FTL: Faster Than Light | Slay the Spire

Science-fiction versus fantasy in a duel of the roguelikes this week.

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This is what I've been playing and watching over the last two weeks...

MOVIES

Over the last two weeks, I've watched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight again - guess what third film in a trilogy I'll be watching this week...

I do also really want to watch the original Star Wars trilogy again because it's been quite a while, but have the fourth (and final) season of Rebels, plus Rogue One to get through first - not a bad thing really

GAMES

FTL: Faster Than Light

Game summary: This "spaceship simulation roguelike-like" allows you to take your ship and crew on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy filled with glory and bitter defeat. (Steam)

Early warning: I am now very sure that roguelikes are just not my thing, not my cup of tea at all, although a quick glance at the scores given may have already let you know that, especially for two beloved games of that type like FTL: Faster Than Light and Slay the Spire.

So what did I like about FTL? The graphical simplicity for starters, which looks like a lot to take in when viewed as a screenshot like above, actually helps to stop things getting too confusing, as you never really need all the information being given to you at the same time - you should quickly pick up what parts of the screen you need to pay attention to at any given time quite quickly.

This is also helped by being able to pause proceedings at any time, so there isn't really any excuse for players losing track of things, as you can play every single encounter in this game at your own speed.

As for the various scenarios you're faced with, there's enough to keep each run through the game varied, although not so many that you won't notice the repetition - then again, becoming familiar with these scenarios should help you plan things better in your next attempt.

My main issue with FTL is that I think it's a little too harsh on the player, with game-ending encounters appearing out of nowhere and poor difficulty tuning removing player agency and putting the game squarely at fault for things going bad, rather than the player, which is off-putting to say the least.

In fact, it does feel like FTL has a reactive difficulty level that, bizarrely, punishes players for getting better at the game - I may be wrong about this, but I've had runs where I just haven't been able to improve my ship and crew as I'd like and made it almost to the end of the game; I've also had runs where I've been able to improve things really quickly, only to run into a brick wall before getting even halfway through the game.

And this happens consistently, so I don't those runs are a case of being fortunate or unfortunate either - I get that roguelikes are about repeating the game over and over again to beat them, but it rarely feels like defeats are my fault thanks to sudden spikes in difficulty rather than a consistent gradual increase really testing players and their understanding of how the game works.

I do think FTL: Faster Than Light has more positives to it than negatives, as I did enjoy my time with the game overall - but there's no way I can play it a lot in a short space of time anymore thanks to too often feeling like I've wasted time on a run that never had a chance of reaching the ending. [6/10]

Slay the Spire

Game summary: Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and Slay the Spire! (Steam)

In case you skipped what I wrote at the start of the FTL: Faster Than Light review about roguelikes, it basically boils down to this: they're not my thing.

Saying that, I enjoyed Slay the Spire much more than FTL, with this game feeling far more often like any run ending was down to me not being good enough rather than the game slamming the door in my face to halt my progression.

As a more recent game (released in 2019 compared to 2012 for FTL), it should come as no surprise that Slay the Spire looks and sounds much better, although audio-visual excellence isn't really what these games are about.

It's also card-based, with you being given a selection of cards based on the character you choose to start with (once you've unlocked them, that is) and then you can gain more cards for your deck by defeating enemies, making choices in random encounters or buying them from merchants.

There's still an element of randomness as there's no way to predict what cards you'll get (and you unlock more as you play), but the amount of times a run ended and regretted my card choices vastly outnumbered the occasions where I felt I could blame the game for putting me in an impossible encounter.

You can still have encounters like that in Slay the Spire, where fall foul of the perfect enemy/group of enemies to counter your deck or suffer from terrible card draw, but those happen much less often than impossible to win encounters in FTL.

Like FTL, this game has a pretty simple interface and, while you can't pause the action, everything being turn-based means that this is another game you can play at your own pace and not worry about being overwhelmed by what's happening on-screen.

Slay the Spire was a more enjoyable game for me than FTL, mainly because it puts the majority of the responsibility for keeping each run going in the hands of the player - or at least feeling that way; the fact that runs can still end abruptly without warning (I know, I know - that's just how roguelikes are) still don't feel great, tending to make me feel apathetic about playing again rather than wanting to have another go. [7/10]

Also currently playing: Dispatch, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hitman: World of Assassination, Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)

TV

As mentioned in the Movies section above, I still have to make my way through the final season of Star Wars: Rebels - I blame all the gaming I've been doing recently.

Once Rebels is done, I might try and find something short to watch while making my way through Rogue One and the original Star Wars trilogy movies before finally getting to The Mandalorian for the first time!

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