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Digital Trends
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
The Nintendo Switch taught me to love an entire genre of games
Sometimes it isn't what you play, but where you play it that makes all the difference. Ever since the Nintendo Switch came out, more and more games have been described as 'perfect on Switch' for feeling more at home on a handheld device. I appreciated this sentiment, but didn't think it went beyond the comfort and convenience factor of the device. I certainly never thought my Switch would completely flip my opinion on not just a game, but an entire genre. That's exactly what happened with the deckbuilding genre, and now I am ready to see if the Nintendo Switch 2 can pull off the same trick. Recommended Videos Pick a card My love for roguelikes started with The Binding of Isaac. Specifically, the Rebirth version on PS4 that was added to PlayStation Plus. I was hooked on the game, slowly unlocking more characters and items, and marveling at just how many possibilities it could account for. If my PlayStation game clock is to be believed, I have over 300 hours in the game. Once the vice grip the game had on me began to wane, however, I knew I needed something else to fill that void. I played most of the big roguelikes after that, such as FTL, Into the Breach, and Nuclear Throne and enjoyed them all, but nothing could quite replicate the hold Isaac had on me for so long. When I heard about the new Slay the Spire and how it was receiving universal acclaim and soaring to the tops of many best roguelike lists, I knew I had to give it a shot. The art wasn't all that special, but neither was Isaac's, but it was held up as nailing that 'one more run' quality I had been itching for. On paper, it sounded like my ideal game. And I hated it. This was weeks after launch when it was still only available on PC, which wasn't my ideal platform. At the time, my rig was not meant for gaming and I was still intimidated by the apparent cost and complexity of PC gaming as a whole. With no other choice, and Slay the Spire being such a low-demanding game that even my weak setup could run it, I gave it an honest try. I could most easily boil down my distaste for Slay the Spire as feeling unfair. With so many hours in the genre, I knew better than to think I would waltz into this game and be a master. But all of my initial runs ended in just a few encounters. Because it is a deckbuilder, I blamed my losses on the randomness of my draw without ever getting to fully engage with the actual building elements much at all. In all fairness, Slay the Spire is a very difficult game. Being hard alone wouldn't turn me off, but starting and ending my runs in just a few minutes without seeing any progress convinced me that the deckbuilding angle just wasn't for me. It just felt too complicated and difficult, as well as at odds with the random elements of the genre. That's why I didn't pay much mind to the Switch port a little later until conversations sparked up once again about the game's quality and how it was 'perfect on Switch.' This was a rare moment where I am glad to have succumbed to FOMO. I am normally content with realizing a game with high praise just isn't for me, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was for me and that I was missing something. My first Switch run came one lazy weekend morning. Getting nice and comfy on my couch, I immediately noticed a change in my approach. On PC, I had been able to click and flick the cards I wanted to play as soon as I saw them, but on Switch I was forced to slow down. Navigation with a controller isn't clunky, but certainly more deliberate. That somehow gave me permission to think things through a bit more and start to realize I wasn't playing the game on its terms before. I was treating 'basic' enemies like I would normal fodder in another roguelike, but every encounter in Slay the Spire demands respect. This little breakthrough finally got me to the point where I could start tinkering with the actual deckbuilding of it all. What I had initially thought of as inconsequential or unimpressive cards before suddenly started to make more sense when I slowed down and looked at my deck as a whole. But the biggest boon was when I would realize some potential synergy or interaction I might be able to exploit on a boss or elite and could test it out as soon as that inspiration struck. To this day, PC games always feel 'locked' to my office chair — physically and mentally — while the accessibility of the Switch freed me up to take Slay the Spire with me, again, mentally and physically. This broke open a wall into an entire genre of deckbuilders I adore that I know I would have passed over had the Switch not overturned my initial impressions of Slay the Spire. Now, I'm eagerly awaiting Slay the Spire II to arrive and am currently rushing through this very article to get back to the newly released Monster Train 2. With the Switch 2 on the horizon, I am ready to let my preconceived notions or poor first impressions with a genre be overturned yet again. I am anticipating that will be the case for many with strategy and 4X games, thanks to the mouse functionality, but I would love for it to be something unexpected. Even if it doesn't happen, the Switch did show me just how big of an impact the platform I play on can have on my perspective.
