Last Evil (3/5★)

Foreword

Gameplay

. . . in a nutshell

I need to make some revisions.

out the shell. . .

Not gonna lie, this section. . . is gonna be a mouthful. But have no fear! Have you played Dominion or Star Realms? If you said yes, then learning this game is gonna be a cakewalk. If you said no, then. . . well read-on.

Think of this game as a deck-building card-game combined with dungeon crawling and/or rogue-lite elements. I know that too was a mouthful, but I’m sure one of those terms stuck to you. You build a deck using cards obtained by traversing a dungeon, and you have to battle enemies and seek-out loot. If you die, you will have to restart from the beginning. Now this sucks, but you gain perks from subsequent play-throughs, encouraging you to play again-and-again.

Battles are fought turn-by-turn. If your HP reaches zero, you die. The idea is to clear-out every enemy in the stage by casting “spells”, which are represented by (six) cards at the bottom of the screen (or what I call your “hand”). As you expend spells, they enter the “Spell Grave”, which acts as a discard pile. Each turn, uncast-spells are put into the Spell Grave. When you run out of cards to draw from your deck (or “Spell Pile”), your Spell Grave is shuffled back into the Spell Pile, effectively creating a new deck.

You need to expend Mana to cast your spells, which is limited (and fully-replenished between turns). There’s also a thing called Lust, which can be acquired by Artifacts and Spells. Lust, like Mana is a resource which can be used to cast Spells. Artifacts are displayed at the top of the screen, and are gained by bosses and chests. Artifacts grant bonuses, such as passive regeneration or the ability to “forget” spells at designated resting-points.

After defeating your enemies, they comedically rag-doll and you may choose one of three (random) spells. It is in your best interest to choose wisely, because it is hard to get rid of Spells you don’t want anymore. You also earn Essence. By Seducing (or choosing to “Collect Essence”) enemies, you gain a lot of Essence (and get to watch some saucy animations). But beware, because Seducing will eat-up all of your precious Lust. Alternatively, you can Extract Essence, which skips the animation, but only nets a little bit of Essence. On the flip side, you get to keep your Lust.

Now might ask, why do I need Essence? Essence is the in-game currency. You may encounter merchants, whom sell spells and can remove (up to one) spell from your available spells. This is very useful when you gain negative Spells, which take-up space in your hand and harm you. You also purchase Intimacy, which reduces Merchants’ prices (and scores a very steamy scene).

You navigate areas using a grid-like system. In retrospect, I probably should have talked about navigation first. Depending on where you choose to go, you may encounter bosses, enemies or events. The path you travel will regularly diverge, and you can only pick one path. With that in mind, choose your path wisely. Be weary of events, as they can be good, or they can be your demise.

Story

You are a Succubus, on a journey. . . through a sewer. How she got there, I don’t know. I didn’t see any exposition or text in-game, but I may have missed it. But let’s take a look at the Steam store!

Okay, so apparently some big-baddie-demon-dude was slayed by mankind, along with all of his demon spawn. All of his spawn but one, a succubus. She wound-up in a sewer because that is where the last demons were banished to (and eventually killed). Her ambition is to revive the Demon King, and take revenge on humanity.

Consider this to be one of those games where you’re the bad guy. Or should I say, bad gal.

Visuals

The title menu has what you’d expect (for a virtual novel), including a gallery (labeled as “Omake”). If you can’t read Japanese, be sure to select your prefered language before starting a new game. The title menu is simple and appealing. When playing the game, everything you’d need (and expect) in a virtual novel is displayed at the bottom of the screen. To hide the in-game user interface, hit the “right-mouse” button.

The Goods

The character portraits are rendered with 3D models, and are very animated. They look great, though only two characters have models. Of the two, Ai has at least four outfits, but I there were a handful of scenes that spared the models. I assume that the developers didn’t have the 3D assets for these scenes. Every so often, a full art image will invade the screen, during important moments in the story. A lot of visual novels reserve full art images for just a few moments or the ending. The frequency of these scenes helps maintain a visual variety as you read along. These scenes can be viewed as desired in the gallery.

Verdict

This game, is awesome. I thought that it would have exploded on day one (with reviews and sales), but I guess not. It should have. I didn’t have high-expectations for this title before purchasing it, so I was (very) pleasantly surprised. I hope that the developers sink more love and updates into this game, and that they gain the financial support (and motivation) to do so.

So yeah, buy the game.