Last Stop Reviews
Even among fans of dialogue-driven adventure titles, I couldn’t possibly recommend Last Stop.
Eventually, each story hurriedly resolves itself, foregoing tidy lessons or ironic endings but still lacking that crucial, elusive sense of lived-in authenticity. For as much effort has clearly gone into voicing and animating these characters within their 3D environments, we never spend enough time to seem like we really know them; quirks of the game’s strict linearity ensure we remain at a distance, observing relationships that are otherwise too thinly sketched to sustain the game’s emotional ambitions. Last Stop eventually arrives at an all-too-familiar game-design destination, hamstrung by its attempts at verisimilitude.
Variable State's sophomore effort reaches a boring destination due to uneven writing and game design austerity.
Last Stop goes to great lengths to build a story that mixes fantasy and absurdity with everyday family dramas. Even though it succeeds in its central objective, the title fails as a game, it offers very little to those who are following the fate of the characters on screen. With uninteresting minigames and few ramifications in the narrative from the choices we make for the characters, the game frustrates more than enchants.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Last Stop should best be reckonned as a strictly narrative game, as its interactive scope is way too clumsy : full linearity, no impacting choices and bland QTE sequences. The variety of atmospheres (comedy, drama, mysteries) makes it intersting to play though, and the game is carried by a nice and fitting soundtrack.
Review in French | Read full review
Last Stop is an engaging piece of entertainment, but not really an entertaining game to play. The fun of the narrative can't overcome the lackluster gameplay and nonexistent player choice.
Last Stop is a very fun indie that allows us to enjoy three completely different stories, showing us the harsh reality of everyday life with three characters who have a lot of personality and who will end up meeting in the last chapter.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Last Stop tells a weak story where your choices doesn't really matter, with minimal and guided interactions.
Review in Italian | Read full review
But the lack of significant choices coupled with the game's awkward structure makes it challenging to get immersed into it. There are three solid experiences contained in Last Stop, and if separated into their own games they could probably all carry the impact they were intended to. Together, though, they come across as competing for the player's attention without adding up to a singular whole.
When it comes down to it, Last Stop is an entertaining journey that just goes completely off the rails in its final half, failing to execute on the interesting ideas it comes up with at the start. I know that endings shouldn’t take away from the ride, but when you’re playing a title that is almost completely narrative and character-driven, I just couldn’t help but feel a letdown when credits rolled.
Overall, Last Stop is something of a mixed bag. At its best it's an enjoyable and immersive narrative adventure game, and Paper Dolls is definitely a good enough story strand to have carried the game on its own had it been expanded. However, the different quality of its three stories, and the awkward narrative shift in its final chapter, does mean that Last Stop feels a little like a missed opportunity when all is said and done, and a good game that could've been excellent with just a bit more content and some tighter scripts.
Burroughs and Holland do hit on a fine idea: that, if we could peer into the other lives sharing the pavement, like idle channel surfers, we would surely register a jarring shift of genres.
Last Stop feels like a glorified interactive cutscene, though a cutscene I was eager to continue watching. It's just unfortunate that the gameplay comes across as an interruption rather than anything that lifts the experience.
Last Stop tells three interesting stories, but lacks enough meaningful choices or consequences to create investment in its drama.
Last Stop serves up a strong narrative, mixing existentialism with the lives of ordinary people, but it forgets to be a game at some points. The interaction and story bits keep you invested at the cost of choices and navigation segments that do nothing for the adventure. At its best, Last Stop should be enjoyed as a casual narrative-focused experience, but asking anything more of it may have you exiting before the end of the line.
Last Stop puts forth some interesting narratives with compelling characters and relationships at its core but, unfortunately, falters a bit with its ending.
While decisions may not have always been as weighty as I would've liked and the marionette movements were often distracting, Last Stop, for the most part, succeeded where it needed to. It provided three distinct stories that were surprisingly deep considering it only took about six hours to tell them all and allowed players to feel like they were in control even if that might not have always been the case. I never felt like my time was wasted in Last Stop, but if the game ever gets a follow-up, it'll have to be more polished with some meaningful changes to warrant a return to its stories.
Last Stop tells a wonderful story that is well worth your time. There’s just so little that feels like a video game in it. Most of what is here feels like it’s included because someone was afraid players had too little to do. At its best Last Stop feels more like watching a solid season of TV. That’s not inherently a bad thing. A few sequences, however, show how embracing the gaming format is able to enhance it, and definitely left me wanting more. As long as you go in with the right expectations, though, I think you’ll find a lot to like.
Annapurna Interactive has quickly become one of my favourite publishers with the wide variety of inventive titles on offer. So when Annapurna’s latest title promised a mystery narrative title set in present-day London, I was eager to uncover the secrets of Last Stop.
This game is a little gem with a lot of charm.