Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
Even in a magical and fantastic setting, nothing good comes out of war. A roguelite that mixes tactical RPG and tower defense elements, The Last Spell is set in a world that has already been destroyed by humanity’s lust for destruction. With this unique mix of genres, the game offers fun and engaging gameplay mechanics, but despite its pixel art style, the Switch port is certainly not without its issues.
In The Last Spell, the action begins after a powerful group of wizards have unleashed total annihilation on the world, unleashing swarms of demons that have reduced humanity to a handful of small havens. Each night, a few heroes defend these towns while the remaining wizards attempt to undo the harm they have caused by banishing all magic from the world. It’s not an overly complex setup and the actual gameplay doesn’t feel as dark as the opening cutscene makes it seem, but the premise is solid.
The game consists of two distinct phases. During the day, you are in charge of the production phase. This is where you can spend gold and resources to build buildings, heal your heroes, and build defenses for the city. During your first runs you are limited to a few basic structures, but as you progress you will unlock more options for defending yourself. The pace of progression is well balanced; for most races, we had at least one or two new toys to play with during our playthrough, which helped keep The Last Spell from feeling like a grind.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Offline)
Unsurprisingly, night is when evil comes out to play. In the mists surrounding your refuge, countless creatures lurk, vying for your magic circle. Each combat phase consists of several turns in which wave after wave of creatures will advance on your city. Your heroes run around a gridded map, using their special abilities to deal damage or buff their allies. The fight isn’t over until the last monster is killed, your last hero is killed, or the monsters fail to destroy your magic circle and stop your mages from saving humanity.
The structure is easy to understand, but there are plenty of possibilities for customization, and creating a balanced group of heroes is essential for survival. Luckily, you can turn each hero into almost anything depending on the weapons and spells you get. Everything is random, from the items in the shops to the traits the heroes get as they level up, so you’ll have to adapt your build strategy as you go. Luckily, most of the options you’ll get are decent enough that you won’t feel betrayed by the RNG gods if you land bad rolls.
As a roguelite, The Last Spell isn’t afraid to be a challenge either. Most of your races will end in defeat and you will have to return to the start of your current town. Any equipment or resources you have acquired will be lost and you will receive a random assortment of new heroes, but anything you have unlocked will be available for purchase again. The balance of the game is such that you rarely do worse than in a previous game, unless you make very silly mistakes or have the worst possible luck. Usually you will be able to continue your march towards victory, slowly but surely.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
It will likely take you several dozen hours to complete the campaign, although this can be reduced by using Unlimited mode, which lets you control the difficulty by managing the number of monsters and their health. We strongly recommend using it for the first few games as you get used to the game and increasing the difficulty only when you feel comfortable. Honestly, the game is challenging enough that I would expect most players to exclusively play The Last Spell in No Limits mode unless they are desperate for a long stretch.
If we had one complaint about The Last Spell, it would be that every run takes a hit. Also long to finish. This is compounded by the Switch’s controls, which feel a little clunky to implement. Especially in the production phases, you have to press the ‘–’ button every time you want to access parts of the screen. You’ll find yourself scrolling through the menu or returning to the same menu over and over each turn, which is a frustrating mechanic.
The problem is less often in combat, but it still felt like fighting both controllers and hordes of monsters. Nothing feels intuitive and ten hours later we were still making the same mistakes as when running the tutorial because of the commands. This makes The Last Spell feel like a PC game that was hastily ported to the Switch towards the end of development.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
This game benefits greatly from docked mode, where pixel art has a chance to shine. Looks good in handheld mode, but the text seems too small, especially when trying to figure out a new character’s abilities. It doesn’t make the game unplayable, but it certainly takes away some positives.
The graphics are simple but effective, and the music is perfect for this type of game. It looks like Crypt of the NecroDancer, which is a big plus in our book. The writing has some fun and ironic moments that relieve the tension of seeing your city invaded for the fourth time. A few more months to tweak the controls (developer Ishtar Games is working on a patch to implement d-pad navigation in the menus) and streamline the production phase would have made the game much more fun.
conclusion
It’s hard to write The Last Spell, because it’s a game that does a lot of things very well, from music to game balance to beautiful writing. If you can figure out the counter-intuitive controls, which an eventual patch will hopefully fix, fans of tactical RPGs will have something to eat. We enjoyed our time with the game, but the rushed feel of the Switch port prevents the game from reaching its full potential.