This week was Slay the Spire 2.
It released into early access a few days ago, and even though it’s in early access, I’m greatly enjoying it. All of the playable characters return except the Watcher, and there’s the addition of two new characters, the Necrobinder, and the Regent.
The Necrobinder’s gimmick is having a minion that takes damage instead of you, and you can use cards to increase it’s health. Her other gimmick is doom, it kills enemy if there current health is below the amount of doom. I haven’t played her much yet, but I did play her more than the Regent. His gimmick is having a second pool of mana called stars, they don’t get removed by the end of a turn, and you don’t get more by the start of a turn, you only get them through cards as far as I know, His other gimmick is forging. Forging creates a special sword card that deals damage based on how much forge you have, and it uses stars to play it. That’s all I know about him.
The game itself is good, there seems to be just more of everything, including power. It feels like enemies and the player is stronger, as a result the Silent gets a power card that makes her do double damage to enemies with the weak debuff, on the other hand you can get an enemy that debuffs you so that every card you play, you will lose 1 strength and 1 dexterity for that turn. It seems moderately well balanced in the end, but the highs and lows of how strong you feel are definitely more extreme.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about everything having animations, but they just fits right in. I love most of the creature designs, the card art, and the event backgrounds.
Instead of getting a choice between three buffs at the beginning of a run like the first game, you now get a choice between three buffs at the beginning of each act. These buff can be the standard upgrade a card or get a rare card but you lose your money, but sometimes it can be a new feature, card enchantments. Card Enchantments can get added to a card to give buffs ranging from add two block when played, or add two damage, to the first time that card gets played it gets replayed once per combat.
It also has co-op as well. It works fine, if you can’t agree on who gets what relic from a chest, then it chooses randomly, the gold and shop are different for each player, and there are a handful of co-op exclusive cards.
So, I’ve been enjoying it so far. what’s everyone else doing?