run circles around the Silent tortoise in that regard, but I think to win he just relies more on having a deck that's JUUUST right. Silent, while still shiv and poison dependent, offers more flexibility. At least, that's my impression after 23 hours.
This game is in my TOP-5 all time.
This game is perfect!
"The fable of the tortoise and the hare only works because the hare takes a nap!"
This has always bothered me, too. What a crappy story.
@JasmineDragon I've been sick this weekend so I blew through the first two stages as the Silent - I love her! As Teksetter put it, it's a really fun "death by a thousand cuts" approach that I like because it feels oddly stealthy? Get in a few poison jabs here and there and then just wait ☺️
@Shambo It is very striking to see the praise that this EO series gets (both in person and online), and how near-unanimous it is. Based on what you are saying, I would prefer to start with EO IV, but I am happy to try Untold 1 as well. (I think price will determine which game I try first, sadly.)
I really appreciate your detailed reply. Are you familiar with Darkest Dungeon? The dungeon designs obviously don't compare to EO, but the complexity and challenge are very engaging, I find.
@Teksetter I see from the message before mine that Kate seems to be in happy agreement with you. Must be nice! I wonder what that's like...
@CANOEberry
Kate-senpai noticed me and it really is very gratifying! Though I am way older and technically she can’t be my senpai, but the sentiment fits. 😊
But I wish you could join our little Slay the Spire book club - it’s similar to Darkest Dungeon in how you find joy in mitigation. I imagine you would really like it! I bought StS on sale for US$9.99 last Thanksgiving, and it was money well spent, even if I did set the game aside until this backlog club arrived.
The thing that has kept me coming back to this game is just how different each run can be. You can hit on a strategy but then you get some random relic early on that, if you go with it and build your deck around that, ends up with you playing in a completely different way. And all of the characters play so differently to start with. So much variety.
One tip (I play on iPad but assume it’s the same on switch?) - after a few runs it can be worth looking in the settings for the option that speeds up the animations, just to keep things moving once you have the hang of the game.
On another note, much as I love this game, starting a run late in the evening is just doom for me. End up playing well into the night, and then when I do put it down and try to get some sleep all I can see are cards and eldritch monsters flashing in front of my eyes. I think I might have a problem!
Oh, and often you’ll see new cards or relics and just think ‘why would I ever go for that?’ as it just seems weak or random or just doesn’t work with everything else you have. But then if you try and focus on ways you could use it (or, you know, just google it) you come across totally different strategies based around that one thing.
Ok I’m gushing, but this game really does have layers of depth that reveal themselves over hours of play.
@Teksetter 😀 I quite appreciate your invitation to play StS. Feels like the nicer times in the schoolyard, when people would share their excitement about the latest game on the NES/SNES!
I have something of a dilemma here. I have some expensive summer projects lined up, so I've set myself a fairly limited budget for gaming until September or so. I was really hoping to secure a 3DS and some games that look absolutely essential (e.g. SMT/various Atlus titles, Zero Escape, ALBW...) in the next little while. It's not a short list, and that's even before you consider that I've just about given up on finding affordable copies of the many Dragon Quest games I've missed, unlike in the case of those other series.
Sigh OTOH, I suppose I can afford it in an absolute sense. Hey, does this sort of painful decision-making prepare me for a deckbuilding game?...
@CANOEberry I have it on my Switch, but at the time I tried it, well, it was too dark for me... I got actual stress from it, and wanted to play more casual, or at least more light games. Haven't gotten into it since. I do remember the Dark Spire, a first person dungeon crawler on DS that had very interesting visuals and was very dark and difficult, EO is often exploring forests and such (quite a few have a forest as first dungeon), and while it gets incredibly tense when sneaking around the initially way over powered FOE's (enemies that ARE visible on the map and guard certain area's, that you can later defeat as 'mini-bosses' and still later are a good way to get a lot of experience and always satisfaction), it's never quite as stressful as having a sick, traumatised, poisoned, dying team that is going crazy. I do still want to try again some day.
@CANOEberry If I'm not mistaken, both EO4 and EOU1 are ten euro's in the 3ds eshop now, so I suppose it will be around that price around the world (it rarely happens that European retail or digital prices for Atlus games are cheaper than elsewhere) in case digital isn't an issue and you think it's worth the purchase of a 3ds, you get quite some value there, while no single game in any series is worth what they are charging for the physical copies last I saw. I just noticed and thought about this conversation.
@Shambo Thanks for remembering! I've been budgeting for a 3DS and worthy games for a while now, and yes, the EO games are definitely priced at some sort of mad Atlus collector fanatic premium. From watching Let's Play videos and such, though, I'm even more interested now.
At the moment it probably doesn't count as liberating games/things from "capitalism's prison system", as you were singing/rapping a while back, but I am pretty insistent on physical copies for worthwhile stuff - I take preservation quite seriously, and I've already arranged to donate my collections to the right people if my canoe flips in the wrong river one day. Actually, the 3DS makes a pretty potent symbol of what's going wrong these days - the games and system were supposed to be budgeted for kids and thrifty parents, and now they're being hoarded, with all that implies. The eShop closure doesn't help, just like copyright law, and the crass attitude these companies have toward their own cultural products.
I've actually learned a lot from the retailing of physical games (it seems every decent-sized town in Canada has a healthy market, whereas this used to be a niche hobby), and it tells me that some people are so blind with greed that they don't see their own feet burning. It seems to be worse with music, and even books aren't being printed in the numbers they should be. So yeah, there's more than just games involved here... just some thoughts... (I'll stop now)
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