Is one step from Eden difficult?

Wanted to do a little write-up on my thoughts on One Step From Eden, a simultaneous release on the Nintendo Switch and PC. I wanted give my thoughts and opinion on the game for anyone on the fence and wondering what the game is like.

What is One Step From Eden?

One-line summary: One Step From Eden is a rogue-like mash-up between Megaman Battle Network and Slay the Spire.

You are thrown in a fight against one or two relatively simple enemies to start, with a loadout of spells, passives, and basic attack command that is unique to your character/config. With each victory you are awarded money and opportunities to acquire more passives and active commands that are thrown in your deck which you draw from and utilize in battle. And when you die? You lose everything, it's not an RPG, it's a constant uphill battle challenging you to survive for as long as you can. It is a nerve-wracking crazy onslaught of fast-paced battles mixed in with clever and thoughtful deck-building mechanics.

On the one hand...

This game is amazing. It requires so much from you, there is almost always something else you could have been doing to play optimally, and when you feel like you're doing 4 or 5 things right all at once, it really makes you feel like a bad ass. You can be hopping from one square to the next like the platforms are on fire, holding down your right trigger to spam Saffron's mega buster, whilst slinging spells as soon as you get the mana for them at the enemy. All the while, you're trying to attack accurately, but also you're reacting to their attacks and trying to nimbly dodge out of the way. The fun thing about this game is this crazy juggling act that throws you in a trance. You're focused and doing all you can to beat the opponent in front of you, and if you're doing at least half of those things correctly, you're going to feel really good about yourself. But this is only the micro side of things.

The macro of the game, the managing of your spells, choosing what is the fat you need to trim and what family of spells you want to see more often to build your deck towards is also really gratifying. Eventually you get to the point of proudly seeing your "Flow" deck come together. You pat yourself on the back because you could have taken that one Flow spell that cost 3 mana, but you smartly realized your main win-condition is to spam Rock Juggle and not just mindlessly add every card that gives Flow into your deck. Then there's the Shopkeeper who you see offers a slew of different passives and spells and.. wait, pacts? What are those? It's always been right in front of you but you never paid attention to them until now that you've had a few seconds for your mind to breathe. All of a sudden a deal with the devil presents itself to you. You can take this pact, which grants 25 Money to buy that one artifact that just completes your deck; but in exchange, that pact will force you to deal with random swords falling on your side of the battlefield for the next 3 battles! You're at half HP with the floor boss just around the corner. Do you do it?

This game presents to you so many interesting decisions on both micro and macro levels. But what did it take to actually get to this point?

Good luck learning all this yourself

One Step From Eden does nothing to show you the ropes of the game outside for a handful of tutorials that teach you how to use spells and basic attacks. You're taught how to do most of these things, but very little effort is spared teaching you which of these things are important and what you should be doing. Should you be taking every spell in the game at every opportunity? If you're familiar at all with deck-building games, the answer is usually no.

This game teaches you how to paddle and throws you in a whirlpool. For example, one tutorial show you how to set your Focus, but it doesn't teach you what to set your Focus on. What selecting your Focus allows you to do is to see spells from certain families of spells more often. The challenging problem? There is a selection of more than 10 families of spells, of which TWO you are able to set as your foci. This helps you with deck-building but then again, what kind of spells are in these families? Would you know if you are building a Flow deck that not all Flow spells are in the Hearth family but some are in Kinesys? Or that arguably the best Flow payoff spell, Waterfall, is in neither of those families but in Doublelift?? Not without a lot of experience and familiarity, that's for sure.

But what I just described above is fairly involved and probably would not be able to explain itself well in a tutorial anyway. So what about something more basic? How about whenever you defeat a floor boss, you start to notice that they are kneeling on the ground with 1 HP? You've never noticed this just now but why do they do that? Just to throw out a dramatic line? No, in fact, if you decide to NOT finish the floor boss off with a death blow and instead move on, they will repay your gratitude by healing you for 400 and on occasion, help you during fights! This is indispensable when you are low on health or especially when up against a tough boss they come out of nowhere to revive you. Or how about on the flip side? For the more merciful folk, did you know that if you did decide to kill the boss that you are pretty much guaranteed an Upgrade or Remove artifact?

