I’ve been having a grand time carefully picking my cards in Slay the Spire 2, but there’s one aspect about the early access roguelike that makes me want to pull my hair out: Elites. These minibosses are supposed to be a challenge, and they are. But any time I manage to survive an Elite, I don’t walk away feeling accomplished. Mostly, I just feel terrible.
Elites are a returning mechanic from Mega Crit’s previous Slay the Spire, and they function much the same way. These are encounters with tougher enemies who dole out better rewards like Relics, more money, and upgraded card rewards. Slay the Spire 2 unfolds on a map with multiple branching pathways, and the player can decide where their hero traverses next. Elite encounters are never a surprise. You either opt in, or can prepare for the eventual fight by looking ahead.
Tempted by their bounty, I initially sought out as many Elite encounters as I could. Shockingly, I had a terrible time with this aggressive approach — so I started being more selective. For a while, I would only battle Elites when I felt that my deck was strong enough. This… also didn’t work. Turns out there’s only so much you can do when an Elite’s lightest attack hits you for 25 damage.
Unless I was using one of the more powerful heroes, like The Defect, Elites seem to have an uncanny way of eradicating most of my health and deleting all of my items. I tended to walk away limping, and the next few fights would be an excruciating standoff where I had to be mindful of losing even a single hit point. By the time I got to the boss at the end of the act? Forget it. I was dead already, I just didn’t know it yet.
Roguelikes are all about carefully managing your resources, and much of the thrill is figuring out clever ways to get out from between a rock and a hard place. Suffering isn’t just a given in the genre, it’s a feature. You’re going to die, often. Your deaths will probably be silly and unfair. You rage, get over it, and try another run. But the upside of this roguelike design approach is that, if players do survive, they’ll feel like they just won the lottery. Slay the Spire 2‘s punishing nature is not an accident.
My issue is that some Elite fights will take you through the nine circles of hell only to fart out the most disappointing rewards possible. The big draw are Relic drops, the non-exhaustable items you pick up along the way. Some Relics, like the one that upgrades every Attack and Skill, are total game-changers. Most of the Relics aren’t nearly as useful, though. It’ll be like, cool: I have this Relic that starts every battle with extra strength — but I probably can’t set up any good combos that early on. Or, nice: I’m busting out the gate with a big block bonus … but half of these enemies don’t even attack you on the first turn.
I get the idea behind Relics, and understand that no individual power should make the game trivial. Part of the strategy is slowly building up a good collection of Relics, and then remembering when they might be useful. A Relic that gives you some extra energy on a specific turn can make the difference between a win and loss. I’m also aware that Slay the Spire 2 is in early access, and anything I’m experiencing now will continue to get tuned. Turning Elites into harder fights also makes the sequel feel different from the first game, where the most optimal strategy was prioritizing the minibosses.
But as they’re implemented currently, I’ve found Slay the Spire 2 infinitely more fun by avoiding Elites as much as possible. Unless a path forces me into those ill-fated encounters, I tend to beeline toward normal fights or events now. I might occasionally try an Elite fight once I’m deep in Act 2, but by the time I’m in Act 3, I’m back to playing conservatively. I haven’t cleared a run with anyone yet, and I’m not about to lower my chances by taking on an onerous fight beforehand.
Judging by Slay the Spire 2 discussions I’ve seen online, I’m not the only one who is unhappy with Elites.
“It just feels like cards in this game are extremely strong on average while relics are much weaker,” one Redditor opined on a popular thread discussing Elite encounters.
“Even when I’m ‘strong’, one bad turn, and you’re just fucked,” a player wrote on Steam thread where they asked if they should be skipping the encounters altogether.
“I just don’t like how the whole [thing] is a massive DPS race now instead of allowing players to actually make strategies and decks bigger than 10 cards,” another Steam fan wrote of the Elite fights.
I don’t expect Mega Crit to turn around and make Elites easy. But hopefully, the developer takes some of these criticisms into consideration as it continues shaping the experience.
