Enter Zold:out. It completely ditches the grid, throws deck building into the mix, and lets you go absolutely wild stringing together weapon combos in a single turn. You’re basically running a chaotic blacksmith shop, recruiting quirky clerks, and trying to save the world with pure strategy.

MASTERING THE ACTION ECONOMY

Every character gets exactly 12 action points (AP) to burn during a fight. How you spend them totally messes with the flow of the battle. You can either dump all your AP into one massive, glorious attack to wipe an enemy off the map, or you can play it safe and hold some back. Saving AP means you get better positioning and breathing room for the next round. It’s a massive risk reward setup, and you are entirely in the driver’s seat.

CRAFTING YOUR PERFECT ARSENAL

Forget boring, static skill trees. Here, your weapons are your cards. You build a custom deck loaded with crazy abilities, and half the fun is figuring out which weapon card breaks the game when paired with a specific character. As you push through the stages, you’ll hit the forge, craft new cards, and constantly tweak your loadout. It gives you an insane amount of freedom to play exactly how you want.

DITCHING THE GRID

I cannot stress enough how good it feels to play a tactical RPG without being locked to rigid little squares. You can physically run your characters wherever you want on the battlefield. This means actual flanking is a thing. You can pull off some seriously sweaty positioning plays to outsmart whoever you’re fighting, making the combat feel incredibly fluid.

BOSS FIGHTS THAT ACTUALLY MAKE YOU THINK

We all know the drill with most RPGs just grind until your stats are ridiculously high and brute force the boss. Yeah, that doesn’t really fly here. The devs actually took the time to design monsters that will wipe the floor with you if you don’t use your brain. You have to adapt on the fly. If your current team comp is getting wrecked, you can’t just over level your way out of it; you need to completely rethink your strategy and exploit their weak points.

SURVIVING YOUR FIRST FEW HOURS

The tutorial is thankfully short and sweet. You get about three stages of hand holding, and then the training wheels come off completely so you can tackle the main story. If you want to keep your distance early on, stick to wands.

Do yourself a huge favor, though: ditch the starter weapons immediately. Don’t even bother keeping them. Get your blacksmithing to level 1 and start pumping out cheap, mass produced gear. It is infinitely better and way cheaper than the junk your characters start with. Also, keep an eye out for treasure chests popping up during combat waves. Smash them open and grab the loot before you wipe out the last enemy, otherwise you miss out.