Over the course of my life I have played hundreds of games, on many different platforms. I would consider myself a connaisseur of video games. And it wasn't until now that I've found one which I consider calling the best game I've ever played. It's called Slay the Spire. I've played it for about 300 hours before I've finally beaten it a few days ago. Hereafter I will tell about the journey from discovering this game to beating it on the hardest difficulty and why I think this game is so good.

I'll start with the latter, because it's so obvious I didn't need much time to realize just how well made Slay the Spire is. The user interface is the most clean and concise I've seen so far. Controlling the game is absolutely frictionless even for someone playing it for the first time. The graphics are engaging but don't distract from the game itself. The music is still not annoying after hundreds of hours into the game. And then of course there's the game itself: The marriage of deck-building and roguelike executed to perfection. It's so easy to pick up — but you need hundreds of hours to beat it all the way. At least for me, this game is absolutely perfect, there's nothing I'd add, remove or change in any way.

Which brings me to the journey: it took me a while in fact to realize what a gem this game is. After my buddy recommended and even shortly showed me the game, it still took a while before I bought it. But once I did, I barely played anything else for months; every time I fired up a different game, I was qickly drawn back to Slay the Spire.

At first, beating the game on the first few difficulty levels was fairly easy and outright fun. Then it became more difficult and something amazing happened: playing Slay the Spire became like a meditation; I didn't really care about winning because the game was so much fun. That it's the journey, not the destination might apply for life, but rarely does for games. Slay the Spire clearly was an exception for me. While I enjoyed playing the game in this zen state, I would of course beat another difficulty level every now and then, until I did start caring about winning again: I loved this game so much I just had to beat it all the way at some point. But the closer you get to beating that last Ascension level 20, the harder and grindier it gets. You just have to throw run after run, hour after hour at it. After progress became painfully slow, my mental state while playing the game changed as well: I was far from being zen and doggedly escalated fully beating this game to a matter of life and death.

If I'd have died during this time, my single most biggest regret would have been not beating Slay the Spire. At that time, the game was bordering on not being fun anymore — but all's well that ends well: that sigh of relief when I finally did beat it was worth it all. And my journey with this game does not end there either. Even before I heard they were gonna add yet another character to the game, it was quite clear to me that this game will accompany me for the rest of my life. Just like other of my favorite games of all time, I'll come back to it again and again. It's just that this one leaves not weird aftertaste in my mouth after calling it the best game I've ever played until now. And oh the emotions, the journey! Slay the Spire, you will forever have a place in my busy heart. I wholeheartedly recommend this game to everyone, even if you're really not into gaming, this is the one game you should try out.