The Last Soul

Sometimes things do not go as planned, nor do they end well for everyone involved. As it happens, the real world rarely functions like a fairytale, which means that a lot of people don’t get what they want and very few do. Thus, heroic scenarios like you might have seen in Hollywood movies are not as common as we’d like to imagine.

The Last Soul is a 2D platformer in which you play the role of a man who happens to be the last of his civilization. Not much information is provided other than this, but you can imagine whatever you want as you explore the ruins and admire the silhouette of the civilization in question. On the other hand, you are racing toward perdition, because the only viable option is for you to accept your fate as well.

The gameplay is very similar to most other 2D platformers on the market, except for the fact that it’s as simple as it gets in the genre. Hence, your only options are to go right or left, as well as jump. There are no other special abilities and no tricks that allow you to perform wall jumps or anything of the sort, but there’s one thing that might take your mind off things: exploration.

You have to visit certain places in order to reveal new paths ahead, but that is not clear in the beginning, which might make it difficult to understand at first. However, it only takes a few minutes to figure things out, after which it’s actually quite boring to run from checkpoint to checkpoint. At the end, the same fate awaits you no matter what, so it feels a bit pointless every now and again.

Thankfully, at least the graphics style is relaxing and enjoyable, even if there’s barely any detail or variety. On the other hand, the silhouette color changes whenever you manage to reach a new area or a checkpoint, so it feels like you’ve made progress. The music is nice as well, and it actually goes very well with the idea and the general atmosphere.

In the end, the problem with The Last Soul is that it’s very short, especially when you consider the fact that you can finish it in a couple of minutes. Hence, more content would be nice, but then again it’s much better this way than with too much of it and in poor taste.