So I have been playing a lot of slay the spire 2, I just passed 200 games and have gotten to around a 70% A10 winrate on every character except ironclad (where I am in the gutter at 30%, how do you play this character if you don't get the vulnerable cards? How do you play the vulnerable cards against aeonglass with 3 artefact?).
I've been entirely on the beta branch for context.
This game fascinates me, it's one of if not the best strategy games I have played. Feedback for most things is extremely salient, you makes a judgement call and then a turn or 2 later you have lost N or N+M health and can evaluate your tactics. The thing that keeps me coming back though is the less salient stuff, the layers and layers of thinking to pathing.
As I improve (I would consider myself approaching mediocre at the game, I think 90% winrate is when you can probably say you are good) I find myself evaluating turns on a much deeper level, asking questions like "the elite that's coming up has a big attack on turn 3, given that and how many skills I play each turn what number should tuning fork be on so that it goes off that turn?"
I think people think of the game as requiring luck but my experience seems to be outside of rare occurrences (like an awful 1-in-a-large-number shuffle against a boss you struggle at) luck is not usually a major factor. If I don't die in the first few floors of act 1 (or reach a state I cannot recover from because I am bad) I usually die on the act 3 second boss.
One of my favourite aspects is how A10 forces you to build for all 3 act 3 bosses, since there is a 2/3 chance you face them. This really tickles your brain to get you to think of how you're going to make your deck do everything it needs to win.
My one criticism of the game is that almost all the interesting enemies are in act 1, although with the recent (oppressive, halp!) changes to infested prism and aeonglass I think that things are on the right track.
If you're into deck builders, or just marvelous strategy games, I unreservedly recommend it.
Got the game, but unfortunately i get bored about 25 minutes in and just close the game. I am pretty ass at it too. I just really don't like figuring out what path to take and on what turn i should kill the enemy so that the incremental relic goes off on the perfect turn against the elite.
I think strategy games are just not for me tbh. My ADHD ass is feeling no reward at pulling off the perfect turn.
That being said, the art sytle - just like the first game - is purified, unadulterated, ultra homogenised, ass. Like, absolute dogwater and every recommendation from me needs to be qualified with "yeah, i know, it looks trash, but..."
The first game had the excuse of being the first game, but they really just rehired the janitor with aphantasia for the second game too ๐ญ
I think the game would get me more excited if it had the HD2D artstyle of octopath traveler and such. Or even just normal pixel art.
I agree that the game is ugly as fuck. That fact somehow actively ruins my experience.
It's strange because I've never had a problem with ugly graphics before, especially if I like the gameplay. I just can't deal with StS
I know, i know, i am alone with my opinion and i don't understand why haha.
Took me a year to get over the art style of the first game before i even attempted to try it out ๐