Even with all my hours in the game, I still don't know everything. For instance, the characteristics of the different stages? I so far can only guess that the Magma stage is unique in that it probably has the evil Shopkeeper who barters with your health and not your money. There is so much to learn but unfortunately for the overwhelming majority of it, you're on your own in learning it.

There is too much going on

How many things are there to do really? You can manage movement, unleash your spells, hold down your RT for infinite mega buster,, weigh the options of which enemy is a priority to handle, place your spells accurately on your targets, actively anticipate and dodge the attack patterns of your enemies... and on top of all that? You can take a look at which spells are coming up next, constantly ask yourself whether it is worth it to cycle your remaining mana to get to the spell sitting third from the bottom of your deck, OR you can decide to leave yourself spell-less a few seconds and shuffle your deck and hand. Are you going to do all these things at once? Probably not!

I mentioned it above but while this juggling act throws you in a satisfying trance, it also is just really easy to forget a handful of these things. The core gameplay is the real-time battles, and it is nothing like Slay the Spire where you have an infinite amount of time to determine what the best move is. You have to react on the fly and do what is best to deal with the enemy as fast as possible, and if you're not, then good luck progressing.

This game is unrelenting and unapologetic

So what is progression in this game anyway? One Step From Eden dangles a lip-smacking total of NINE different characters you are able to choose from for each run. But wait, how can you choose them? Well, you can't choose all of them to start, you have to unlock them. How do you unlock them you ask? Without a quick Google search, I can tell you a majority of the people who bought this game will likely not find out.

Why? The only way you can unlock characters in this game (save for one) is by beating them as they appear as a floor boss from the fourth floor on.

This is insanely hard to do for the average player. Not only does this task require a lot of time and attention to learning the different bosses/enemies and their attacks, as well the numerous little micro/macro mechanics in the game-- but it demands you execute your knowledge on these things near flawlessly. You need to know that the Bard boss (I think her name is Violette) requires you to dance onto the tiles she plays music on so you can get the Shield you need to withstand her unavoidable follow-up attack. Each floor ramps up the difficulty of the floor boss an incredulous amount. Shiso as a first floor boss is a chump to if you happen to run into him on the fourth floor where he is shoving a hundred Jam spells in your deck, rendering it near useless. You need to have a good deck plan and get the right pieces to make a good pattern of attack against the boss.

After my 100th or so time dying I scratched my head when I realized that a full successful run of the game is completing eight floors. How on earth am I going to do that?

Not only is it very difficult, the game allows you to make some pretty poor decisions. For instance, most people would not notice there's a skip button when asked to choose an Artifact or spell to add to their deck. They may only see the choices of cards in front of them, when likely a very good decision is to choose none of them.

Another example is Wristwatch, which is Chrono-Saffron's basic weapon attack that replaces her Default variant's mega buster. Wristwatch slows time for 2 seconds instead of lodging buster shots into enemy skulls. The difference with Wristwatch and the mega buster is not only the fact that it deals absolutely no damage, but the fact that Wristwatch costs 1 mana. Because of this you can get caught in many situations where you Wristwatch so you can land a powerful spell on the enemy, only to realize the mana you spent casting Wristwatch was the mana you needed for that powerful spell, and that you can't cast it until Wristwatch's duration is over, effectively rendering your usage of Wristwatch pretty useless.

But now that I'm here I can't go back

Despite all this being said, I cannot say I want One Step From Eden to be more forgiving. This game is unapologetic and icy cold in its demeanor, but I'm loving it so far. It's so fun and challenging, I feel like it'd be such a shame for it to be toned down. I've so far unlocked two characters and I crave for the opportunity to earn more. They are so different from Saffron (who you start out with) and present new playstyles and surprisingly, entirely different perspectives on what is good and what is bad in certain situations. I feel like One Step From Eden is a home run in so many aspects, but it has so many glaring problems. It refuses to teach you how to play it well and presents an unforgiving difficulty, making it an especially hard nut to crack into. But once you crack it, or at least once you feel like you are, the reward is very satisfying.

Is one step from Eden rogue like?

How long is a run in one step from Eden?

How do you get better at one step from Eden?

What happens if you spare a boss in one step from Eden?