Game Debate #65: Slay the Spire

[avatar! | 1,811]

Shoot, I totally missed out on Monster Train

[Khromak | 768]

Slay the Spire is insane, one of my favorite modern games. I've put hundreds of hours into it, on both Steam and Switch. I've gotten all the achievements on Steam and I'm working on getting the last few on Switch now. It's a ton of fun, there are tons of builds, lots of interesting mechanics, and each run feels quite different. The difficulty of adding Ascension levels really ramps it up and every decision becomes important.

I'm nowhere near as good as people who play it a lot and frankly I rush through things too fast most of the time TBH, but it's crazy how deep you can get into it if you really know what you're doing.

I love how all the different characters play totally differently, but there are some common strategies. It's such an incredible game, I can't get enough of it. It's one of a few games on Switch I've played a significant amount of and one I pretty much ALWAYS take with me when I bring my Switch some place.

[TDIRunner | 2,738]

I've never heard of it and I somehow missed this thread the first time it came around.

The name sounds more like the name of a band rather than a video game.  When this popped up in my unread list, I thought for sure it was a music debate.  

[wongojack | 214]

2 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I now vaguely recall it having some buzz at release, but completely forgot about it.  Added to my Amazon list to track a price drop.  Thanks!

edit:  oh wait, it's LRG.  Price drop not coming 

 

1 hour ago, avatar! said:

Shoot, I totally missed out on Monster Train

Monster Train was in GamePass for a really long time which is what prompted me to try it.  It has left GamePass now, and I'm watching it and considering buying.  I can still play Slay the Spire and Dicey Dungeons through GamePass though, so I'm in no hurry.

Another game in the same category that I've played is Tainted Grail: Conquest.  In this one, you do control a character in a 3d environment, but all the battles are card based.  It doesn't look like it would be similar to Slay the Spire, but it totally is.  A game that one of my StS addicted friends plays a lot is Across the Obelisk.  Although I haven't played that one yet.

Edited January 24 by wongojack

[Jeevan | 8,911]

4 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Also, @Jeevan you never voted 

...not that it matters because it's too late, I'm not spending 9 hours retooling 190 debate scores.

9/10  

[LHCGreg | 111]

4 hours ago, avatar! said:

Tetris is not a roguelike.

Neither are Hades and Slay the Spire for that matter.

[avatar! | 1,811]

7 minutes ago, LHCGreg said:

Neither are Hades and Slay the Spire for that matter.

Internet disagrees --

[fox | 1,667]

I picked up Monster Train when it was on sale...maybe I need to crack into that

[Sumez | 2,951]

Slay the Spire is as much a game of luck as Tetris is 

[LHCGreg | 111]

51 minutes ago, avatar! said:

Internet disagrees --

Internet is wrong. Hades is not turn-based and metaprogression means it doesn't have real permadeath. It bears little resemblance to Rogue.

[avatar! | 1,811]

13 minutes ago, LHCGreg said:

Internet is wrong. Hades is not turn-based and metaprogression means it doesn't have real permadeath. It bears little resemblance to Rogue.

You're right that in general roguelike games have permadeath, but not always, or at any rate I've seen people debate whether "roguelike" has to include permadeath. I will say, Hades has all the other traits of roguelike -- but maybe "roguelite" is a better descriptor of Hades.

[rdrunner | 422]

1 hour ago, Sumez said:

Slay the Spire is as much a game of luck as Tetris is 

Tetris is only luck-based if you expect perfect pieces.  I've seen experts (I am not) who can win with whatever they get.

[Sumez | 2,951]

6 hours ago, rdrunner said:

Tetris is only luck-based if you expect perfect pieces.  I've seen experts (I am not) who can win with whatever they get.

Well that's my point. Slay The Spire is also only luck-based if you get perfect draws.

It's a RNG heavy game, but it's very much a game of skill!

