Slay the Spire 2

I have played Slay the Spire 2 for around thirty hours. I am, after writing this review, uninstalling it from my laptop and praying my resolve is strong enough to keep it that way: a testament, to put it mildly, to how perfectly calibrated this game is and how effortlessly it enables my least productive tendencies. This is as good an opportunity as any to talk more about Slay the Spire itself, because — as I inelegantly put it to my brother — the sequel is a lazy one. By which I don't mean any moral judgment, but simply that it is a pure continuation of its predecessor: same engine, same mechanics, same gameplay loop, a host of new cards, new characters, new events, new enemies. To say that Slay the Spire 2 is derivative is both true and laudatory. I played the original game for at least five hundred hours and could easily pour the same amount into this one. I find Slay the Spire to be such a beautiful and addicting game because it seems expressly designed to strip away everything…