Good morning my lovely readers, and welcome back once more to Joyful Stick. Miss the last entry? You can read it here. Today, we’re going to take a look at Last Evil on Steam, and talk about the concept of re-inventing the wheel. Is originality a sin? Maybe, but only if you do it wrong. Let’s begin.
Everything Leads Back To Them And I Am Omniaware of My Own Suffering
It’s been close to a decade since I quit Magic: The Gathering for good. That was after playing since I was nine. My collection spans over a decade of design, many of the pieces valuable. Now those cards sit alone in my closet, their binders gathering dust. I keep telling myself I’ll play casually again or sell them off. Yet, I can’t. Every time I think about it, I pause.
I think about MTG a lot when it comes to “card building games”. It’s a behemoth in the tabletop community, rivaled only by Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer 40k in the length of its shadow. Because of that, you’d be hard pressed to find a single game that isn’t influenced-either by outright copying design choices or subtly altering them-by these cardboard dragons.
And like, it sucks. It sucks a lot because MTG is a great game, but the larger community is one inherently held together with rainbow capitalism on behalf of Wizards Of The Coast and the blatant misogynistic, racist, queerphobic player base. Spare me your kind words about how much has changed-it took multiple years for the people that sexually harassed me and others to be ran out of the community.
I’d love to go back.
I’d sooner fall on my fucking sword than ever subject myself to that pack of wolves again.
So, I’ve sought out alternatives. For a long time that was Hearthstone, which I played semi-competitively for multiple years. Then Blizzard got its wig peeled back to reveal the ugly truth. I ditched the game, and gave a momentary glance at my stack of MTG cards before browsing for alternatives. Of those, the first that rose the mountain was Slay The Spire. STS did a lot of things right-it combined a roguelike RPG with card building, meaning no two runs were completely identical. This created a need for individual players to learn card assessment on the fly while balancing other resources like Life and artifacts.
To say I fell head over heels would be an understatement. I bought the mobile port, the steam edition and played it while it was still on game pass. For all practical purposes, Slay The Spire scratched the ongoing itch I’d had for a TCG since I left Magic totally behind. Toss in additional design elements like classes, and I was sold. Three times.
It came as absolutely no surprise then as I was hunting for something to review that Last Evil dropped into my lap. Billing itself as a deck building dungeon crawl, I was intrigued but stayed my hand. At the time, Last Evil was still in the “greenlight” stage. I completely forgot about it until last week-and god, it sure did feel familiar.
Imitation As Flattery
Last Evil stars you as a completely generic (but customizable!) succubus caught up in some kind of equally generic war between humans and demons or whatever. Something like that. The opening cinematic that plays before the main menu tells you all you need to know in terms of “plot”. I watched it multiple times and can’t recall a single detail readily. Yet, I also couldn’t tell you the plot to Slay The Spire. The plot didn’t matter. I was here to sling cards.
Anyways, you’re dropped into a grid-based map marked with icons that signify what locations have. You progress a single square of the grid at a time until you meet the boss of the dungeon, acquiring cards, essence (read: gold), and building Lust (an alternative mana resource). Battles are completely straightforward and marked by a green skull icon. Rest locations are marked by what I’m assuming is a leather blanket. Random events, including Treasure Chests that contain game altering artifacts, are marked by a magnifying glass.
If you’ve played or seen Slay The Spire in any fashion and this all seems eerily similar, that’s because it is. Last Evil is quite seriously a big-tiddied reskin of STS, with a few design twists that differentiate the experience. Most obviously is the fact it features 3d models as opposed to 2d style flat models. This would be intriguing were it not for the fact the models (regardless of if they’re enemies, the player’s succubi or surroundings) aren’t especially memorable or particularly detailed. The sex scenes in the game make this really apparent, as the models involved simply bump against each other at varying speeds until there’s a cum shot.
It’s an embarrassingly low bar of eroticism, something I probably would have found hot as a teen. Yet here I sit, age thirty-two, letting out a sigh as I quickly progress and move on.
Since the eroticism is vapid at best, my focus during play very quickly moved to design choices and play elements. Unlike its inspiration, Last Evil eschews multiple classes for two mana resources and straight RPG elements. There’s the usual blue-colored stone with a number you’ve all seen countless times and Lust, which builds as you progress through the dungeon without satiating your carnal desires. Overall the cards that rely on the generic mana engine aren’t particularly interesting. They’re magic based attacks and shields, a rhythm that’s easy to slide in if you’ve played any other eTCG.
Where the system absolutely shines is with the Lust based cards. Lust builds very slowly over time with a peak of 10 lust (or more, if you upgrade or have an artifact). Now, you can spend this after every fight in coitous so your succubi can acquire more Essence (again, the game’s gold system). But if you decide to let it build, your boss fights get significantly easier thanks to exponentially larger-damage, flashier spells. In one particular encounter, I seduced the primary boss who kept recruiting minions the entire time. As I rode his dick for two turns, every attack his minions committed to me went to him instead. Lust also enables status based effects that can lead to enemies fighting for you and more. It’s a shame there simply aren’t enough of these cards.
The role play progression elements are entirely straight forward. You’ve three trees to choose from, all of which affect different aspects of cards, grind progression and more. You usually get one skill point after every run, and if you’re smart you can build a fairly powerful succubi quickly. Don’t be deceived by the simplicity either-Last Evil likes to cheat and crank the difficulty up during boss encounters. Spend your points wisely.
Of note, there’s only a few other items worth discussing. You can seduce the merchant girl for steep discounts on cards, and her lust stays at concurrent levels between playthroughs. Every time you witness a new sex scene, you grow a bit closer to unlocking a new outfit for your succubi to a maxim of 100 scenes. Which is great news for people who are fans of 2000s era hentai and models that were dated by the same era. I mean, the moans are kinda hot sometimes?
Conclusion And Final Thoughts
I’m in a weird spot with Last Evil.
On one hand, it’s a clone of a game I already enjoyed and was familiar with. It’s super easy to play, with a low barrier of entry that will keep players coming back. Despite all my comments, clearing levels and beating bosses is indeed satisfying.
However, it doesn’t have enough to truly break free of its STS pedigree. Slay itself is already a fantastic game, and I’m hard pressed to think of Last as anything other than its Great Value brand competition taking shelf space. It’s not particularly bad, but I’ve seen this concept executed in a much better fashion already. I’ve seen Critical Bliss, their publisher, release better titles too.
At $10, I can’t recommend this over Slay. If you can pick it up for half that or lower during a Steam sale with Slay at its regular MSRP, then Last Evil is a fine substitute until you can pick up its nicer competition.
-J