The Last Hex

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

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.

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.

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 fucked.

-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 bullshit, 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.

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.

It's a fun roguelite card game for the price and has a generic fantasy theme which is fine. Just be aware it seemingly won't be updated moving forward. In its current state it's a B-, lacks a bit of polish and seems to heavily favor stat padding over deck building.

I enjoyed my first few hours with it. (Although I was weirdly sad I didn't unlock new classes in that time. I also wish I unlocked new hero portraits or something.) Cards scale interestingly over time, which is a difference to the other card games I played, but made deck management more interesting. I liked the artwork.

I think a few tweaks to sound design would make the game feel much better. Not having animations is a relief, but the lack of sound cues for armor and damage and status effects made things feel a bit floaty.

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.

An oddly fascinating game for no one that contains a hat that gives you +2 energy and +2 draw.

The biggest problem with the game is that the RPG aspects keep it from working as a roguelike and the roguelike aspects keep it from working as an RPG. The Last Hex doesn't work as a RPG because there's not much story, runs are super short, and progress is extremely fast. It doesn't work as a roguelike because it's too easy and because you have way too much freedom to grind, stockpile potions, and get stronger at your own pace.

The lack of transparency in event outcomes and enemy intent strikes me as a very strange design choice. (Earlier in development, even card math was often hidden.) Events don't tell you what the options do, and enemies give you an often cryptic bit of text hinting at which card they'll play next. Presumably this is to give a chance for the unexpected, but it just doesn't work in a strategy game. All it does is add a ton of experimentation and memorization rote work rather than making decisions more interesting. It didn't work in FTL or Rebuild 3, and it doesn't work here. There's even a hidden stat called luck which does... something, maybe?

The game lacks a proper hard mode (I'm not sure what one would even look like) but it does get more difficult as you play. This is because you constantly unlock things, and some of those things are equipment pieces which are not a hat that gives you +2 energy and +2 draw. The more pieces of equipment you unlock that aren't a hat that gives you +2 energy and +2 draw, the less likely it is you'll find a piece of equipment that is a hat that gives you +2 energy and +2 draw. Eventually, you can accumulate enough meta-currency to switch off some of the blatantly useless equipment so it won't show up in your runs, and then some of the equipment that is okay but not a hat that gives you +2 energy and +2 draw. This makes the game easier again by increasing the chance you will find a hat that gives you +2 energy and +2 draw.

Ultimately I really can't recommend this game. I enjoy games that are difficult to master, and this game is that, but mostly on account of how much is hidden from the player. This is not conducive to a compelling strategy game experience. The presentation and gameplay are rough around the edges, and the decision making is very simple: you take the good cards rather than the bad ones, and get yourself a hat that gives you +2 energy and +2 draw.

Good game but short of amazing because of unbalance. I was hoping that it could leave EA last year so there is a few balance patches but alas, time between the patches got longer and longer. I'm not sure if it's actively being developed anymore.

I cannot recommend this little gem because without a good balance patch, late game is not fun. I honestly gave up my hopes.

I have put 13 hours into this game at the time of writing this review and feel like I have a good grasp of the good and bad.

Some caveats:
The game is still in early release so keep in mind I am reviewing an unfinished product.
If you are looking at this game and haven’t played Slay the Spire, go try it first. It is the absolute best game in this genre (in my opinion).
I played most of my games on Hero difficulty (the equivalent of Hard I guess?).

The review:
The thing that stuck out at me the most is the awful slog at the end of each game. The map mechanic is that the undead minions of the Lost slowly creep from right to left as you valiantly fight your way from left to right. When you get to the part of the map that the Lost has occupied, you are in for a bunch of generally weak fights with no rewards, no towns (where you would buy and sell stuff) and no events. The more I played, the more I dreaded the boring grind of the end of the game.

Worse, the final boss (The Lost) has one of the most aggravating mechanics I’ve encountered which is to destroy your cards. This is insanely frustrating as you have spent a solid hour working out your combos and synergies, only to lose them for the hardest fight. So in my experience, the boss fight is not interesting or hard (once you see how it works), it is merely a frustrating or boring end to a run.
Equipment in the game is a fun idea. It is there to provide you with passive effects during fights. The problem I found was you’re really just trying to maximize your stats, draw, and energy. So there isn’t much in the way of fun alternate builds. Even if you find all of the equipment that does one thing, it still isn’t as good as a set that gives you stats, draw, and energy. So I ended up finding myself always looking for the same items.

Potions are a dime a dozen and don’t feel impactful. I could generally buy them all throughout the game and never use one until The Lost fight.

The descriptions for intent rather than seeing the intent itself makes the game less interesting, not more. Especially when playing for 50+ hours would allow me to memorize them all anyways. Why? I always grabbed the cards that allowed me to see what card the enemy was going to play so that I could have FUN putting my turn together.