[avatar! | 1,811]

On 1/24/2024 at 6:41 PM, LHCGreg said:

Internet is wrong. Hades is not turn-based and metaprogression means it doesn't have real permadeath. It bears little resemblance to Rogue.

Again, I agree about the permadeath which is why many people call Hades and similar games "Roguelite"

https://screenrant.com/roguelike-roguelite-difference-permadeath-hades-rogue-slay-spire/

Because of the stringent rules laid out by the Berlin Interpretation, most popular Roguelike games are more properly referred to as roguelites. roguelite games utilize some, but not all of the design elements of Rogue as the foundation for their gameplay. Permadeath and procedurally generated maps are still crucial to a roguelites design, but many games have added new spins to the genre. A number of roguelites have introduced a mechanic of carry-over progression to eventually make runs easier and allow players to go farther. Hades, for instance, contains certain resources that don't reset on death that are used to buy permanent upgrades to the character. Whether or not a game strictly qualifies as a roguelike or the more loosely defined roguelite, the subgenres have created a space for a wide range of games and play styles.

[avatar! | 1,811]

On 1/24/2024 at 1:22 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

So, Hades debate on deck?

Hades might be the easiest of all the acclaimed roguelikes, but I love it too.  There's room for lots of love to be spread around, it's not an either-or situation 

My personal scores would be something like the following:

1. Darkest Dungeon - 10/10
2. Slay the Spire - 10/10
3. Hades - 9.5/10
4. Returnal - 8.5/10
5. Dead Cells - 8.5/10
6. Enter the Gungeon - 8/10
7. Into the Breach - 8/10
8. Everspace - 8/10
9. Binding of Isaac - 7.5/10
10. Dicey Dungeons - 7/10
11. Flinthook - 7/10
12. Rogue Legacy - 6.5/10
13. Crawl - 6/10
14. Moonlighter - 5/10

Inscryption, Loop Hero - tbd

I plan to try out Epics of Hammerwatch soon. I heard it's a fabulous Roguelite

[Sumez | 2,951]

On 1/25/2024 at 12:41 AM, LHCGreg said:

Internet is wrong. Hades is not turn-based and metaprogression means it doesn't have real permadeath. It bears little resemblance to Rogue.

On 1/26/2024 at 10:03 PM, avatar! said:

Again, I agree about the permadeath which is why many people call Hades and similar games "Roguelite"

I can't remember if I've gone on on this tangent on VGS before, and I probably have...

But one thing that really stood out to me when I played Hades... is how well it both fits into the modern interpretation of what a roguelike/roguelite is, that dominates so many indie games released these days, and yet how little it has in common with even the broadest definition of the actual roguelike genre - to the point where I feel a new genre name would be fitting outside of just "roguelite".

Look at Binding of Isaac. It's doing its own thing, but you can very clearly see the tie to classic roguelikes, in terms of its overall structure, mixed with the zelda-ish shooter dungeons, and it pretty much opened the floodgates for these genre-bending rogue-inspired indie games, anything from Rogue Legacy and Spelunky, to FTL or Slay The Spire - all vastly different games, different genres even, that all share at least the overall experience you get from exploring a roguelike dungeon where anything can happen, and a wrong turn means all progress is lost.

But just around Hades is where I think we reached the point where if Isaac and those other games hadn't existed, no one would have even thought to liken Hades to something like roguelikes, berlin interpretation or not. The dungeon is stringed together by random rooms, but you typically end up going through most of the same ones every run, and there isn't any exploration since you can only go forward through the game, and very rarely even get a branching path - which is only a decision between potential rewards, since you can't tell what kind of place you are going anyway.

In fact, outside of the generic hack and slash arcadeish action game that Hades is, the only thing that really ties it to those other games, is the randomness of the potential rewards you can get from the olympian gods. But having gone this route, and having played so many of those games, I can see why you'd group them all together under the same broad umbrella. Roguelike or -lite just really doesn't cut it at that point.  It's something new.

