Slay the Spire

Since 2014 this mantra has been diluted, especially thanks to Blizzard's entry with Hearthstone . The card game based on the World of Warcraft universe was a pole of mass attraction for many players who until now had not wanted or had not had the strength to enter into this type of videogames and metagames. The undisputed success of the Blizzard title was the champion of an era that motivated the democratization and expansion of the genre with titles of first swords, see Gwent or Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales of CD Projekt RED, the new Magic Arena , The Elder Scrolls Legends of Bethesda, or Artifact de Valve.

But it is still a muddy terrain that requires hours, learning and dedication to anyone who wants to feel comfortable and knowledgeable about “what happens” within the game. And among all this bustling reality the American Mega Crit , without making too much noise, planted in early-access the game that we bring you today, Slay the Spire .

Almost without invitation to join the party and with, a priori, worse galas that the rest of those present here Slay the Spire has been captivating anyone who decided to give it a try . Finally, its final version has been released and the game becomes available for both PC and, shortly, the Nintendo hybrid. But what makes this Slay the Spire can stare at the rest of the titles?

First and as a suggestion, it is advisable to approach Slay the Spire without prejudice to discover something different within a classic proposal. Slay the Spire is the clear example that one plus one is three, since it incorporates the mechanics of both card games and classic roguelike.

On these firm foundations stands a resulting gameplay that is the cornerstone of the game and what makes it a very cool title and different from the rest.

Cool because the action takes place smoothly and with a very well measured tempo taking into account the player's progression. As a good roguelike our character will have to move through different rooms of the tower in which we are. This distribution takes place procedurally and contains everything from battles , bonfires to rest, merchants or treasures . On this side, Mega Crit's proposal resembles in its approach those seen in Darkest Dungeon. We are aware of the entire distribution of the rooms but we only know their content in a limited number of them. So we have to be very careful when planning our ascent since death in Slay the Spire is permanent. Dying implies starting the game from scratch.

Focusing on their battles, indeed, Slay the Spire is a card game, but from a very fresh and dynamic perspective with a very original deck building format .

We will start with a total of 10 cards in our deck each with their respective cost. Each turn we will have some action points and the unused cards will go to the discard pile. So until we run out of cards exact point where we will start again from our discard pile. Seemingly very simple, attack and defense cards. Slay the Spire is a very sincere game, we will know in advance what kind of attack the opponent has in store for us. Are you going to attack us with two impacts of X damage? Perfect, we will choose to protect ourselves. It may seem that it is a vacuous approach but as we win battles and progress in our escalation we will be incorporating new cards that will make the equations begin to spin in our mind providing a playability level and depth very careful and, most importantly, very organic in its learning curve . Almost without realizing it, we will see that the vertigo that this type of game causes as a rule does not exist here . The game accompanies us and totally dilutes that barrier allowing us to focus on progress and build our path.

That not only is formed of letters, but of relics , potions and, above all, decisions . These decisions give the game a body, its own narrative. Again very similar to the relics that we were in Darkest Dungeon , where it will be the player's decision to expose himself to suffer damage or, perhaps, to find a treasure or relic valuable enough to change the course of our game.

Another of the elements mentioned are bonfires or resting points where we can decide if we want to improve one of our cards or recover health points, since these do not regenerate after the fighting. All these decisions must have a logic , our logic. As we approach the game, the construction of our deck or our decisions must have the logic necessary to be consistent enough to guarantee success. Making decisions lightly or turning in our mid-game strategy can be an imminent Game Over.

Perhaps his only mole is his artistic and sound section . Despite its uniqueness it does not shine at the height that the excellent mechanics and dynamics that it generates when playing it do. Waiting to test how the Switch version evolves, the truth is that Slay the Spire has a very “portable” profile given the duration of its games and the mobility that the Nintendo hybrid provides, making the binomial, at least on the paper, paint a master play.