Slay the Spire: The Board Game - Downfall Review - The Bosses Have Had Enough!

0:00 Hey, I'm Alex Rackle from Board Gameco and today I'm reviewing the Slay the Spire the board game expansion downfall. This is the expansion to Slay the Spire the board game based on Slay the Spire the video game and this expansion is based on the fan expansion of the same name downfall in which you play as the bosses of Slay the Spire. Before we dive into it, this is a prototype all rules and components subject to change. In fact, one of the four characters I can't even play as because they're still making major changes to that character. to the Hermit. I will not have feedback for you today, but I will be talking about the other new things that were added to the game. Also, I'll have a link to the crowdfunding campaign down below. This review is not going to follow my normal format for reviews. Uh, instead, I'll be telling you my thoughts on Slay the Spire, the board game in general before we even get to this. I have a full review on that. You can watch that. But, if you want my quick thoughts, I'll be going into these. I'll also be talking about my all the new content added and my thoughts on that.

0:52 And then I'll also be talking about it from the perspective of do you need this expansion as a fan of the game and or should you even be getting Slay the Spire in general if you are a fan of the video game. I say that as someone who has hundreds of hours into the video game and I'm currently making my way through Slay the Spire to the video game which just dropped. There's a lot to get into. Links and timestamps to everything down below. Let's start with a general idea of what Slay the Spire is and my thoughts on the board game version of it. Slay the Spire the board game is a deck building game based on the genre of deck building but in video game form first. This is entirely built in a video game structure. It was not based on a physical board game. It was based on mechanics you will generally see in physical board games that of building a deck as you go through it. You start with a basic a deck of 10 cards. You pick a character in the original game.

1:37 You have the uh the ironclad, the silent, the defect, and the watcher. You pick that character and then you start building out your deck as you work your way through a chart of various encounters from fights to mystery who knows what to choices to the merchants to elite bosses to the final boss of each act as you have to power yourself up because you are slowly having your health depleted and slowly facing off against harder and harder characters, enemies, and bosses as you make your way through the spire. That's the general idea of what the video game is doing. Basically, build better decks, take down stronger enemies, rinse and repeat, and enjoy the fun of building combos and synergies that all work well together. Slay the Spire, the board game, is a very faithful adaptation of that. It takes the core mechanics of everything it does and then it just distills it to be more manageable in a tabletop form while managing to capture all the magic that was present in the video game while allowing you to enjoy it in a form that is more tactile, more on your table and giving you multiplayer which is something we didn't see until Slay the Spire 2 the video game came out. So if you wanted to play Slay the Spire the video game with your friends you couldn't. But if you wanted to play Slay the Spire the board game with your friends that gave you the opportunity to do so. My general thoughts on the Bordium version of everything that it was doing is I think it's an incredible game. I think it's an incredible enjoyable experience in which you get to go through that deck building. You get to do it in a more tactile form in case you're not, you know, interested in pulling out your Steam Deck or sitting down on whatever screen you want if you just want to set up on the table. Yes, there's some extra steps. Yes, it does cost more than the video game, but overall, it's something that gave you the opportunity to do so. And the adaptation was incredibly well done.

3:08 Many people, myself included, thought it couldn't be done in a way that would make it as fun to dive into, and they did. They did a great job with the development of the game. They made it they made it feel like Slay the Spire. The only downside of it was the fact that it felt so much like Slay the Spire that it did and does introduce the question of do you need this board game as opposed to just playing the video game. Many have answered with the aspect of uh wanting a tactile form. Many have answered with that addition of multiplayer. So, you get to experience this with your friends. But ultimately, it's very, very much the same experience for better and for worse. Overall, I love the game. In my original review, I believe I gave it a 4.5. I didn't double check, but I believe I gave it a 4.5. Over time, it has continued to grow for me. It is a five out of five experience for me. I love it when I play it. The only hesitation I have around it is the fact that I still play the video game much more than the board game just because it's much easier to just hit go on a run in the video game as opposed to playing the board game. So that's kind of my general summation of everything Slay the Spire until we get to Downfall over here which introduces us to Downfall. Now Downfall the video game I did not actually play. I finally have started playing downfall the video game but I played downfall the board game before I played Downfall the video game.

