The Last Spell

(Refunded btw) Theoretically this was my perfect game - fantasy, rpg, rogue-lite, strategic, horde-grinder (is that a thing?) But then, past hour 10, I realized that going back to the game felt like a drudge - something that I was really not looking forward to, more like a chore than entertainment. Why though? Because if you take 5 hours for a failed run in a rogue-lite you feel like you've wasted time no matter what you unlock! - You get heroes with random gear and random... disabilities at the beginning. The exact combination has a chance of ruining your run - You do 7-13 horde defense nights before the boss. These are there just to give you money (to build up the town) and xp for your heroes for the final night which is a boss fight - The management of the town and the heroes is very finicky. Each has it's own gear and skills (the skill trees are rng ffs) and you need to build in the town and use the buildings and scavenge remains after each night - Each boss has a gimmick and if you do not realize it or follow some guide it's probably going to kill you on you first (and maybe subsequent) runs. And then it's back to night 1 and another couple of hours of micro-managed grind until you get to try again. - You unlock various items, buildings and orbs (modifiers for your run) as you go along - some of which are useless and will actively make your run worse by appearing as rewards and in shops. Weapons that have only low, single target or mostly defensive abilities are hot trash. DPS IS EVERYTHING IN THIS GAME! - Items are dull and have a pre-set number of stats on them. Legendaries just have more stats than the rest ... yay. TL;DR: the game is a slog that takes a lot of hours for one run and lacks enough interesting ideas past the first 2 levels to make it worth the time investment. Buy only at a discount

Awesome: Aesthetic design & great polished presentation. Few if any bugs, runs great. Great concept and execution. Tons of stats and math stuff but you don't HAVE to be super into that. Devs have made a ton of balance changes in the last year or two. Guides and information available on wiki, Steam guides and YT channels. Not so awesome for me: You're really looking at melee character, ranged, and magic user with not much else, just variations. Skills are tied to equipment, so give your melee char a wand and hey presto they now throw spells. The game is super-item-focused. Yes there are traits and perks but it's minor stuff until you get into the meat of the game and it's just bonuses, it's not skills as far as I can tell. That makes a character seem more like a weapons platform than a person. Meh. Kind of what put me off PoE. You build things. You're assaulted by a horde. You throw down a ton of damage. You progress gradually. That's it. The balance is tilted toward doing damage. Making a tanky or sneaky/dodging character is generally not needed.

This is a lovely dark-themed pixelated turn based game. It's a horde game where you fight off wave after wave until you fight a big boss battle and win the level. The graphics are pleasant pixels, the music is metal-tastic and totally rocks, and the random generated characters say funny things when you slay the undead. The only reason I didn't rate it 5 stars is because of 2 things: 1- The controller support being wonky and buggy (I eventually gave up after an hour of trying it and resorted to using Mouse & key). 2- This game expects you to lose and replay the levels in order to win. It's disappointing when I can't strategize my way out of tough situations for a well-fought, satisfying victory. The game wants you to grind and lose so you can restart some levels stronger and win. Aside from that, the game rocks! I recommend it.

This game is a lot of fun, easy to pick up and very difficult strategically. It is one of those games that you sort of can't put down simply because of the challange of beating the hoarde of enemies that are coming your way and feeling proud of whiping them out. Great Game ovearll. Definitely recommend.