Monster Train May Have Dethroned Slay The Spire As The Deck-Building King

Monster Train is clearly inspired by Slay The Spire, but it may also be superior to it in many ways.

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Monster Train is the latest railblazing riff on the deck-building roguelike, this time with a tower defense twist. It’s a high-speed chase through Hell, where you control the hordes of the abyss fighting off legions of angels in a battle for survival. It’s addictive. It’s awesome.

It’s being compared in some circles to 2019 hit Slay The Spire. Spire is the popularizer of the deck-building roguelike genre, and has spawned many clones, but nothing quite compared until Monster Train.

The Deck-Building Roguelike Genre

Let’s back up briefly to discuss the genre. In both Spire and Train, you aren’t so much playing characters as you are playing a deck of cards. In each game, your deck starts off with basic, unimpactful cards, and with each success, you add new, more exciting cards to your deck. Each battle sees you playing your deck against enemies with predictable behaviors. In Spire, this amounts to playing block cards to avoid taking damage, playing attack cards to dish out the pain, and other cards to buff yourself, debuff the enemy, or otherwise change the rules of the game in your favor before you’re eventually beaten down by bad luck and polyhedrons.

Monster Train sees you defending your train, the Boneshaker, from enemies, across multiple floors. Unlike Slay The Spire, you’re not just controlling one character – you’re deploying a small strike force on each floor, casting spells from cards to harm, heal, and hinder. Enemies invade from the bottom floor and work their way up, giving you the chance to hit them at every stop along the way. Keep them from damaging the heart of your train, your Pyre, and you’re golden.

The games have a lot in common, but there are several ways Monster Train has evolved the genre and come out on top. Let’s take a look.

Replayability: Twenty Selectable Classes To Choose From

Each run in Monster Train begins with you selecting two clans, from five, to populate your personal guard. Your ‘primary’ clan determines which champion will lead your army, and which cards you’ll see the most of on your journey to the depths of Hell. This allows for twenty possible combinations before you even set foot in Limbo.

Compare this to Slay The Spire, with its four selectable characters (not to mention its impressive modding community, to be fair). Each is fun on its own, and a challenge to master. But four characters can’t compete with Monster Train’s selection.

Customizability: Modular Card Upgrades

You’re not just adding and removing cards to and from your deck in Monster Train. Between each battle, you’ll also get the chance to upgrade your cards. While Spire offers this chance, as well, there is always just one defined upgrade for each card; Monster Train, on the other hand, revels in your ability to potentially create “broken” cards.

You can spend your cash to upgrade your units and spells, making them tougher, more powerful, cheaper – and then you can do it once more (barring the presence of certain game-changing relics) for each card. It’s a reward system that rewards creativity.

Difficulty: Choose Your Own Misadventure

Each successful run in Monster Train can be more and more challenging, should you choose to conquer the Covenant mode. So far, so Slay The Spire’s “Ascension.” Monster Train, however, lets you choose the difficulty for each battle.

Before you get into a fight, you’re given the option to give your enemies a boost – extra shielding, spikes, etc. Should you choose to accept this handicap, you’ll get the chance for extra rewards. Knowing when to go for these extra rewards is a tricky problem to solve, and isn’t always easy. They’ll almost always involve you taking a few extra hits to your Pyre, but getting to the end of some Covenant runs requires you to take a few risks early on.

Final Thoughts

There are yet more differences between the two games – Monster Train has impressive stat tracking, end-game rewards to chase, and even a multiplayer mode. Slay The Spire is undeniably stylish and, by comparison, a sleeker experience. When it comes down to it, though, Monster Train may just have more frequent impactful decision points. Like a runaway train, Monster Train will keep me playing… nonstop.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/monster-train-slay-the-spire-comparison/