Health doesn’t feel important, healing to full is cheap at any town.

I feel like I need to be a little harsh on events. They were uninteresting, usually worthless or outright detrimental, and I started to generally avoid them. Fights give you cards and money, and since health is easy to get back, they have little downside.

Conclusion:
So I’m guessing you get the impression. I didn’t think this game was very good. In general, it just doesn’t have the kind of balance and challenge I want in a card builder. This game was clearly inspired by Slay the Spire and yet seems to lack all of the interesting parts. Maybe they’ll get some things right as they move towards release. And hey, I did play for 13 hours so there was some fun to be had. But in the end, I think 13 hours is where my time spent will stay.

really neat game. I'm recently disabled and there are few games I can play using my tobii dynavox(eye-tracking computer). Please add more content, but don't kill performance so that I can still play after early access is finished. Would like cards and buttons playable by hotkeys. I use voice attack to speed up commands. I would like to be able to discard potions, and have potions in their own tab separate from deck. When considering buying equipment, can currently worn item be shown? Few bugs at the moment. High quality game!!

A Rogue-lite deck building game, which unfortunately works against its own mechanics. Combat is simplistic, each card has an energy cost and an effect. But the more cards you unlock, the worse the experience gets, because many cards in the same tear have the very energy cost and effect as well as rarity, but are just slightly worse than cards already unlocked. I.e. a card that does POWER + X damage, and another one that does POWER + X + 2 Damage for the same energy cost. This needles redundancy will get worse and worse over the course of unlocking different cards, because all cards are in one big pool. This means getting good cards gets harder and harder, invalidating one important aspect of rogue-lites.

The same goes for items. Most of them are just pointless stat sticks, and everything which does not boost the main stat might as well not exist, as hybrid cards are simply not worth the spread investment. Then there is the collar item, which stands above all other items, which makes every card played trigger again for no cost, but allows only 3 cards to play per turn. Due to energy constraints, one can for most of the game often barely play 2 cards, which means that the item has no real downside.

A word to the dev: Games like this live from synergies and emerging gameplay, but stats, items and cards are so flat that one cannot build anything proper. There are barely any combos that can be played at all, much less collecting the cards to actually pull them off. The different starting classes barely make any difference (except for pre-nerf Assassin).

The last Hex review

The game is made by a small indie company, is a deck building RPG with roguelike elements, sure this type of game is in fashion at the moment with games like slay the spire and other similar games released in the last 12 months. The game perhaps does not had anything new to that type of game, but it does what it says and does it very well. Probably if your reading this review you probable be aware if you like this type of game or not. So if you like deck building games with loads of unique stuff to unlock then this game will certainly scratch that hitch.

You start the game 3 characters and another 11 to unlock, each adds a unique playing style to the game. Most of the characters start with a bunch of common cards, which during the game you will slowly start to replace with rare cards. Perhaps a small complaint about this, if your unlucky with finding some good cards for your deck then the boss fights become very difficult. Other than cards and characters you can unlock, you can also unlock potions, items, enemies, events and equipment. You should always look for equipment that increases your energy, this is used to see how many cards you can use, more cards a turn can compensate for a poor deck, if your unlucky finding good cards.

Perhaps a bit more verity with some of the cards would be nice, lets say you are building a deck with characters that kills using poison, you would be limited to using only several cards, so building theme decks can be tricky. I started building fire deck and ended the game with more Ice cards in my deck than fire, but that's part of the game.

The game features 4 modes of play and you do find that you do end up using all the different ways to play the game, my favorite mode is the trials, a unique challenge, for example the game will only spawn one town.

Graphics :- 7
Music:- 7
Story:- 6
Content:- 9
Gameplay:- 9

I have played a fair number of these sorts of card games, and honestly this is the best of them, even in early access. I tried going back to play slay the spire recently but found it lacking, in the gameplay mechanics, compared to The Last Hex. There are a lot of different cards and strategies, as well as different characters, to make most runs new and interesting.

Really good game. :-) I've spent a lot of time playing similar games (Slay the Spire and One Deck Dungeon), but there I always felt at the mercy of randomness and with very little agency to make my own choices. The Last Hex has a much better balance between randomness, choice and visibility of consequences, and the choices are more intuitive for me. There's an actual map to navigate, and in cities there are many things for me to spend my money on, where I (mostly) understand the consequences of my choices. It feels more like having limited resources to spend on all the cool stuff, and less like being starved for resources with few real choices.

The combats are fun and with depth, and there are many layers of tactics and strategy to explore combined with choice of equipment and deckbuilding.

