When comparing Slay the Spire vs Overcooked 2, the Slant community recommends Slay the Spire for most people. In the question“What are the best casual games on Steam?” Slay the Spire is ranked 17th while Overcooked 2 is ranked 36th. The most important reason people chose Slay the Spire is:
Card games usually are free to play, endlessly milking their players for money with new card releases and expansions. Slay the Spire is an exception, having only a single purchase that helps sustain its developers. This helps you to enjoy the game without worrying that your wallet is not thick enough to keep up with all the new releases. It also helps keep out trolls and heralds of the microtransaction apocalypse, which can feel really nice.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro A pay to play card game
Card games usually are free to play, endlessly milking their players for money with new card releases and expansions. Slay the Spire is an exception, having only a single purchase that helps sustain its developers. This helps you to enjoy the game without worrying that your wallet is not thick enough to keep up with all the new releases. It also helps keep out trolls and heralds of the microtransaction apocalypse, which can feel really nice.
Pro A great mix of genres
A roguelike that has deck building might sound weird at first, but it's a surprisingly fun concept. You can select one of classes(decks), choose a path on the spire, fight monsters using your deck, get new cards to improve your deck, and even fight bosses. There's enough strategy, depth, and randomness in all of this, which can make it really satisfying when you make a great deck, win a difficult battle, or get extremely lucky.
Pro Intriguing world
Slay the Spire features a desolate land with just a massive tower called "The Spire" looming over it. No one knows why it's there, why it's inhabited by otherwordly creatures, and why heroes from far away are drawn to it. This makes progressing through the game a lot more interesting because you're gradually uncovering this mystery through the eyes of your character.
Pro Simple to pick up and learn
Whether you played the first Overcooked or not, Overcooked 2 is easy to figure out right from the get-go. The recipes for each dish are familiar even if you're not much of a chef, so you can remember which raw ingredients you need as you make your way around the kitchen and work with your co-op partner(s). Once you play a few rounds, you should have a good handle on things, helping you focus on getting everything done as quickly as possible from there on out.
Pro Hilariously fun couch and online co-op for up to four players
Playing Overcooked 2 with friends is the best. There's so much going on at once in the kitchen, with barriers moving in your way, hazards popping up like cars in the middle of the road separating the two halves of your area, and ingredients, dishes, and half-prepared dishes to move from one place to another. Working together and communicating with your friends through couch co-op or online play is a constant stream of laughter and excited shouting as you mess up, learn, and hopefully get things done. If you don't have anyone to play with, then you can hop online for matchmaking instead.
Pro Fast and frantic cooking action
Overcooked 2 is really fast-paced and keeps you on your toes. You play as a chef in a crazy kitchen with a ton of things going on all at once, with you mixing, preparing, and cooking in between the chaos of moving platforms and environmental obstacles. There's a time limit constantly ticking down at the bottom of the screen; finishing your tasks on time or ahead of schedule earns you a better score in the end. Tossing ingredients to your teammates across the kitchen, or across the moving platforms or obstacles like bodies of water, is a fresh new addition in this game that wasn't in the first Overcooked, making things even faster this time around. It's such a manic yet well-done mix of many different genres and ideas that all come together in the best ways.
Cons
Con Limited to just singeplayer
There's no multiplayer or co-op in Slay the Spire. While competitive multiplayer in a roguelite can sound absurd, co-op would've been a lot of fun, especially with a friend.
Con Some cards can feel impractical because of randomness
There a really good cards(usually involving exhaust and poison mechanics) that don't really work by themselves, requiring you to have another card for a synergy effect. If you only have one of the cards, it can feel like dead weight that hinders your current playthrough, making it even more frustrating when you can't find a matching card because of randomness.
Con Not F2P
Premium card games have yet to prove it is a successful model.
Con Can be incredibly frustrating
Trying to work at such a fast pace with so many obstacles and general mayhem going on at once can wear on you after a while. There's a lot to keep track of at once, and it's easy for things to spiral out of control as your mistakes pile up. If your group isn't doing well and you're running out of time, you might find yourself losing your patience with your team and yelling at them. This might not be the game for you if you don't have a team that's willing to be patient and cooperative with each other, even when you're not doing so well during a particular round.
Con Single-player isn't as fun as co-op
If you only want to play alone, then Overcooked 2 might not be the best game to pick. All the fast-paced fun from co-op mostly comes from communicating with your team and trying to pull off your task together before the time runs out. You control two characters at once while playing alone, but this still lacks the team-based chaos that makes the game so addicting. You could instead go online for matchmaking, though you might get paired with people who don't want to talk or work as an actual team.
Con The controls are a bit sluggish
There's something about the controls that feels heavy and deliberate, and not necessarily in a good way. The feeling goes against the fast-paced nature of the gameplay that demands you in one place and then the next. If you played the first Overcooked, you may notice the difference right away. This change shouldn't be too much of a hassle, though it's still noticeable.