As you may have heard, I continue to play Slay the Spire.

I have beaten the “normal” game dozens of times with all three default characters, and have unlocked all the cards and relics. When you defeat everything with all three characters, you can unlock a fourth stage with a super-secret boss, and you also unlock Ascension Mode. Each character has their own Ascension Mode tracker, and defeating the standard final boss will increment the Ascension Mode up one digit, to a maximum of 20. What happens on each level is the following:

1. Elites spawn more often.
2. Normal enemies are deadlier.
3. Elites are deadlier.
4. Bosses are deadlier.
5. Heal less after Boss battles (75% of missing health)
6. Start each run damaged (-10% health)
7. Normal enemies are tougher.
8. Elites are tougher.
9. Bosses are tougher.
10. Ascender’s Bane
11. Start each run with 1 less potion slot.
12. Upgraded cards appear less often. (50% less)
13. Bosses drop less gold. (25% less)
14. Lower max HP. (-5 for Ironclad, -4 for Silent and Defect)
15. Unfavorable events.
16. Shops are more costly. (10% more)
17. Normal enemies have more challenging movesets and abilities.
18. Elite enemies have more challenging movesets and abilities.
19. Boss enemies have more challenging movesets and abilities.
20. Fight 2 bosses at the end of Act 3.

I have been focusing on playing the Silent, the 2nd character, and achieved Ascension 15.

Also, I am so done with this game.

This particular Ascension mode design is rather brilliant in a lot of ways. Many games have harder difficulties, including roguelikes, but most of them are not as granular as this. The first “downside” of more Elites, for example, is not technically a downside for someone skilled with the game – each Elite enemy killed will result in a Relic, which can substantially improve the rest of a run. It’s often advised to target as many Elites as possible in the first Stage, to either wash out a weak deck early, or load up on goodies when the risk to your time is low.

Plus, there is the more mundane benefit to the fact that even if you are a super pro player from the start, you still need to play through and beat the game 20 times before you reach the hardest difficulty. Per character! That’s a lot of gameplay. Or grinding, depending.

I lasted way longer than I thought I would at the beginning (Ascension 15, remember), but the fundamental truth is that each time I succeeded, each subsequent game became less fun. By design. Well, presumably I am supposed to become more and more proud of my ability to overcome challenges, but that doesn’t really happen in practice. Especially in Slay the Spire’s case, where after a while things become more and more RNG-based as the margin for success shrinks.

This is probably for the best. I prefer the discrete finality of a rolling credits screen to the ashes of burning out, but an ending is an ending. Now maybe I can move on to something else.