This turn-based tactical roguelike makes zombies cool again

polygon.com:

After hours of strenuous gameplay, I finally did it — I cured The Last Spell’s first town of its violet smog and reinvigorated the remnants of civilization with some semblance of hope.

In developer Ishtar Games’ accursed fantasy world, an Archmage has decided they’ve had enough of incessant war, so they’ve developed a ritual of mass destruction to finally end it all. As the Commander, you’re trying to banish magic because the make-believe Oppenheimer’s spell covered the sky in a toxic mist and spawned massive hordes of murderous mutants. You lead many valiant heroes to their deaths as they give seemingly OK mages enough time to expel the magic seals plaguing the world.

The Last Spell takes the squad-centric gameplay of turn-based strategy games à la Fire Emblem and XCOM, and ramps it up to 10 by combining it with the massive hordes of They Are Billions. Rather than facing off against an equally sized army, your unfortunate heroes clash with an onslaught of bloodthirsty adversaries numbering, sometimes, in the hundreds. During the first few nights, my heroes were frail and scrawny, but as the days progressed, they turned into zombie-killing machines who left behind trails of carnage. With each level up, you can upgrade an attribute like health, armor, or damage and grant your heroes perks that alter their play style.

Against this many enemies, units or heroes that can control the masses are necessary to survive. I’ve had a few runs in The Last Spell where I didn’t have a clear bulky body to tank the ongoing assault, or a crowd-control specialist who could whittle down a cluster’s health en masse. However, with the leveling system, I was able to turn one of my mages into a tank by upgrading their health and block skill