Metro
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Monster Train 2 review – off the rails Slay The Spire
One of the few deck-building roguelites to challenge Slay The Spire gets an impressive sequel that may be the most fun you can have on a locomotive. Roguelike deck builders are having a moment. A search for them on Steam will net you an astounding 861 results, making it a category that's quite a bit more populous than you might imagine. Despite the high number of matches though, it's a genre that's been made famous primarily by just two games: Slay The Spire and Balatro. The latter is regularly cited as one of the best games of 2024 but it's the former whose content and style is closest to Monster Train, which was originally released in 2020. It was a game about defending the frozen wastes of Hell against the invading forces of Heaven. In its sequel, Heaven and Hell are forced to unite to face the Titans, a new threat that could lead to the destruction of both realms. None of that's especially relevant to the gameplay, which once again takes place onboard a quadruple-decker train. The turn-based battles are waged across the bottom three floors, with the train's penthouse reserved for the pyre, the burning heart of your train, which in a mechanic borrowed from tower defence games is effectively the train's power bar. Your job is to stop invaders reaching the pyre, because if they do and its health gets down to zero, it's game over. In the original that often meant stacking your third floor with the strongest troops you had available. The sequel prefers you to mount a defence across all three floors and to encourage that, there are now room-level upgrades available, that for example will increase valour – the stat that equates to armour – to all troops, or reduce the cost of magic, making different floors more suitable for certain troop types. This adds a fresh layer of tactics and feeds into the meta game of deck building. There are now a total of 10 different clans to choose from, with each run featuring a main and support clan, both of whose cards you'll have available as you play. Completing runs earns experience for the clans you're using and as each one levels up, you'll slowly gain access to more of their cards. Naturally, the game tends to gate the more powerful ones behind those higher experience levels. All of this reinforces the fact that Monster Train 2 is very much a roguelite, your power growing as you unlock new cards and spells, as well as adding permanent upgrades that make each subsequent run easier. It also adds a pleasing sense of progress, which persists even after a run that otherwise went badly. Plus, you'll still earn experience and potentially extra cards or magic items to assist in future escapades. As with all roguelites, there's a powerful sense of repetition, with the entirety of the game's action taking place in the relatively claustrophobic confines of your train's four storeys. It's fair to say though, that the random elements in runs tend to make each one feel quite different from the last, especially as you start to unlock more clans and the extra cards they offer. To add further variation, there are challenges, which you play on a grid, with the next one opening up once you've beaten its nearest neighbour. Challenge levels constrain you to the use of specific clans and each comes with 'mutators' that add extra conditions, like reducing the cost of spells or giving certain card types extra health or attack strength. You can also change your pyre heart. Each heart has different attack and defence stats, which come into play when the top floor of your train is invaded by Titans, and each comes with a special ability. These can be anything from reduced prices at the shops you encounter after each level, to more esoteric benefits, like the power to heal the front unit on each floor of the train once per battle. This adds to the interconnected network of effects that stack to create some truly formidable stat increases, even if it's not easy remembering what's active and how each of those different buffs interacts with the others. Obviously, the game automatically calculates all the bonuses on each attack and defensive play you make, but it can be tricky keeping all those layered effects in mind when you're placing cards or activating spells. More Trending It's also important to know which bosses you'll be dealing with and to plan accordingly. There's only so much you can do when you're always partly dependent on the luck of which cards you draw, but you can still make sure you have troops available that act to counter bosses' special abilities, hopefully containing them before they can overwhelm your defences. There's notably more focus on character and story in this sequel, the plot playing out in a series of text-only encounters triggered when you return to the game's hub between runs. Clearly inspired by Hades, it doesn't quite equal that game's wit and personality, but it's nice to see additional elements fleshing out the game beyond its core, quick fire turn-based combat. If you loved the original Monster Train, this goes further than simply delivering more of the same. There's fresh new strategic options and combinations of troops and spells to experiment with, as well as cards from the game's new clans to unlock and slot into your deck. There are many games that try to copy Slay The Spire and yet very few that come close to its quality, but Monster Train 2 is certainly on track in that regard. In Short: An effective expansion of the original's deck-building roguelite structure, that adds lots of enjoyable new features and becomes one of the few games to rival Slay The Spire. Pros: Pacy and easy to understand, with complexity layered in as you progress. Lots of fresh systems and mechanics to try out, and as immaculately well balanced as ever. Cons: Eventually gets repetitive. Using a controller isn't as intuitive as a mouse or touchscreen. Some runs can be severely compromised by random factors beyond your control. Score: 8/10 Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PCPrice: £19.99Publisher: Good Shepherd EntertainmentDeveloper: Shiny ShoeRelease Date: 21st May 2025 Age Rating: 7 Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. 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