4:17 I don't know why I never got around to it. I just never got around to it. I finally have started because of the because of the board game. It has made me love these new characters so that I have played them first in tabletop form and then only after in digital form. So, the order this time has been a bit reversed, but Slay the Spire, the board game expansion downfall, introduces a few new things. The biggest thing is you are going to be playing as the bosses of Slay the Spire. You have the slime boss, you have the hexag, you have the guardian, and then you have the hermit, who sadly I uh did not get to play as because like I said already, they're making major changes to the way he works and operates. So, I have not played through him. [clears throat] But, it introduces these new characters. So, if you've gotten bored of the four characters from Slay the Spy or the board game already, you have four new characters to add to your rotation, I'll be giving you a brief overview of how they play, as well as my thoughts on them. But before we do that, it also introduces more of everything else. More enemies, more items, more cars, more potions, more of everything. And instead of the uh blessings from Meow you get in the base game, you now have the hearts boon instead. Functionally, it's the same idea, but you're the bosses of the of the game instead. You don't really um you have different people on your side this time around. You'll also be facing off as bosses against your previous allies, your previous characters that you played off until now. You are facing off against them instead. Uh they're going to introduce their own challenges both as car as bosses as well as as you go through it adding to the various decks you'll be facing off against. But introduces new enemies you're going to be engaging with as well as like I said already all the other things that are going to seed into your already existing decks that you have. Basically, it's

5:47 more content. Structurally, it's it's basically the same game. You're doing the same things. You're going through the same arc. you're working your your way through the spire. Everything mechanically remains basically the same. There's like one new mechanic of far as far as maximum health reduction, but other than that, it's just new characters and new ways that they operate and then more content for the rest of the game. That's what's being added here. So, as far as my review and my thoughts, well, before I get to my review, let's tell you how those new characters play, at least the three that I have access to. To that end, we have the slime boss. The slime boss. Oh, and these miniatures are chunky and gigantic, significantly bigger than anything you'll be f than anything you had from the original game, which makes sense cuz they're bosses except for the hermit, who's kind of the same size, but like I said already, have not played with him. But with that, we have these new characters over here. And the slime boss is basically going to have these little hordes of slimes. You start off with your basic bruiser slime. You'll be keeping track of them. You're going to start with level one, and then you can slowly level this up, and at the end of each turn, you command all your slimes, and they all attack. Functionally, you're building your own little army that's going to be attacking for you. As you upgrade through your various cards over here, you get a lot of ways that will help you grow your slimes, adding to their strength each round, adding new slimes to your board, so you have new things. When this grows, you got to add strength to the slime boss as well. So, your muscle slime is powering you up as well as powering itself up. You basically slowly build an army of slimes. And many of your cards or most of your cards interact with the way you can grow those slimes or the way you can improve all your extra opportunities, extra ways to command your slimes during your turn to grow your slimes to benefit from the growth that you have.

7:15 Basically, you are building a slime army if you are playing as the slime boss. Then we have over here the guardian. The guardian is basically going to have this vigor. This vigor is going to be these mechanics, these tokens that you can use to power up either your defense or your offense depending which mode you switch to at the beginning of each turn. So, a lot of things are going to be focusing around that. Are you focusing on a more of a defensive state, curling up into a little ball as your enemies try to hurt you but can't? Alternatively, as you expand into an attacking form, again, if you've played against these characters, you know the feelings these have, but forcing yourself to be stronger and more powerful as you get as you build up your vigor and go onto the offense, go into the offense, attacking in a much stronger capacity for the rest of the turn. You're also going to have these new card concepts of gems and uh cards that they slot into. So, for example, let's see if I can find one over here.

