Last Regiment

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Last Regiment review
Camrin Santchi

Review

Elves with chainsaws

Turn based exploration


The Age of Exploration is always exciting and tense. A new world, tensions between those who belong to the Old World and the New, potential discoveries and potential wars. Now add magic, advanced technology, and mushroom zombies and you have Last Regiment.

Last Regiment, from Boomzap Entertainment meshes a map-based strategy game with the style of using ‘cards’ to upgrade, downgrade, or place units on the map. Once on the map, they cross over a series of hexagonal segments to conquer and build fortifications, allowing for strategies as gamers slowly develop and make use of a small army. Maps are small enough to keep the pace interesting, but large enough that they don’t feel cramped. The terrain requires gamers to think about how they maneuver units across the battlefield, as different types of units have different movement options, adding another realm of strategy.

Despite being a multiplayer-oriented game, a single player campaign exists where gamers take control of some of the Heroes in the current twenty-seven missions. These missions are split up between five chapters and a prologue, each of which gives gamers control of a different Hero with a faction that they have united behind them. Players must deal with the consequences of colonization in a world filled to the brim with magic, zombies, and robots. Each Hero sports a different take on the war and different motives, but all want to do right by their people. The difficulty ramps up quickly, even in the Prologue a gamer can find themselves overwhelmed if they aren’t careful, making certain that the Goblins aren’t outflanked by the killer robots known as Constructs in the final two missions of the Prologue makes certain that players know to pay attention to enemy strategy as well as their own.

Resources


The game keeps a somewhat noticeable limit on resources, making sure that players can only have seven cards in their ‘hand’ at a time, and a limited number of troops based on how many bases are under said gamer’s control. This reduces the concept of stockpiling that many other strategy games see, and forces players to be more offensive in an effort to make sure the matches don’t last as long as other games of the genre.

As far as multiplayer goes, Last Regiment boasts the option of up to eight players within one match, and has an interesting system called ‘Alliances’ where gamers can pool resources and work together. Players can also form and break Alliances in the middle of the games, separating them from similar titles where players are forced to remain in teams for the whole game. This feature is a breath of fresh air in the world of strategy games.

The main menu of the game holds a section for the lore, which is most certainly needed. The fantasy world in which Last Regiment takes place borders on convoluted at times, with an impressive scope of detail on everything from Places, Heroes, Individual Units, and Historical Events. Fortunately, the lore is not needed to enjoy the game, but if any gamer is interested in this strange and wonderful world, there’s more than enough lore to take a bite out of and still have plenty more.

There is also the Level Editor, which allows players to construct a map of their own design, giving a decent amount of options that allow for replayability. Creating different maps allows different strategies than those offered by the maps already within the game.

Enjoyable


In all, Last Regiment is an enjoyable game that fits the mold of ‘easy to learn, hard to master’, with complex lore that is impressive in scope. The difficulty occasionally spikes in the single player, making certain that gamers pay close attention and don’t get complacent in the midst of the campaign. The several modes on offer allow for no small amount of replayability. And despite the drama of the wars and violence portrayed in Last Regiment, there is a note of humor as well which keeps things somewhat upbeat while fighting fungal hoards or unfeeling machines.

7.2

fun score

Pros

Easy to Learn Combat, Alliance System

Cons

Difficulty Spikes, Complicated Lore