The Last Hex

With a genre as crowded as this, the game needs to be performing better on almost every axis to stand out. Pain points for me included: -Inconsistent rules that seem to favor the enemies: -Status effects trigger at the start of the player turn, but at the end of the enemy turn? Except some special instance like the enemies that run away, that happens at the start of the enemy turn I guess. On attack triggers after the attack, etc. -Sometimes damage bypasses armor, and sometimes it doesn't. I'm guessing there is some internal logic, but there are no keywords to teach this to the player (e.g. direct vs indirect, 'lose helath' vs 'take damage' -Wonky progression curve. Iits pretty easy to find equipment that just gives +1 energy, or +1 draw size. This is exciting a lot of the time, but it also means if you dont find this stuff you just can't keep up and are actually ♥♥♥♥♥♥. -Wonky power scaling. Many of the cards are several times as good as others. This means that the game is effectively filled with chaff, and many of the card 'choices' are just traps. -Primitive card UI that doesn't update to show you how much damage they will ACTUALLY deal after status effects and stuff, but also hides important information like how cards scale with stats (each card is different, mind you) behind hover tooltips. -Card UI also doesn't let you view linked cards in the description. I fought a cultist who has a lot of cards that reference a big card he was leading up to by name, but had no idea what it did. Turns out it set my health to 1. Would have been nice to know when you started referencing said card. Also, just as another fun piece of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, the bottom half of that card text didn't fit on the card, so I actually had to guess what the final result was. -All the art seems like placeholder? I've seen almost every piece of card/UI/Enemy art in another game, since they all come from asset packs. This is a matter of taste, which is why its at the bottom of my list, and I get that not everyone can pay an artist, but it really exacerbates the fact that this game is doing little to stand out from the crowd. There is also just general UI/Art jank, like how the 'horde' status effect has two different icons, for reasons that aren't clear to me. Don't get me wrong, I would recommend this game if it was in early access, and the developer had plans to fix this stuff, since its mostly QoL and UI polish. But I don't think they do. If you want a crunchy RPG hybrid decklike/roguebuilder game, go play Eranoth Chronicles.

A fun rougelite card based game that I decided to pick up after playing it at a convention quite a while ago. Sadly it seems to have suffered the fate of many other early access titles and has seemingly been abandoned before completion. As of this writing it has been nearly a year since the last update and so I can not recommend it.

I want to like this game. I like deckbuilders, roguelikes, and hex maps. I like that you can roam freely on the map, but the boss gets stronger the longer you do so. I like that potions are cheap enough that you're encouraged to buy and use a lot of them. I like that the monsters are each fairly distinct. It's got a couple really big issues though. First off, is that the characters aren't different enough. Each character has access to the same pool of cards and items, and their innate abilities are pretty minor. It's beneficial to specialize in one of the three stats and get cards that benefit from that stat, but beyond that your characters are probably going to look pretty similar from class to class. The fact that most cards just do damage or give defense doesn't help with that (though they do scale differently based on stats, which I do like). Similarly, you'll probably want the same sort of cards each run because... The scaling is very weird. There are vast differences between how much different damage/defense cards with the same energy cost and similar rarity will get you. The "scaling-up" effects (such as those that increase your damage for the rest of the fight) are extremely strong, to the point where a "powering up" approach seems like the only way to go. If those two big things were improved upon, it could be a very good game. I'll probably play more after this (currently 6 hours in), but so far I'm disappointed that it is not the game it has the potential to be.

I don't regret buying this game, however there are better alternatives around - Slay the Spire of course, and some noteworthy others. Starts off interesting but there are no noteworthy mechanics here that differentiate from other better games. As the development has stopped it seems, what is left is a very average game.

It seems a limited budget project. The two pieces of music during normal stage and fighting stage keep repeating, which made it a daunting task to play the game. The mechanism including exploring the map and fighting isn't a new one, which could remind me of other famous, nice games like Slay the Spire and Gordian Quest, both of which are far more exciting in terms of the fact that this game makes me fight with only one enemy each run (so far). Nothing is wrong in this game, but everything is so plain/common/ordinary.

This is probably one of the best games I've played that I cannot recommend due to balance issues. The design is interesting, but the card math and encounter balance are so wildly inconsistent it makes me crazy. The developer really needs to bring in a card game designer to tighten up the numbers side of things

Really wanted to like this game. Spent an entire day playing with it and could not get it out of my mind. The problem is the difficulty curve -- you are crushing early enemies, but as you get closer to the Last Hex the enemies become impossible to deal with. Limited Heal Potions hamper your quest when you get to later Hex Tiles and there are no towns with Inns where you can refresh. Really it's a shame. I liked playing this but could not get any further than Level 5, and after hours I only "unlocked" one other class and that was the Barbarian.

Looks more like a prototype that requires a significant play test.

This is a pretty basic card adventure game, so if you're expecting something nuanced or complex, you'll be greatly disappointed. Your character starts out on the left side of a long hex-based map, encountering progressively move powerful monsters as you proceed to the right hand side of the map where you'll battle the game's final boss. Along the way you'll find a few towns and treasure locations. The game has a large number of cards, however, nearly all of them fall into three categories - 1) add armor to the character/monster, 2) inflict damage point on the enemy, 3) heal or deflect. There are a few cards that do other things, but play primarily involves the above three card types. Monsters aren't too inspired either, with the exception of a few creatures, most have little to differentiate themselves from each other outside of hit points and the ability to inflict damage. Also, I'd add, there's a ridiculously huge leap between the difficulty between the most powerful monsters you'll encounter and the final boss. Overall The Last Hex fails to present any real characteristics that inspire play. It's technically not a bad game, just rather bland. It's unfortunate that Steam only allows for a thumbs up or thumbs down, because this game should qualify for something in between. Grade wise, it's a C minus.

Fun game. Player progression and replayability is very high. The gameplay is engaging and I have spent tens of hours exploring card, combinations and classes. This felt like I was playing slay the spire again for the first time it’s an enjoyable card game that I would recommend to anyone who is looking to spend around 80 hours in a fun single player deckbuilder roguelike