All in all, The Last Hex feels like a fast fun version of an RPG with tons of replayability. Best deckbuilding RPG rogue-like I've played yet! :-)

Game is massively unbalanced. You get a ton of "choices" which are of the quality "Card that deals 10 damage for 1 Mana" vs. "Card that deals 44 damage and has 2 bonus effects". Certain loot drops are also far above others which utterly trivialize a run. And since you can get these from the first area on, the best strategy is to camp the pre-boss 1 section, wait until you get offered a busted card/equipment and steamroll from there. Most of the time though, you will not pick cards since about 80% of the card pool is either garbage or meant for a different class.
This game takes the good of card building games and combines it with the terrible aspect of MMOs where you repeatedly grind crappy enemies for scraps until you get the cards worth playing. And there aren't many of those.

Not recommended, needs a serious design rework before its worth playing.

I like the concept. I wish the classes went beyond the normal archetypes (wizard, thief, warrior). I like the concept of working through a world map and advancing through that. My primary issue is with card balance - there are too many instances where cards are "better" in every single situation. For instance a mage starts with 2 different 1 cost cards that provide defense - the difference being that mage armor gives you 31 defense and Wall of Force gives you 14. While the higher defense card is technically an uncommon card, it is in the starting deck. There are zero situations where you might want to use the lower card over the other. Why give a mage "sudden strike" when he/she will never, ever choose that card over magic missile which does more damage and utilizes the mage's primary stat? The same goes for the warrior - he has 2 different defense cards, both common, both cost 1, but 1 gives a lower defense and uses his secondary stat, while the other is a higher defense using the primary stat. Again - this leads to zero decision making. There are no situations in which the lower defense card will be better for that player than the higher defense card. At that point, it's a luck game - you are just always hoping for the higher damage/higher defense card. Perhaps there are more trade-offs/decisions to be made at higher levels, but honestly the card balance issues I've experienced in the early game have made me uninterested in putting much more time into the game.

I've been waiting for The Last Hex to come out on early access for monthst. It promised to take the core gameplay of Slay the Spire and mix in some fresh ideas and more RPG elements like real map movement and upgrading stats.

I'm aware that this is early access (there's the usual smattering of early access bugs, but it's pretty good by early access standards), but I think there are problems with the core gameplay that run too deep to be fixed in early access.

The RPG elements revolve around upgrading your character’s Strength, Intellect, or Agility (called Power, Arcane, and Expertise), and the cards scale off of your stats. This does a good job of allowing cards to stay relevant as you get later in the game, but there’s never an incentive to upgrade a stat other than your main stat, so it’s really RPG window-dressing.
I don’t know how I feel about this, but it was interesting: It’s very easy to remove bad cards from your deck and get your deck size small so you’re only drawing your powerful cards. It tends to be the “best” way to play games like this, but if you’re successful it makes the fights extremely tedious as you will always be executing the exact same moves. Also when your deck’s average card is very powerful, there aren’t many cards worth adding to the deck, so you get locked into the same repetitive gameplay. Anyway, what’s funny is the final boss has abilities that delete cards out of your deck. If you have a small deck, you easily beat everything else, but you can’t beat the final boss. I like that the game throws some curveballs like that, and that it’s challenging, but it’s a bit of an on the nose “gotcha”.

If you liked Slay the Spire, you'll probably like this, but you'll definitely feel "why would I play this when I could play Slay the Spire?"

A deckbuilder with stronger RPG aspects and a map you're allowed to freely move around on? Yes, please!

After you choose from one of the classes (3 to begin with, 11 once you unlock them all), you have to build your card deck but also your equipment and stats.

Speaking of stats, your cards scale depending on your stats (Power/Arcana/Expertise) and a specific formula assigned to each card. So a card can start weaker than the rest, but lategame scale higher because you raised the related stat. Or you can get very strong cards early game that scale poorly for lategame.

Do note that although many cards have specific stats to increase their effect, they don't have any class restrictions. That's right, classes are more of a starting template and all the cards are available to everyone. So you want to create a warrior deck with some arcana cards combos? Go right ahead. The game let's you go wild.

Difficulty-wise, so far the game is constantly killing me but always because I wasn't paying attention or rushed ahead.

There's a very large quantity of unlocks to get as you play. More cards, monsters, classes, etc.

I'll have to come back to this review to write more, but for now I just want to go play more of this excellent game. Just know that if you're a fan of deckbuilding games and RPGs in general, it is highly recommended and it will easily give you hours of entertainment.

That's all for now!

Shout-out to Esty8nine on Twitch for showcasing the coolest indie games around. (That's how I found the game.) Stop it! My wallet can't take this abuse!

Combo of Fate Hunters and Slay The Spire, which means I will be playing this for untold hours. Oh, and Monster Slayers.
Fresh entry into the genre even though some cards feel exactly from previous games.
Replay Value City.
Very well designed, although the RNG/balance is not scaled fairly.
Addictive. Had to pry myself away from PC on launch day in order to get back to work.
Should be a real winner.
TENSE.
Art is passable. Some font is small or gets hidden.

Update:
Hard to get into and just pick up anymore due to having runs that are just totally dependent on random enemies and how you had built your deck.