Platinum Journey Review

[allerburn]

Hi

 

I couldn't find much information on the game when browsing through a previous sale so thought I'd add my experience in case it's helpful to anybody else. Full disclosure, I haven't earned the platinum trophy for this game.

 

Fun: 3/10

Difficulty: 8/10

Time: 50+ hours

 

Trophies to read up on before playing:

The trophy list is extremely basic with trophies being awarded for completing the game with each class and three trophies for beating legendary mode with up to 10 classes.

 

Summary:

The platinum can be earned by just playing through the game naturally and beating it with each class. Then repeat on legendary mode. Although legendary mode is not too bad, the mode for some reason wipes out all gear worn by the character. This often means having to do a run for about 20 mins before to earn gold and new gear before going for a legendary run. A determined player should be able to do this eventually but the clumsy controls and repetitive gameplay had me stop the journey after one legendary run.

 

Conclusion:

As a big fan of Slay the Spire I thought this would be an interesting take on the genre. However, Monster Slayers has none of the innovation, variety or fun of STS. Despite having more classes there is one strategy that works for all which is to keep cycling the deck and using as many cards in one turn as possible. Success on runs will often come down to RNG in getting the cycling cards needed. The game is also extremely unbalanced with the first two stages being extremely simple and the last stage quite brutal. With the card cycling strategy and simplicity the first two stages effectively become auto play for the first 20 minutes and then hoping RNG holds out on the last stage. If you're particularly unlucky you can find that the final boss is immune to physical attacks and you have a physical based character. This can only be mitigated by reading the hint on the first floor alter and then quitting if this happens.

 

The game can be quite fun if you like the genre but the platinum is not fun to go for.

[iGGTheEnd]

This basically sums up my experience, the controls are the worst part especially when trying to chose which area you want to go to it just won't go over to it no matter how hard you try.  At one point I was just spinning my joystick in circles trying to get to a certain area and for some reason they put the delete save file thing in the fucking world menu and I deleted my save file after finishing the game with like 8 classes.  At that point I took about a 2 year break before coming back.

 

Unfortunatly there aren't any other deck builders on PS4 that come even close to slay the spire.  I am hoping Monster train eventually makes its way over because it's great.

[allerburn]

Congrats on platting this, you have far more perseverance than I. Almost made the same mistake myself if deleting the save file a number of times. 

 

I've not played monster train, keep holding out for a ps port but it doesn't look likely. How do you find it compared to StS? I've heard it's not as polished but it can be very breakable which is what I liked about Binding of Isaac. 

[iGGTheEnd]

On 3/12/2021 at 11:33 AM, allerburn said:

Congrats on platting this, you have far more perseverance than I. Almost made the same mistake myself if deleting the save file a number of times. 

 

I've not played monster train, keep holding out for a ps port but it doesn't look likely. How do you find it compared to StS? I've heard it's not as polished but it can be very breakable which is what I liked about Binding of Isaac. 

Monster train is on Gamepass so I have hope for a PS port one day.  It is worth grabbing if you have a half decent PC.  It isnt as polished as StS but it is very good and has a ton of vareity in deck builds and has like 5-6 different classes and you mix two classes before each run.  If you get a chance I really recommend it.  There is also a roguelike coming to PC called Roguebook (or something like that) made by the creator of magic the gathering, I played the demo and it looks like it will be good as well, it has a lot of depth.  I hope both come to playstation at some point.

[Finch_III]

I'm playing this at the moment, and I've gotta admit I'm struggling. 

 

I would consider myself decent enough at deck-building games (I have StS platinum legit with no save-scumming, plus Nowhere Prophet, Neoverse, Cardpocalpyse and a couple of others). That said, I'm no master at them. 

 

But this game is kinda kicking my ass a bit. Admittedly, I've only played for a few hours and with the Wizard and the Barbarian only (mostly Barbarian runs), but I've never made it past the second zone boss. 

 

Even with removing low level cards and opting for cycling decks (Bleed mostly), I still end up getting owned by a lot of the floor two enemies haha. Perhaps I just chose a weak class to focus on first? I might try with Merchant, Rogue or one of the other 'easier' ones. 

At the moment, my runs are pretty much all the same. Whizz through the first zone, struggle through the second zone and then die at the second zone boss. I've probably done about 10 runs so far (8 Barbarian and 2 Wizard). 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Finch_III