The Spell Brigade Review – A co-op Survivors-like that’s all about the grind

I’m going to be honest, outside of Vampire Survivors and some Megabonk, the Survivors-like subgenre rarely manages to stick with me for long. I’ll put a few hours in, get bored of the specific animations, and then dip back out. It takes something new to really grab me, and I’m assuming I’m not alone in that. For The Spell Brigade, that something new is co-op.

While I know that Vamp Surv (as the kids are almost certainly calling it) has co-op now, it didn’t used to, so co-op being at the forefront The Spell Brigade is a big deal. It adds a large layer of replayability and appeal, at least for fools like me who almost need another player with them at times. There’s even a few ways to work together, like combining different weapons, picking out spells which can be buffed with healing effects, and so on.

It’s not the only thing that The Spell Brigade does that’s new; it also has specific objectives. Over the course of a run, you’ll be tasked with things like finding mushrooms, closing a portal, killing enemies in a specific zone, and so on. Some of these are easy to find, because they’re marked, while others have you rushing around like a dog who’s lost their Frisbee. Is that a saying? It is now!

These are a mixed bag, to be honest, as while some are achievable, in the later moments of any given match, there are some missions which border on being impossible, and that’s a bit aggravating. You’re rarely going to end up strong enough to actually take things down straight away, or at least not until you’ve put a lot of time into the game, and therein lies my biggest issue with the game: the grind is awful.

Vampire Survivors demands a lot of your time to unlock everything, but that’s because it has an obscene number of things to unlock, and you’re constantly getting them. The Spell Brigade has a fair few things to unlock, but a lot of it requires gold, and it’s altogether too expensive most of the time too. Even a succesful run will rarely net you enough for more than one upgrade or a character, and it’s just so damn slow. It feels like a chore, and it just ruins the experience.

The runs also feel a lot longer than they are. I think it’s just the standard pace of movement, and while that can be changed, it makes the first few hours awful if you’re playing solo. In fact, even in the late game, if you’re not playing with someone else, it’s just nowhere near as fun.