8:00 You have your sockets over here. So, we have a socket card. You're going to have your walker claw. And when you get a socket card, you're also going to draw two cards that you can then put into that card. So, it's another way of customizing and building up your own special card. I can take my walker claw and I can put this into the socket so that I'm getting vigor and I can spend that vigor immediately. Alternatively, I could have gotten this acarine instead where you can't play additional cards this turn, but I do get a vigor instead. So, you're building up different ways that you can customize your own deck through the use of sockets and gems. an interesting new mechanic that is specifically around that character and how they operate. So that's going to be the guardian. And then we have the hexagost over here. The hexagost is going to have this uh heat over here. Heat is going to slowly power up across the course of a round. And as it powers up, it's going to increase the strength of these tokens. So as you raise or lower your heat, you can spend these to deal damage equal to your heat. And so a lot of your deck is focused on this little kind of energy ball. Not that dissimilar to the um to the to the watcher. No, to the defect. Not that dissimilar to the defect as the way they operate, but still very different. Just has that same arc as trying to power yourself up in this kind of um passive way that builds your character and start spiking off uh giant chunks of damage as you build up your heat each turn. Those are going to be the three new characters or three of the four new characters that I got to experience with. And again, lots of these synergies and interactions. If you check out any playthroughs in the game, there are a bunch of playthroughs out there. I might try to do a playthrough by the end of the campaign. I'm not yet sure, but if you check out any play through, you'll see more of the interactions of those cards, how they all feed into each other. But basically, four new characters, of which I've played three,

9:31 that add to your game experience. Which brings me to my review of Slay the Spire, the board game downfall. Uh, how does it feel as a fan of both the video game and the board game. What do I think of the expansion? I'll divide it up into, I guess, two new parts, uh, two parts. There's the other content, all the extra potions, treasures, all those things that get added. And I should have not as well prototype. I have access to some. I don't know the full range of what will be there. I know there are definitely some things that I'm missing from the prototype that I don't have access to, but for what I do have, it's all nice to have. It's more stuff. Uh, do I need it? No, not really. Is it nice to have? Absolutely. More variety is always nice up until it gets to the point where it's not really manageable. And I don't think it's quite at that point yet. So, all the extra stuff that just adds variety to your game experience, no reason to say no to it. It's just good things. I have no complaints against any of it. having the hearts boon instead of a meow's blessing. Again, that's a it's a thematic change more so than a mechanical change. So, you know, potato, happy with that. The new characters are going to be the highlight of the game experience, as well as, of course, the bosses that you're fighting against. And to that end, we'll focus more on the the bosses are all great, but I I think the the biggest strength is in the characters you play as. The characters are all very solid. At least again, three of the four the three of the four that I've played are all very solid and a lot of fun to play with. In fact, I I I put up my I put together my ranking of the characters. This is definitely subject to change, especially considering that all the characters in the base game I've played a lot more as opposed to these characters I've only gotten a few runs with. So, significantly less play time with these characters. So, this may change in the future, but for right now, my order from

11:02 least to most favorite characters, least to most, is going to be the Watcher last. The Watcher has always been the the character that I I've learned how to play as the Watcher, but I still appreciate them the least. In fact, mechanically, the Watcher is arguably very similar to the Guardian in terms of that big shift between offense and defense. But the Guardian feels a lot more fluid, and the Watcher feels a lot more delicate, a lot more able to carry off those big blows and those like, you know, defensive modes, but it requires a lot more timing, some degree of luck, and it just feels more more of a balancing act that I've never loved The Watcher, both in the video game and in the board game as much as the other characters. From there, I think I think the second most my le my my second least favorite is probably the defect, which is that's the one that's more notable because the Watcher is always a big step below any other character for me. But the fact that these new characters are all beating out the defect is a little surprising. I really enjoy the defect as far as the way you can cycle your orbs and slowly build up that orb pool and just have those those shooting off every turn, as well as the variety of ways you can build up the character. I've always loved the defect, but it still is my second least favorite. Although again, the washer was always a step below. The defect was definitely one that I very much did enjoy. These are all just better for me. From there, coming in at what are we up to? Five out of seven because again, I'm not counting the hermit so far. Uh coming in at number five is the which one was it? It was [sighs and gasps] this it's it's tricky.

