The Last Spell Review: Brutal And Beautiful SRPG Action
As soon as I made it out of the tutorial with only one of my initial trio of soldiers alive, I knew that The Last Spell wasn’t messing around. Developed by Ishtar Games, The Last Spell is a dark fantasy tactical RPG with rogue-lite and tower defense influences that absolutely loves to punish you. Set against the backdrop of a world brought to ruin by a magical disaster caused by power-hungry mages, citizens have gone insane, and night brings waves of terror as the last few remaining havens are attacked by relentless waves of demonic monsters who want nothing more than to wipe out these last remaining bastions of hope. What that means for the player is, well, frequent death…And I absolutely love it.
Prepare To Die
The pitch is simple. The Last Spell follows a day and night cycle. By day you’ll spend time building defenses and resources to strengthen your city and your randomly generated troops. For example, you’ll want shops to buy gear, temples, and wells to assist in regenerating mana and health, as well as structures and barricades built around the map to prevent the hordes from getting to the magic circle at the center. By night, all your hard work and day-time prep get put into practice, as a devilish purple mist surrounds the map and legions of enemies come seeking blood. This is where the tactical RPG elements come into play; you’ll command your troops in turn-based action until you’ve slayed every enemy on the map, before you can enter into a new tower defense cycle, prepping the city for the next night’s onslaught.
While the pitch is simple, in practice, The Last Spell is anything but. Starting out in command of only three weak and underdeveloped heroes, those first few nights can be brutal. You’ll only have access to simple defenses like weak wooden fences and gates. Not only that, but you won’t have the required currency to kit your team out in the shop, and you’ll also find yourself struggling for health and mana, which don’t regenerate between battles unless you have the required buildings and skills unlocked. You’ll almost certainly perish within a few nights, at which point your run will come to an abrupt end, and you realize you’ll be starting from night one on the first map all over again.
Thankfully, there is some meta-progression going on behind all the repeated failures encountered. You can unlock perks that’ll allow you to build better buildings, stronger defenses, crafty traps, and purchase better gear. New weapon types will become available, in turn giving you access to more skills, permanent stat unlocks can be accessed that will be applied to all of your heroes going forwards; there’s a whole host of unlocks that you’ll gradually access through accruing currency on each run, and it’s when you come to understand the density of the meta-progression, you realize that The Last Spell is intended to be a marathon, not a sprint. It’s not going to be for everyone. At times progress can feel like it comes along at a glacial pace, but honestly, I’m of the view that the slow unlock speed is a blessing in disguise. The core combat and gameplay loops are already difficult enough, and if the developers had opted to speed up the meta-progression process, throwing new toys and gameplay mechanics into the foray with a greater frequency, they would almost certainly have run the risk of overwhelming the player.
There is, of course, progression within each run as well. Each battle is followed by an award of XP, which can be used to level your current unit’s combat capabilities. As each level comes along, you’ll get to choose from a selection of randomized attributes, some simply increasing health, others increasing things such as the damage you’ll do to enemies suffering from debuffs and status ailments, or the accuracy of your attacks. I’m really only scratching the surface here, as the amount of variety on offer is truly astounding, and allows for incredibly diverse team composition. Mages that gain insane boosts to critical damage when using attacks that cost mana, tanks that can lay down an area of effect stun damage attack, while also allowing for that damage to spread to nearby enemies upon death, the opportunities for build diversity are fantastic, allowing each run to feel fresh and unique, in turn offsetting the frustration that might seep in otherwise as a result of the slow meta-progression.
A Strategic Delight
All this variety comes together wonderfully through superb turn-based, tactical combat. It’ll be instantly familiar to anyone who has played a tactical or strategy RPG before. Units have a set number of actions they can take, as well as a certain distance they’re allowed to travel within each turn, with the enemy getting to take make their moves, taking out your hard-earned defenses, and, of course, your units when they get the chance. Despite the familiar core at the heart of The Last Spell’s combat, it has a trick up its sleeve that makes it feel like a breath of fresh air within a genre that can tend to feel repetitive.
Enemy density is the main differentiator. See, the enemies here attack in hordes and always approach from specific sides of the map, so what you end up with is literally dozens of enemies on screen at any given time. It creates situations where you really have to dig into the diversity of each character and ensure you’re using every single one of your troops efficiently. You’ll need crowd control, constant applications of debuffs, strong elemental magic attacks, and a steady barrage of ranged damage raining down to thin out the hordes before your frontline gets overwhelmed. Crowd control is the name of the game, and if you’re like me and just coming off of Fire Emblem: Engage, where it was entirely possible to solo maps with your strongest, most evasive unit, you’re going to be in for a bit of a shock. In the press kit we received, the developers described The Last Spell’s combat experience as Final Fantasy Tactics meets Dynasty Warriors. I initially thought this was probably a bit of a stretch, but it’s totally fitting, and it’s this focus on overwhelming enemy numbers that really helps The Last Spell stand out.
Clunky Controls, Exquisite Presentation
The biggest complaint I can level at The Last Spell at the moment is with regard to the controls. Frankly, the UI and control scheme feels like they could have been fine-tuned a touch more to make it a more controller-friendly experience. Accessing things like character sheets, gear tabs, stashes, and skill trees all feels as though it takes a couple more button presses than it should, and it did lead to some expletive-filled rants spilling out of me as I fumbled my way around the early stages. It wasn’t until I got to the third map that I felt as though I genuinely had a grip on the controller inputs and could navigate to my desired menu screen without any errors.
Outside of the controller issues, the game is a total joy to interact with on almost every other level. Graphically, the pixel art is stunning and really breathes life into this gothic, medieval hellscape you’ll be fighting to save. The soundtrack also kills it, with some of the best use of heavy metal and screeching guitars since Doom 2016 assaulted our eardrums. If any other in-game soundtrack is going to top The Last Spell for me this year, it would need to be something truly spectacular.
A Hellish Experience Worth The Trouble
Overall, The Last Spell is an incredibly fresh and satisfying entry to the strategy RPG genre. Its learning curve may be brutal, but that’s part of its charm as you slowly chip away at its many progression systems and start catching glimpses of light at the end of the demon-infested tunnel. If you can learn to live with the clunky controls and don’t mind a slow grind that rewards the patient, you’ll uncover some of the best, most frantic combat to grace the genre in some time, and it’s a sandbox of satisfying systems and enemy density that will have you returning over and over again. If you’re looking for something a little different and don’t mind being repeatedly humbled, then The Last Spell is totally worth your time.
Final Verdict: 4/5
Available On: PS5 (reviewed), PS4, Switch, PC; Publisher: The Arcade Crew; Developer: Ishtar Games; Released: 9 March 2023: Players 1: ESRB: M for Mature; MSRP: $24.99
