The Last Days Review (Nintendo Switch)

Game: The Last Days
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PC)
Developer | Publisher: Game House | Ocean Media
Age Rating: EU 3 | US Everyone
Price: UK £8.99 | EU €9.99 | US $9.99 
Release Date: October 1st 2020

Review code used, with many thanks to Ocean Media!

Story and Characters

The Last Days centres around – surprise, surprise – the end of the world. While on holiday, the faceless protagonist encounters mysterious artefacts in the most bizarre of places. Following this millennia-old trail around the globe then takes over the protagonist’s trip, visiting a number of locations before reaching the final encounter.

I’ve come to expect a certain level of quality and enjoyability from the Ocean Media ports but frankly, The Last Days disappointed me. There was no cohesion to the story-telling or progression: I only met one character throughout the entire game, a bizarre little man who appeared at key points yet seemed to serve no purpose until the final encounter with him. There’s so little direction that it’s infuriating, no indication that an area is completed and that you should move on unless you check the Journal specifically. Even then, there’s no way to be sure without visiting the plane and confirming whether the list of destinations has been updated.

Gameplay

Gameplay was about what you’d expect of a hidden object game, and yet still managed to disappoint. When a game’s official listing includes “Puzzle” as a genre, I certainly anticipated a greater variety of puzzles than the three forms I found. There’s the traditional Hidden Object, wherein a number of items must be found within a screen, though thankfully there was no timer. There were various iterations of a Sliding Tile puzzle, where the tiles had to be slid around until the depicted image was replicated – I personally hate doing these, but they are at least a challenge. Finally, I was required to order objects based on height from left to right with the ability to swap absolutely any two, without restrictions. Granted, as a game targeted at families I didn’t expect an enormous selection, but 3 forms of puzzle barely qualifies for the genre, especially when they’re so similar – the biggest difference in any single form was that one sliding puzzle had a different number of rows and columns to the others.

Interaction with the environment and puzzles is entirely point-and-click based. Want to use an item from the inventory? Choose it from the drawer, and tap where you’d like to attempt it Want to move to a different location? Tap around the screen until you find the correct section for navigation. Point-and-click is a wonderful play style, one of my favourites, and the simplicity worked well with The Last Days. Unfortunately, the fact that only touchscreen controls are available means that it can’t be played docked, making it infuriating sometimes to find the one tiny object you’re supposed to use an inventory item with.

Graphics, Sound, and Performance

The Last Days graphics were sufficient, but nothing special. Animated scenes were horrendously blurry as times, as opposed to only partially blurry the rest of the time, but thankfully the static scenes were nice and clear. Nothing really stood out, though; the graphics felt like a straight port from the considerably older PC version, which is disappointing considering the Switch can support some beautiful vistas.

Again, the sound design was nothing special. Some environmental background noises, accompanied by occasional bursts on achieving something. There’s really not much to say otherwise – I didn’t notice any audio issues, but at the same time nothing worth gushing over.

One thing I do have to give The Last Days is that it runs smoothly. I didn’t notice any visual or audio stuttering, nor any missed inputs – I do still dislike the lack of control for a docked mode, but I can’t fault the touchscreen controls.

Difficulty

The Last Days is well-rated. It was so easy that I blasted through it in around an hour, and I wouldn’t anticipate the puzzles giving many players much trouble. The previously mentioned lack of variety in the puzzles makes it relatively easy to learn the method for dealing with each. This might make it useful for learning how to apply logic, but doesn’t serve to provide any challenge  – the hardest part is actually seeing things on the small screen!

Conclusion

The Last Days was a huge disappointment. A sorely lacklustre story, complete lack of characters, sadly limited variation of puzzles, and utterly average graphics and sound resulted in a very neutral experience.

It also only lasted an hour, and while I normally hate to make this statement, I have to call the price too high considering the length and enjoyability. I’m a huge fan of the point-and-click puzzle genre, but The Last Days was just an unfortunate waste of time as far as I’m concerned.

Final Verdict: I Don’t Like It