 

Also, the concept of "permadeath" in a game with a single playable character is kinda curious. Doesn't every game without a save feature have "permadeath"? It seems to me that nowadays some developers like to steer towards the "roguelite" definition, just to be able to sell the idea of an arcade'ish structure where failing actually means game over rather than a checkpoint reload. Returnal or Monolith come to mind.

[Quaze | 342]

26 minutes ago, Sumez said:

I can't remember if I've gone on on this tangent on VGS before, and I probably have...

But one thing that really stood out to me when I played Hades... is how well it both fits into the modern interpretation of what a roguelike/roguelite is, that dominates so many indie games released these days, and yet how little it has in common with even the broadest definition of the actual roguelike genre - to the point where I feel a new genre name would be fitting outside of just "roguelite".

Look at Binding of Isaac. It's doing its own thing, but you can very clearly see the tie to classic roguelikes, in terms of its overall structure, mixed with the zelda-ish shooter dungeons, and it pretty much opened the floodgates for these genre-bending rogue-inspired indie games, anything from Rogue Legacy and Spelunky, to FTL or Slay The Spire - all vastly different games, different genres even, that all share at least the overall experience you get from exploring a roguelike dungeon where anything can happen, and a wrong turn means all progress is lost.

But just around Hades is where I think we reached the point where if Isaac and those other games hadn't existed, no one would have even thought to liken Hades to something like roguelikes, berlin interpretation or not. The dungeon is stringed together by random rooms, but you typically end up going through most of the same ones every run, and there isn't any exploration since you can only go forward through the game, and very rarely even get a branching path - which is only a decision between potential rewards, since you can't tell what kind of place you are going anyway.

In fact, outside of the generic hack and slash arcadeish action game that Hades is, the only thing that really ties it to those other games, is the randomness of the potential rewards you can get from the olympian gods. But having gone this route, and having played so many of those games, I can see why you'd group them all together under the same broad umbrella. Roguelike or -lite just really doesn't cut it at that point.  It's something new.

 

Also, the concept of "permadeath" in a game with a single playable character is kinda curious. Doesn't every game without a save feature have "permadeath"? It seems to me that nowadays some developers like to steer towards the "roguelite" definition, just to be able to sell the idea of an arcade'ish structure where failing actually means game over rather than a checkpoint reload. Returnal or Monolith come to mind.

Great post explaining how all of these games are loosely tied to the same base genre. It's not an easy thing to explain and you've done an admirable job of it here.

[Quaze | 342]

On 1/24/2024 at 11:50 AM, TDIRunner said:

I've never heard of it and I somehow missed this thread the first time it came around.

The name sounds more like the name of a band rather than a video game.  When this popped up in my unread list, I thought for sure it was a music debate.  

The title of the game is fuckin' terrible and makes no sense at all. The title actually stopped me from playing it for the first couple of years. 
"Slay the Spire" makes absolutely no sense. You cannot slay a spire, it's.....a spire on top of a tower. You can slay things on the way to the spire, but you cannot slay the spire.

This makes as much sense as naming a racing game "Race the Finish Line", calling a fighting game "Punch the Championship", or calling a card game "Deal the Casino". That English just ain't Englishing. lol

[Link | 2,712]

I want to play Punch the Championship. 

[Sumez | 2,951]

13 hours ago, Quaze said:

This makes as much sense as naming a racing game "Race the Finish Line", calling a fighting game "Punch the Championship", or calling a card game "Deal the Casino".

All of those would be badass titles though! 

[wongojack | 214]

21 hours ago, Quaze said:

The title of the game is fuckin' terrible and makes no sense at all. The title actually stopped me from playing it for the first couple of years. 
"Slay the Spire" makes absolutely no sense. You cannot slay a spire, it's.....a spire on top of a tower. You can slay things on the way to the spire, but you cannot slay the spire.

