Last Stop: London narrative adventure review (Xbox Series S)

The creators of Virginia, Variable State, return with a new title that analyzes the human soul by inserting everyday events in a supernatural context. Last stop is the story of three people who will have to rebuild their lives while something inexplicable happens in London.

Virginia was a title with good potential not fully confirmed, due to hasty and confusion in dealing with some issues that start as fundamental to become secondary (investigation, supernatural events) to give the place of honor tohuman analysis.

Will Variable State be able to balance things better in Last Stop? Find out by reading our review.

A portal in the subway

Last Stop begins with a chase in the London Underground between two young boys and two police officers, during which something inexplicable occurs: the two fugitives meet a strange guy who urges them to enter through a door that gives off an unexplained green aura. completely reassuring. The girl enters leaving him behind, but, when the two agents reopen the mysterious entrance, they find a wall.

Does the prologue then suggest the existence of an underground passage to other worlds? There is no time for questions, because immediately the game puts us in front of the choice of the character to control to start the main adventure, these are three: John, Meena and Donna. Choosing one rather than another does not change anything, all the chapters must be played, the order does not matter.

John he is a middle-aged single father with heart problems, a monotonous life and a job that doesn't satisfy him. He contrasts his neighbor Jack, young, self-confident, apparently with a comfortable life and a fulfilling job in a video game company. One day, the two, after a strange encounter on the subway, find themselves in each other's shoes, literally. John and Jack are unwittingly exchanged bodies, starting a series of events that are sometimes funny, other times with dramatic implications.

The story of Meena she is darker, she is a career woman who would do anything to get a promotion in the military agency she works for. She is cold, intelligent, ruthless, in constant competition, she also has a faithless relationship, in her life there is no room for solidarity and friendship. The woman will be object of blackmail that will make her make choices from which there is no turning back.

The last story is that of Woman, a rebellious girl stuck in a game bigger than her. A simple joke will lead her down a dangerous road with no way out, after theencounter with a disturbing figure.

These stories, at first sight unrelated to each other, will have the opportunity to cross each other and have Strangers as trait d'union, mysterious figures perhaps human or perhaps not.

A little comedy, a little drama

Those who expect a thriller or a certain maturity in dealing with the supernatural theme will have to change their mind a bit, Last Stop is an interactive drama with some humor points that are revealed above all in the story of John / Jack. The general quality from the narrative point of view is at very good levels, but it is fluctuating, with the events of Meena which clearly represent the best part of the package, thanks to the variety of themes and a more careful and thorough characterization of the characters.

Swapping bodies, for example, is fun in many ways, but it's a cliché that makes a lot of comedy out of the 90s American misunderstandings (you know, right? Like Olsen sisters). As for Donna, we are faced with the story that introduces the paranormal element in the best way and then gets lost in the middle, with typical events of teen drama that they do not offer particular ideas if not the usual stereotypes: unexpected falling in love, misunderstandings with the family, rebellious kids who do stupid things because they don't feel appreciated and victimization.

Therefore, we can say that every story has both nice and well thought out ideas and developments that are not always up to the occasion.

Paranormal little para very normal

As mentioned in the introduction, Virginia presented investigative and supernatural elements that gradually gave way to human analysis, resulting in interesting but not very detailed, Also in Last Stop we noticed this modus operandi by Variable State which seems to insert the paranormal more as a pretext to tell human stories rather than as the main ingredient of the course.

It is the last chapter to address it in a systematic way, as the focus of the experience, however, before the epilogue, there are 18 chapters (six per character), so the paranormal intervention was a bit late for us, relegated to the final stages, in order to give a hasty explanation to the things seen previously.

We would have preferred that in the previous 18 chapters there was at least a hint of the events of the final part, without all the cards being shown of course, if only to understand immediately what game we were playing.

Last Stop gives details on many things that they may not even receive, while it is hasty on the founding elements.

Are we really the ones to choose?

Player actions are limited to choosing dialogue options, QTEs, and controlling characters in very linear locations. For each dialogue, the game gives us the possibility to choose between three options that in theory should change the fate of the discussion, in reality the the player's decision-making freedom is very limited.

Apart from the final chapter and very few other scenes, no options noticeably change the course of the story, making Last Stop a narrative game on rails. It wouldn't be a big deal if these tracks weren't shown too conspicuously. In many cases, the options will clearly all be the same, making it clear to the player right away that his choice will have no repercussions. For example, we found ourselves selecting between X: That is fine Y: OK B: Yup.

We don't understand why not to let the dialogue continue naturally rather than leave the player with a dull choice. In many other cases, the available answers have no nuance, meaning that if the game has decided that the answer is going to be angry, it will be angry in any case. This prevents the player from deciding how to set a character's character.

This design choice seems unfortunate to us and, frankly, not acceptable if it is made by a studio that has decided to create a purely narrative game.

The adventure ends in about 6-7 hours with a not very high replay value, considering what we have said previously. From a technical point of view, Last Stop does not differ from products of the same genre that do not focus on photorealism or particularly detailed scenarios, just think of Telltale games or Life is Strange. Graphically, the game is less edgy than Virginia which was conspicuously more low poly. The overall yield is pleasant.

Final comment

Last Stop is an enjoyable adventure that runs smoothly without a hitch, unless you are a bit impatient gamer who wants everything now. The story takes a while to mesh with narrative times that are not always stimulating, but if you appreciate human affairs with a touch of the supernatural, Last Stop can be a good pastime. Too bad for the haste with which some themes were treated, the impossibility of really changing the fate of the characters and the fluctuating quality of the various plots proposed.