Spellcross

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Helicopters against dragons, tanks against golems.

Spellcross: The Last Battle (Spellcross: Ostatnia bitwa in Polish; Spellcross: Poslední bitva in Czech) is a turn-based DOS strategy game for the PC, developed by the Slovak company Cauldron and published by SCi in 1997/1998. For a variety of reasons (notably, a relatively nonexistent marketing budget and the emergence of games dominated by the demands of 3D-graphics cards), unfortunately for its designers, the game had little mass appeal, sold poorly, and has remained obscure.

Spellcross is notable for juxtaposing advanced technology and magic, a very rare combination since used in Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. In Spellcross, a contemporary Earth military fights for survival against an extradimensional invasion of orcs, undead, harpies and the like. Putting modern-day military hardware against fantasy clichés was a very original and critically praised design, although furious research starts to introduce experimental lasers and the like later in the game.

The game only features a single-player mode, split into tactical battles and a strategic planning mode. The former is the actual combat, with a simple but nuanced, if sometimes repetitive, interface and gameplay. (In its turn-based combat, each unit has action points, which can be used to commit actions (such as attack, move, etc.) or reserved for opportunity fire or movement). Resource and troop management, research, maps, territory acquisition and counter-attack tie the scenarios together in a rudimentary narrative. Unusual for most games of its ilk, the enemy can and will attempt to reconquer lost land.

The newer English version differs from the older Czech version. Some graphics and animations have been improved (for example the strategic maps are whole new pictures). The mission design has been tweaked and some of them even joined. Only the English version includes a tutorial and cheat codes. The English version has only two difficulty settings, while the Czech version has three. The English version has been criticised by some players of the Czech version as less difficult.

The developer Cauldron has stated in several interviews that Spellcross is their all-time favourite product and that they would like to make a sequel. However, they fear that there is not enough demand for it on the market.