This makes as much sense as naming a racing game "Race the Finish Line", calling a fighting game "Punch the Championship", or calling a card game "Deal the Casino". That English just ain't Englishing. lol

Your reasoning here is 100% valid and makes sense, but back in the 80s I once learned about a time when they built a whole city on Rock n Roll, and from that point, I just knew that sometimes these things obey some different rules when it comes to reasoning and logic.

 

Edited January 30 by wongojack

[Quaze | 342]

5 hours ago, Sumez said:

All of those would be badass titles though! 

I've missed my calling as a video game titler!

Edited January 30 by Quaze

[Quaze | 342]

1 hour ago, wongojack said:

Your reasoning here is 100% valid and makes sense, but back in the 80s I once learned about a time when they built a whole city on Rock n Roll and from that point, I just knew that sometimes these things obey some different rules when it comes to reasoning and logic.

 

Yes, the structural engineers for the city in question need to have their professional designations revoked. There's simply no way rock n' roll would have the foundational stability on which to build an entire city!

[avatar! | 1,811]

On 1/29/2024 at 5:20 PM, Sumez said:

I can't remember if I've gone on on this tangent on VGS before, and I probably have...

But one thing that really stood out to me when I played Hades... is how well it both fits into the modern interpretation of what a roguelike/roguelite is, that dominates so many indie games released these days, and yet how little it has in common with even the broadest definition of the actual roguelike genre - to the point where I feel a new genre name would be fitting outside of just "roguelite".

Look at Binding of Isaac. It's doing its own thing, but you can very clearly see the tie to classic roguelikes, in terms of its overall structure, mixed with the zelda-ish shooter dungeons, and it pretty much opened the floodgates for these genre-bending rogue-inspired indie games, anything from Rogue Legacy and Spelunky, to FTL or Slay The Spire - all vastly different games, different genres even, that all share at least the overall experience you get from exploring a roguelike dungeon where anything can happen, and a wrong turn means all progress is lost.

But just around Hades is where I think we reached the point where if Isaac and those other games hadn't existed, no one would have even thought to liken Hades to something like roguelikes, berlin interpretation or not. The dungeon is stringed together by random rooms, but you typically end up going through most of the same ones every run, and there isn't any exploration since you can only go forward through the game, and very rarely even get a branching path - which is only a decision between potential rewards, since you can't tell what kind of place you are going anyway.

In fact, outside of the generic hack and slash arcadeish action game that Hades is, the only thing that really ties it to those other games, is the randomness of the potential rewards you can get from the olympian gods. But having gone this route, and having played so many of those games, I can see why you'd group them all together under the same broad umbrella. Roguelike or -lite just really doesn't cut it at that point.  It's something new.

 

Also, the concept of "permadeath" in a game with a single playable character is kinda curious. Doesn't every game without a save feature have "permadeath"? It seems to me that nowadays some developers like to steer towards the "roguelite" definition, just to be able to sell the idea of an arcade'ish structure where failing actually means game over rather than a checkpoint reload. Returnal or Monolith come to mind.

I think what you say is very valid. In some ways, you can ask "Does it really matter what we call a game?" If it's fun then great, if it's not you probably could care less what genre it's classified as! Still, many of us decide if a game is of potential interest based upon the genre -- for example, I love RPGs, so if I hear a new RPG is coming out I would certainly be far more interested than a FPS, but of course you can have games like Mass Effect which combine both genres. Here is what wikipedia has to say --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_game_genres

And they say a lot! They have a whole article on Roguelike --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike

Newer games that move away from traditional hack-and-slash elements but otherwise keeping procedural generation and permadeath features are sometimes called "rogue-lites".

But, Hades which many call Roguelite does not keep permadeath, so as you noted, maybe it's a Tempdeath Roguelite... I don't know. I just made that up

[CT | 91]

Ok I just beat the Heart (w/ the Defect) so I thought I would add my rating which is 8/10.

I started playing this game a few months ago. I really enjoy it and I appreciate tabletop card games much more now.

If there was more enemy variety or just more variety in general I would rank it higher.