Slay the Spire review: Please stop adopting every card you meet

The big picture

Slay the Spire gives you a changing tower to climb and a deck that gradually reveals the consequences of your taste. A reward can look wonderful in isolation, join your collection and become the thing you repeatedly draw while desperately hoping for something else. This is a single-player card battler about adapting to available tools, with frequent opportunities to discover that enthusiasm and a coherent strategy are only distant acquaintances. Steam overview

Mega Crit's original game entered Early Access on November 14, 2017, before its full PC release on January 23, 2019. Mega Crit handles PC publishing, while its current FAQ identifies Balor with console and mobile ports. This review concerns the first game, not the sequel: cooperative climbing from Slay the Spire 2 does not sneak into this one just because they share a dangerous building in the title. Developer release retrospective, Current FAQ

Your deck is allowed to have standards

Choosing cards and combining their effects with relics makes context central. A powerful-looking reward may support your current direction, repair a weakness or simply join several other impressive objects that have no business sharing a plan. The question is what it does here, with these tools. Being exciting in the abstract is a fine qualification for a conversation topic and a less reliable one for your next draw. Card and relic description

Reading an individual card is the beginning. Understanding its place among other choices takes attention, which is where the game becomes interesting for people who like comparing alternatives. Card combat does not eliminate decision fatigue. It can concentrate it into a tiny rectangle and then offer you two more rectangles to consider.

The satisfying possibility is developing a better sense of fit. You start noticing that an apparently modest option answers the current problem more neatly than the grander one. That kind of learning feels different from simply accumulating stronger equipment. Your judgment improves, even if your willingness to ignore it occasionally remains remarkably consistent.

The route is part of the fight

The changing tower offers route choices, different opponents and bosses. Relics can also demand costs beyond gold. Deciding where to go is therefore part of the strategy, not a brief decorative journey before the real decisions begin. An ambitious route should reflect what the current deck can manage, rather than what you hope the deck might become after several exceptionally convenient events. Routes and relics

Randomization creates new arrangements of familiar ingredients, not a guarantee that every attempt feels like a wholly separate game. Repetition supplies the framework. If reconsidering the same rules under different conditions sounds rewarding, that's a useful reason to play. If the sight of another run chiefly makes you wonder why the previous one couldn't have been permanent, its appeal may be harder to find.

Four characters, plenty of ways to reconsider things

Distinct character card pools offer different problems to learn, and unlocks give you more material to understand. Daily Climbs allow leaderboard comparison; Custom mode changes run conditions. These let you explore the foundation from several directions without turning the original into co-op. Sharing a result is not the same thing as inviting someone into the fight to rescue your most adventurous decisions. Modes

Mega Crit says no further content updates are planned for the first game. An established body of rules can be attractive if you prefer learning something settled, although it is not a promise that every port is bug-free. Buy for the game available, not for additions associated with its successor. A sequel announcement is remarkably poor evidence of a feature in the previous game. Content plans

Cards need a comfortable place to be read

Native options cover Windows, macOS, Linux, PS4, Xbox One and Switch. PS5 runs the PS4 edition with Sony's usual warning that some features may be absent; Series X|S plays the Xbox One release. Nintendo marks the Switch version supported on Switch 2. These are compatibility routes, not separately established native editions for newer consoles. PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo

Android and iOS are also available. On Apple devices, the standard paid app and Slay the Spire+ through Apple Arcade are separate access arrangements, not an instruction to buy both. The standard app documents progress transfer to the Arcade edition; that does not establish universal phone, console and computer cross-saves. Check the exact combination you need, plus subscription and device requirements. Paid iOS app, Apple Arcade edition

Slay the Spire makes sense if asking why a plan failed is part of your enjoyment rather than merely the unpleasant aftermath. Its systems offer reasons to experiment and improve without promising effortless mastery. The buttons may be simple. The argument you're about to have with yourself over a single card can be considerably less so.