Is Monster Train better than Slay The Spire?

(First 48 Review)

Gamers always love to pit games against each other and create lists, mostly because they're fun, but there is no denying the surface similarities between Slay The Spire and Monster Train as these titles have merged deck building and roguelike elements with great results.

Slay The Spire is such a great deck building roguelike and also felt right at home on the Nintendo Switch. Unfortunately, Monster Train is not available on the Nintendo Switch just yet, which does lend it self to being able to tackle a few battles, walk away and instantly pick up where you left when you return.

However, the next best thing is that Monster Train is available on Xbox Game Pass (check out our thoughts on if Game Pass is Sustainable) and even better if you have a Xbox Series X|S, then you have the ability to use “Quick Resume” and emulate the result you would get on the Switch and even better its free if you are already subscribed. Now the only thing you are missing is portability.

In the first 48 minutes of a game, you should be able to know enough about the visuals of the game, the story, the mechanics, the gameplay loop and many other things. Even better, within the first 48 hours, you will know if the game has done enough to get its hooks into you whether or not you are going to come back, because we both know that if we don’t return or want to return to the game in the first two days, we likely aren’t coming back after that

Down the Spire

Hell has finally frozen over when Heaven extinguished the flames that lurked beneath. In Monster Train, you are the conductor of the Boneshaker, a train that is descending back into to hell with the last remaining spark to reignite the fires of Hell before it’s out forever, basically a reverse spire.

As you descend towards the depths of Hell, on a railway that connects the two worlds, enemies or in this case heavenly allies try to board the Boneshaker to extinguish the last remaining spark once and for all. Thats pretty much the story and although its more than some other card based roguelikes, there is opportunity waiting for this genre to create a rich narrative.

Visually, there is a lot more happening in Monster Train, which is aesthetically more pleasing than others in the genre but initially more intimidating. With nothing of a tutorial, which this game could’ve used, Monster Train throws you in the deep end or in this case throws you on a speeding train. The good news is that Monster Train feels much easier and more forgiving than Slay The Spire, bordering on too easy initially.

Another card game that I have just recently played and reviewed was Fights in Tight Spaces, and that game is similar as well but it does an excellent job of offering you a tutorial area, which you can skip if you choose. Even if you are familiar with deck building or card based combat, every game has its intricate details that separate it from the competition and a small tutorial would have gone a long way.

Monster Train doesn’t create a new genre of games like Slay the Spire did when it first released but it refines and also adds enough fresh ideas to make this game a worthy game to play if you’re looking for something after Slay the Spire. On each layer of hell that you descend through, there are two paths every time where you can alter what you need, whereas in Slay The Spire, it is a lot harder to adjust your trajectory, as you usually have to stay on the trail you selected unless you have a special artifact. This does make the game feel lot less procedurally generated and removes a lot of the randomness that other roguelites offer.

Distilling things down, what sets Monster Train apart is the train aspect of the game. The train has four floors and enemies usually enter on the first floor and then work their way up after each action phase trying to get to your pyre. This mechanic adds a level of tower defence to Monster Train in addition to the deck building and the roguelike elements that creates endless combinations.

Inside the Monster Train is where the meta game happens about which floor to place which units on and what order from back to front on each floor. Each floor only has a certain amount of space, which adds a layer of strategy. Usually the front to back order doesn’t matter as much as the different floors but you could have tank style characters at the front to absorb damage as enemies always attack the first person in line first until they are defeated.

One Way Ticket or Round Trip?

Monster Train lacks the same hooks that other card games have likely due to its repetitive feel. Games like Slay The Spire and Fights in Tight Spaces feel different because it there is a lot more RNG at play, which can sometimes lead to frustrating results but it does keep the game feeling fresh because around the corner could be a completely new experience. Just like the other games where you unlock new starting characters or new decks, in Monster Train you unlock new factions and then unlock new cards that can be added to your hand for future runs.

Out on the journey, I often skipped the paths that included restoring health to my pyre and card removal service, which meant that every time I just took the paths with the vendor and the artifacts. Obviously, games like this are usually about small incremental changes each run, including unlocking new factions, cards, artifacts and other things to make them available for future runs but there is a level of repetition that keeps Monster Train from being addictive like most other card collecting rogue-likes.

Thinking about it for a while and trying to figure out why other similar card games hooked me in, I came to a revelation. Games like Slay the Spire hooked me in immediately because I never felt like I was fully in control, instead it felt like I was usually at the edge of losing. It felt something like how most Resident Evil games managed your resources perfectly and made it feel like death was right around the corner, which added to the tension. Monster Train feels more akin to something like Doom, where resources are never scarce and it just becomes a numbers game of destroying hordes of enemies and less about tension.