Slay the Spire Review: Three Aces

Thanks justaschema!

Card games. In all the many circles of nerdity in my brain none of them contain any of the card games that have popped up in recent years. Couldn’t even get into gwent even though I tore The Witcher 3 to shreds. Certainly couldn’t care less about Hearthstone and I’ve actively avoided Magic. Why?

No idea. It just isn’t my thing. Fighting games aren't my thing, card games aren't my thing. Which brings me to Slay the Spire. I played it months ago, got pretty into it too. But I didn’t love it and almost completely forgot about it. The art style was drab and uninspired. Also I was pretty sh*t at it. To the point where the game’s greeter (who appears to be an undead whale for some reason) was bemoaning the fact I couldn't even reach the first boss. Thanks Mr. Whale, I’ll try harder next time.

But then it got released for real and I thought to give it another shot. Maybe try out the other 2 characters and see how they feel. Well I tried out the rogue and came away a believer. For those in the dark as to what Slay the Spire actually is, it’s a card game. Kinda. Combat on the enemy's side acts as a classic turn based RPG. The player has a hand of cards. The biggest problem for me was trying to play it as another rpg instead of embracing it’s… cardiness?

In a word I was fighting too much. Leaving myself too open too often and dying halfway. I needed to embrace defense and let fights drag on a little longer so I could survive the bosses. I imagine this is where most of the press was won over. The boss fights are a showcase of game design where all the unspoken rules of combat are thrown out. Made it to the end with full health? You could easily be dead in 2 turns if you don’t keep your head on a swivel. You don’t need to read faq’s to figure them out, you just have to learn how to break a few rules of your own.

I give you my poison turtle deck. The silent character is able to pull hands of 6 cards or more with free cards that can help you shuffle in more useful ones should RNGsus forsake you. The trick to her is causing a lot of damage in one turn while biding your time behind shielding. She also has some interesting poison skills I've grown quite fond of. Say you have a card that can give a boss 6 ticks of poison over 3 hits. Say you have a relic that adds an extra tick for each hit. Then maybe you find another card that doubles that poison. Then you can just turtle up while the boss’s health bleeds away in 4 turns.

That ended up being my best run to date and the start of a beautiful friendship. Like the best rogue likes out there, you can’t guarantee success. But you can hold your own for a while when your luck turns just off of strategy. The only thing keeping me back are the relics. I have no idea how best to use the more common ones. Most of them have sentence long descriptions and seem too niche to be useful “the first time you lose hp in combat, draw 3 cards” great! I just pulled 3 cards I can’t use for the 4th time in a row. Thanks.

But I’ll get better. Most importantly I want to get better. I can finally parse its depths and find myself choosing it over most of my old favorites after work. I mean I liked it before but I get it now. I want to have a poison turtle equivalent for the other 2 characters and I won’t stop playing until I do.

Indeed it is, Mr. Whale.

Spider-verse Review: Miles Ahead.

This shouldn’t work. You can’t fit 5 main characters with 6 villains into one movie and expect it to make sense, let alone be coherent, and certainly not exceptional. There are countless examples of movies being watered down into sludge with too many plot lines. The best I can think of is the 3rd spider-man flick itself . And yet Into the Spider-verse is the most rapturously enjoyable movie I’ve seen this year.

One aspect of it that needs to be addressed out of the gate is its animation style. It’s a lot. Sometimes it moves at a traditional 25 frames a second, often a mere 12 frames. It may bug you at first but I stopped noticing around 15 minutes in. If it bothers you I suggest focusing on the film's finer details, which are scrumptious. The dot painting fluttering around the edges of everything, the onamonapia when appropriate, and the individual animation style for each universe. Spider-verse is a film I would jump at the chance to see again. On mute.

This is still essentially a coming of age story for one kid about how intimidating greatness can be. Miles is enrolled at a boarding school for the rich and “gifted” only to drown in the unfamiliar sea that is his homework. He resents his dad for throwing him into the deep end and not letting him go to his more comfortable (and mediocre) public school.

