10.5 hours played
Written 20 hours ago
NOTE: This game has a moderate rate of flashing lights during combat and a minor rate of it during cutscenes. Those with epilepsy should take this into consideration. Additionally, this game is difficult, both mechanics and enemy wise so this should also be taken into consideration.
Last Command is a game I just happened to pick up at some point. Not sure where, but I did. And I recently got around to completing the game and wow I was impressed.
Normally I wouldn't start a review talking about the gameplay, but it's important: as it says on the Steam page, this is a game that combines Snake gameplay (yeah, Snake. You read it right) with a bullet hell. Two things I hadn't really thought would go together. In order to move quickly you must play as the "snake", but if you want to stop and attack or move slowly, you'll have to crater your speed in "analyze" mode. Now obviously these forms have their strengths and weaknesses, but it is the harmony between the two that turns both into something unique; you'll have to master when to (and more importantly, NOT to) use one over the other to match up to the enemies you fight with little room to process when to adjust. It's far more fast paced than one would expect. Coupled with this are some character upgrades that can be found throughout the levels that give you small bonuses, but frankly they are for complimenting your gameplay rather than being a crutch.
Speaking of levels, the game follows a system of traversal periods on a world map which contains obstacles and parts for modules (exploration) and actual combat which consists primarily of boss fights with health broken up into multiple bars that you need to whittle down one at a time (combat). While the main appeal is in the "combat" of the game, I did find the "exploration" to also be integral in the experience, giving me both down time to process the boss I just fought as well as the opportunity to practice movement techniques without worrying about enemies. That said, it is definitely the weaker of the two elements, and there is a fair amount of back-and-forth tracking mid way into the game that I could've done without. The "combat" on the other hand is where this game excels at; on top of the unique gameplay style, each boss brings a new set of rules to the table of everything you've fought before. What you learn in one fight will likely be expanded upon or referenced in a fight further down and gives a lot of opportunities for a LOT of different mechanics to be introduced. And if you thought this would be a standard lots of different sized bullets like Touhou or such games, let me tell you that the attacks will come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. The sheer amount of creativity that went into each fight and manipulating the environment, attack types, even how your own mechanics work was an absolute treat,
Moving away from gameplay now, the game does look really good, if not somewhat simplistic at times. At sprites are drawn in a small caricature style in the overworld with named NPCs getting a full CG art; all of these are well done and I can not complain about the quality here. the world itself is also impressed to observe, especially near the end of the game. I wish the game had more free camera movement solely so I could look around more than I could. It's impressive for how limited your view of the world is and how samey the used terrain is that it looks this good.
Music is also a big positive in my opinion. While the overworld music is fine, the boss music especially is quite a bop with ranges from "this is good" to "quite the banger". I'm definitely picking up the OSt at some point to get a better listening (while I'm not getting bombarded by bullets).
Finally the story. Now, the story of Last Command is fairly simple in the overall scope and message. HOWEVER, do not takae that to mean this story is bad; for what short amount of it there was, it managed to convey suspense, intrigue, foreboding, and quite a few twists that surprised me. While it may be a pain to get to the story, it's well worth it.
As a final note, there were a few things that bugged me during my playthrough: some hit detections in the overworld, especially around corners, felt wonky. I'd often find myself hitting a corner I tried to pass by and dying because of it. Additionally, when characters were speaking and would switch to certain emotions (designated by the background effect changing) certain background effects would cause the entire screen to briefly flash white; this was actively annoying to process over my playthrough so if possible I'd ask for it to be removed from this.
Final review: 9/10. Outside of a few minor issues I don't have a lot negative to say. While enemies are difficult (I was struggling on normal) there was never an enemy that I thought was unfair or impossible mechanics wise. Every enemy wants you to understand how it operates, and once you figure it out you can throw it back in its face. while this game is difficult, it's one of those hidden gems that I'm glad to have stumbled into.