12:24 It's tricky for the new characters, but I believe I'm going to say that the that the guardian is my least favorite from there. I do enjoy the Guardian and it is very fun to build up those attacking and defensive turns, but again, it does feel a little reminiscent to the watch as far as the overall cycle of it. So, again, much better. Overall, I prefer the the the the Guardian significantly, but nonetheless, they'll be coming at number five. At number four, we're going to have the uh the Hexagost. The Hexagost again powering them up. Again, those arcs slightly similar to the defect, but overall very different and very fun to build up your heat and spike it off every single turn. Coming in at number three, we have the Ironclad. The Ironclad is a consistently fun character that is a little vanilla, which is why it's a little lower, but I still always have fun playing as the Ironclad. They're just fun to build up whatever strategy you're choosing to pursue. The fact that it is a little vanilla in its feeling is why it's a little bit lower for me. But it still is coming in at three out of seven. At two, we have slime boss. The slime boss has been a lot of fun to play with so far and build up your armies of slimes. The trickiest part about it is the slime boss almost feels like buying into a power card strategy. If you are familiar with Slay the Spire, very often you can get these strong power cards that require a bit more investment, but will pay off on future turns, but you often opening the doors to a turn which you might get a little bit more damage or something bad happen to you as you invest into those future turns. Building your army does feel like that on smaller, shorter encounters. It's not always worth fully investing into it, but it can be incredibly satisfying on those elite fights or those boss fights to have a whole army at disposal to lean into. Uh, the slime boss has been a lot of fun for

13:54 me. And the number one for me has always been the silent and that hasn't changed for me yet. Building up a bunch of shs or heading into a poison strategy. The silent has consistently been both my favorite in both t in both digital and physical form. Although I should note none of this is talking about Slay of the Spire 2, which I have been really enjoying the new characters that they are offering as well, but that's like a whole different conversation. So overall, as far as the expansion goes, it's going to be a five out of five for me. Well, that's tricky. I rate expansions, the experience of this part of the board game is a five out of five for me. I do tend to rate expansions based on what they add. So I guess if I'm trying to be a bit more fair, I should say this expansion downfall is probably a four out of five. It doesn't change anything up. It just adds new things. It adds more to the game. All of which is welcome, but is functionally the same experience. It would be a four to five as far as the expansion. That's only judging it based on what it's adding versus I'm looking at the full experience. The full experience is still very much a five to five board game for me. I love Slay the Spire and I love what I love the board game. I love the video game and I love what Downfall is adding to that. I mentioned at the beginning that I would talk as well as far as do you need this if you already have this? These games aren't cheap. Do you need this if you have the video game? How do I feel about those things?

15:02 So, I I'll start with the video game part first. I definitely play the video game more than I play the board game. I am happy I have the board game. I still enjoy the board game. At the end of the day, I actually would say that I enjoy the experience of playing it on tabletop more than I enjoy the experience of playing it digitally. Where the digital has an edge over the physical is if you lose a run, resetting is simple as going go versus a bit more cleanup involved in the physical game. Additionally, if you're not playing it all at once, the physical saves it as the the dig digital saves it much more simply than the physical. The physical is very easy to save, but it's simply like you still have to kind of dive back into it, pull things out where they were where they were. Just hitting go on a video game is much easier. It's much more travel friendly, which I would argue I get a lot of my Slay the Spire game time in when I'm traveling, when I'm on the road, and that's not something I'm going to bring this big box with me. So, I do love the big box of Slay the Spire. I do still enjoy it. I think it's great solo.

15:54 I think it's great multiplayer. If you are someone who's very attached to the video game and you're questioning whether you need this, there's always a chance that it might not not might not be something that is necessary for you because the experiences are so similar, especially with Slay of the Spire to the video game, giving you that multiplayer that many that for a lot of people has been the main reason to dive into the board game. And then secondly, if you are a fan of the board game, if you already have it, do you need this new content? Ultimately, it comes down to how much you feel the need for more of the same experience but different. This doesn't really add new mechanics. It doesn't elevate it to the next level. Not in any capacity. It just gives you more stuff, more characters, more items, more potions, more treasures, more everything, more relics, all of the stuff is just more. So, if you like the more, if you want new characters, and if you gotten a little bored of going through a run of the ironclad and you're wondering what different characters could feel like, this definitely gives you that. But if you are someone who's playing Slay the Spire the board game once a year and you haven't even gotten to playing the watcher yet or the defect if you've still on those first two characters. If you haven't fully explored the game you have this is just giving you more stuff to not yet have explored. So if you're playing it a lot I definitely recommend it. If you love the game you're probably getting it anyway. But as far as the need aspect it kind of depends on how much you feel you've seen what your game currently has to offer versus what else can be added to the table. In any case and until next time I'm Alex from Board Game Co. Hope you found this review helpful in all the various capacities I'm trying to address. And as always, I hope you have a good one.