Subtler emotional stakes than I expected from a movie with a talking pig-spider. What’s more is that his arc perfectly captures that agonizing feeling that comes from when a group of people collectively decide you’re just not “good enough.”

As character driven as it is, this is still an action movie. No fight ever devolves into a blur. Everything is crisply choreographed from web swinging, to dodging punches, to chuck jonesian mallet smashes. Credit is also due to each character design. The sinister 6 especially has been rebuilt from the ground up to take advantage of being animated. Norman Osborn has scarcely ever been this… cave trolly. Toss in a few earned character deaths and a eye melting art show caliber climax and you’ve got a film they’ll say was robbed of best picture down the line.

I sh*t thee not. Movies that are this fun, this dark, and this honest almost never get made let alone gross over $300 million. Good job America! Feels good to say that. If you choose not to see this in theaters you may well regret it. I’ll certainly respect you less. Just let go of that $12 wad in your pocket and I promise you’ll have a good time.

First Man Review: Good at Funerals.

If the internet was burning down and I could only save one thing I would choose the video of Buzz Aldrin in his 70's decking a 40-something moon landing denier. First Man is the only film about the Apollo missions that captures how singularly terrifying they were. I didn't think the moon landing kooks could make me any angrier but damn it if this movie didn't help me understand Buzz's righteous fury even more.

Neil Armstrong's life was hell. He lost experiential pilot friends as often as if they were in front line combat. He watched his 3 year old daughter wither and die from a brain tumor. I can't think of an actor more suited to capture his silent suffering better than Gosling. I've been back and forth on the guy for years. I used to think he slept walked through Drive but I've learned to appreciate how much he can do with someone as deceptively bland as Neil. If you're still hating on the man and you haven't seen The Nice Guys you should do yourself a favor and get googling.

The earth bound parts do sag a little. Claire Foy doesn't  get  much to do as Neil's wife/therapist. Though its something to see the emotional crow baring she has to do to coax a damn sentence out of her man. Dead daughter or no, First Man isn't afraid to portray its lead as a self involved ass. Speaking of, I really like the way the film handles the kids. They're fidgety, inarticulate, and always want to be somewhere else. They feel real kids. Also shout out to composer Justin Hurwitz for his sci-fi waltz score. Bonus points for his unironic, full-throated, use of a theremin. If you're not gonna bust that out for a space race movie then when goddammit?

What makes this Damien Chazelle's best film is his grasp of not just tension but horror. The fact he wrote 10 Cloverfield Lane was not lost on me when the Gemini spin out sequence made me physically ill. The score almost becomes a psycho homage with shrieking synth strings. It's amazing how much it grabbed me even when I knew exactly what was going to happen.

The moon mission itself is beautiful if a bit more relaxed than the rest of the movie. It pretty much went off without a hitch, not much for a screenwriter to do there. I'm also disappointed Michael Collins, as in life, gets no attention.  "If they fail to rise from the surface, or crash back into it, I am not going to commit suicide," he wrote in his book. "I am coming home, forthwith, but I will be a marked man for life and I know it." You're telling me you couldn't get some compelling screen time out of that existential crisis?! Booooo.

If you're into biopics and the space race in general, then you need to see this. Its different enough and masterful in spurts. If this isn't your bag it may come off as just another love letter to a dead white guy. Its not and it shouldn't but I can see how some could feel that way. First Man doesn't land smoothly, but it lands.

TV Drinking Game: You're Fired.

I've been flitting around some of my old favorite shows, Parks and Rec, Brooklyn 99, etc. It struck me how many times I found myself yelling at the screen (possibly drunk) "How did you not loose your job just now?!" I get that comedy has to have hyper personalities playing against the straight but almost every plotline about Gina from 99 involves her actively starting sh*t with her bosses.

So drink anytime a character should realistically loose their job! The Office should be a blur now.