Over the last few years, the Souls-like genre has had quite a few ups and downs. The originators of the genre -From Software – have set the standard time and time again, and despite many attempts by their competitors to mimic the crushing-yet-fair combat and beautiful bleakness of their settings, most simply haven’t even come close.
Despite all this, a few have managed to break through thanks to having a vastly different setting, mixing in new mechanics and gameplay or simply being visually unique. The Last Hero of Nostalgaia attempts to stand above the crowd by doing the latter – for better and for worse.
The Last Hero of Nostalgaia begins unexpectedly, with a sarcastic voiceover mocking you for how you look. Your hero is made entirely from pixelated lines; a remnant of the heroes who came before and representative of the state of The Last Hero of Nostalgaia’s stripped-back de-make style. The sarcastic villain quickly fills you in on what’s happening – he’s removed the fidelity and fancy graphics from the code of the world and you’re here to fix things. This opening section serves as a tutorial and showcases the best of what Nostalgia has to offer – with constant Glados-like wit and plenty of self-referential humour. Unfortunately, whilst things started strong I was disappointed that this evil narrator wasn’t more present in the rest of the game. Instead, you’re left pretty much on your own to explore the dying world and face the legions of pixelated friends in your path. The story itself is also pretty lacklustre after a promising start – lacking the polish and inter-twining, “figure it out yourself” narratives of other soul-likes. I enjoyed The Last Hero of Nostalgaia when it was demonstrating its own personality, but as soon as that fell away and it began aping the Souls games more openly I began to lose interest in the overarching plot.
Thankfully, the world of The Last Hero of Nostalgaia as a whole is quite interesting, with varying texture quality and polygon counts serving to break up the otherwise stagnant theming. I found discovering pockets of lower fidelity to be endlessly interesting – for example, after the opening dungeon area you are thrust into an open-air area in which very low polygon rocks and trees burst from the landscape. Some reviewers have criticised this graphical style, and I see why – it’s not exactly a conventionally pretty game – but the contrasts and comparisons found whilst fighting through different areas inspired me to keep going and see how the kingdom was decaying at different rates. This eccentric and stark style added to my sense of wonder and in many ways, this setting carries the otherwise by-the-books gameplay. I also enjoyed the number of environmental in-jokes and attempts to break the fourth wall – pointless character creation sliders limited by graphics, NPC-only areas and a cameo from Sterdust as examples. The sniggers I felt growing up when encountering them show how much more The Last Hero of Nostalgaia could have been if they’d have just committed fully to the sarcastic narrator and fourth-wall breaking throughout, and not just at points of significant progress. It’s Souls-like, you’re going to die repeatedly – so why not acknowledge that with more commentary and taunting following deaths? Why not use the narrator to give hints and lore when visiting new areas or revisiting old ones to find secrets? There aren’t many characters to encounter aside from the (admittedly nicely-considered) enemies, so again, why not make them stand out more and have them be a bigger part of the overarching narrative? The world itself is this game’s most interesting character, but having more characters to bounce off and more active interactions with the said world would have elevated it immensely.
Character creation is very stripped back, with a few stat-varied classes to fit your playstyle. These can give you an early boost in specific areas but as far as I can tell there are minimal differences between them aside from a couple of class skills – your build can pretty much go wherever you want it to. By levelling up you can improve certain stats, with strength and dex seemingly the most important. As you’d expect, you also have a heavy and light attack, can block, use items and dodge-roll, and thankfully all of these feel responsive and satisfying. On the whole, the combat is very nicely executed and usually feels fair, with enemies telegraphing effectively and forgiving margins for error. It’s a good system for the most part if a little too familiar. Unfortunately, most of the time you do feel like you’re playing Dark Souls, but with less polish. It’s a good impression of From Software’s flagship franchise, but not perfect, with the most annoying being the reaction of your character when hit – as time slows for a strangely unnatural amount of time – breaking your flow and making recovery harder to achieve. I was expecting this to be a clone, sure, but I found the small number of meaningful new ideas frustrating to behold. I also missed having a wider variety of weapon types and items to choose from, as whilst there was plenty of loot to pick up none of it felt truly unique, instead simply feeling like a straight upgrade or replacement for what I had already.
The only real new idea in The Last Hero of Nostalgaia centres on the memories of your equipment. You will encounter unique pieces of equipment with a story behind them and will be able to read an incomplete recount of their lore in the inventory screen. It could suggest that it was used to kill a certain character, for example, and give a hint as to where you would find that person. By reuniting that weapon with something to trigger the memory it can be returned to its past glory – maybe unlocking a special ability or increasing its stats. I found this scavenger hunt to be a genius move for the genre. The Last Hero of Nostalgaia’s contemporaries are all about item descriptions adding to lore, so why not make this an interactive part of the gameplay to encourage players to engage with it more often and in a more meaningful way? I genuinely hope this kind of system moves to other examples of the genre, but sadly it isn’t enough to give The Last Hero of Nostalgaia its own sense of identity.
Aesthetically the experience is a mixed bag. I love the concept of spreading pixelization and most of the time it was flawlessly executed, lending character to each mixed-up and broken environment. Sometimes I’d even describe it as beautiful, with crisp SNES-era textures lain onto polygonal chunks – almost feeling like a first-person view of an early Legend of Zelda game. At other times it felt confusing, inconsistent and lacking an identity, with vastly different art styles being smashed together. The enemy design doesn’t help with this, as some are rendered as flat sections moving together on a 3D skeleton – standing out from the world un-naturally – whilst others in the same area have fully textured 3D models. It’s obvious from the “restored” areas that this team have a great grasp of aesthetic design and a lot of talent, but I couldn’t help but wish that they had allowed more enemies to be fully modelled, or at least had matched enemy aesthetics with the graphical state of each area. I have a similar issue with the audio of the game, as whilst I enjoyed the range of tracks on offer and combat effects I couldn’t help but wish that they reflected the world more effectively. Surely if an area of the game has become akin to the SNES era the sound effects and music should reflect that, but unfortunately, it doesn’t. The voice acting is great, however, with some fantastic performances which had the right mix of sarcasm and seriousness – I just wish there were more lines of dialogue throughout the experience.
Overall, The Last Hero of Nostalgaia has left me feeling torn. Over the Moon has done an incredible job of mimicking the satisfying pace and combat of Dark Souls and came up with a compelling way in which to differentiate the game from others. Unfortunately, they stuck too closely to From Software’s formula and failed to commit fully to their best ideas, leaving The Last Hero of Nostalgaia feeling just a little off. I would argue it’s the best non-FS souls-like I’ve played, but it could have been more than the sum of its parts. There’s some great combat here, an excellent original system that delivers some well-written lore and a strangely interesting conceit at the heart of the world, but sadly not enough to truly differentiate it. If you are a souls-lover, you’ll likely find some value in Last Hero’s 10-ish hour runtime, but you’ll struggle to find much that’s truly unique.
Developer: Over The Moon
Publisher: Coatsink
Platforms: Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X and Series S
Reviewed on Windows PC
Grab your copy here https://store.steampowered.com/app/1766100/The_Last_Hero_of_Nostalgaia/
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