Reviewing The Last Campfire Game

Finding the light within gloom and doom is something we can all associate with, whether it is as simplistic as finding the answer to a puzzle or as grand a notion as exploring one’s mission in the crazy world. The Last Campfire approaches the complete spectrum and does so entirely with magic, intelligence, and refinement.
 
Hello Games, The Last Campfire’s creator,  has built a story that nails its point with skillfully produced puzzles, unique style, wrapped within a touching tale that left me believing anything but desolate. Forlorn’s, in this environment, are forgotten souls strewed about the picturesque horizon of  The Last Campfire. These tortured soals professedly surrendered all desire and appeared deprived of a dream. A stark opposition to our character kindly named Ember, an ember from a campfire nonetheless, has made it their mission to serve extra predestined. Ember gains its way into woods, marshes, and caverns, seeking to help as many lost souls as plausible while also challenging all-purpose within its animated world.

The Last Campfire Video Review – Funny Kids 2021 Apple Arcade

The Last Campfire Does Not Disappoint Offering Unique Adventures.

By igniting campfires along the way, you’re supporting lead the Forlorn‘s on their tour and enabling them to follow in your footsteps. Granted, you never quite know where those tracks will take them, but by showing the Forlorns that they exist, you allow them to see that there is always light worth finding in the darkness. It was a clear and ultimately enriching journey as I grew more and more invested in the world and the creatures calling it home.Progress is made by solving consistently enjoyable puzzles that almost always hit that sweet spot of not being so simple that they’re boring but challenging enough to satisfy upon solving, without becoming so complicated that it provokes groans.
 
Select items and novel mechanics are introduced throughout, which prevent the puzzles from ever becoming too repetitive. While there maybe isn’t quite the level of difference you’d expect over its six or seven hours, it never fails to offer up something new just before it reaches a point of becoming stale. One of the essential extensions is the fun telekinetic-like ability that comes into play about halfway through the story. It’s used in many of the following puzzles in innovative ways. Shaping objects from a distance gives an appreciated breath of fresh air and allows for more intelligent puzzles to be solved in new comforting ways.

Hello’s inspirations are clear to see, and not least in the design of these puzzle rooms. It’s hard not to be reminded of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s many shrines — though there’s no combat at all in The Last Campfire, and this is where different Nintendo influence becomes visible. 

The minimal approach to gameplay (you can walk, run, pick up, and push and pull objects, but that’s about it) combined with Ember’s inability to jump adds shades of the delightful Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker into the mix.

Last Campfire Lost Forest Ruins Discover Wilderness

With such a limited set of button inputs, you’d think it would be challenging to keep things fresh over an extended length of time, but The Last Campfire rarely has trouble there due to its creative use of what it has. It does a wonderful task of frequently blending items up and keeping these obstacles thematically related, never previously taking you out of its gloriously crafted world. The way that meaning is weaved into each puzzle’s design makes The Last Campfire stand out against many similar games and does so smartly at each turn.

The core theme of preserving hope and purpose can be found at every turn, often subtly but sometimes literally baked into a puzzle’s mechanics. This is most obviously exemplified in a series of problems that have you transport an open flame through a level while avoiding airstreams that will cause the fire to extinguish. These start simple but build in complexity as Ember’s story progresses, providing just one example of how well The Last Campfire takes its central ideas and grows them into something special.

​The Last Campfire – To Be Forlorn Video by Noel M​

As with any game in this genre, there’ll always be puzzles that feel too easy and are over in seconds — there aren’t many of these, but they can be found near the start, where a few simple block pushes can form a path for Ember. On the opposite end of the spectrum are more complex problems that, although never too difficult, do offer a significant but satisfying challenge. Naturally, these occur nearer the end of Ember’s journey and smartly layer mechanics you’ve learned previously with new ideas. Some of my favorites involved telekinetically moving around a chained set of snake statues with mirrors attached to solve a reflection-based light puzzle. It’s an inviting world to play in, like Thatgamecompany painting from a Media Molecule palette.

 

This type of puzzle is another example of guiding the light through the darkness; again, Hello puts the core themes of The Last Campfire on display for all to see. This can also be seen in the art design, which beautifully offsets the bleakness with bright and colorful splashes. The most obvious example of this being Ember’s vivid blue clothing and glowing eyes that pop off of the screen during each scene alongside the relaxing, subtle music that soundtracks your journey. Environments range from waterway-filled caverns to pig-infested marshlands, each with its own quirks and pop-up book-ish charm.

Last Campfire Lost Ember Find Way Home

It’s an inviting world to play in, like the game company painting from a Media Molecule palette, evoking both Journey and Tearaway in equal measure.Indeed, the storybook nature of The Last Campfire can’t be ignored.

From finding lost book pages written in melancholic ink littered around the world to the larger-than-life creatures (literally, in the case of a quite monstrous pig), you’ll meet on your travels. I particularly enjoyed bumping into and helping out a wistful fisher by a lake and a talkative robot who gleefully hinted to Return to Oz.

The Last Campfire – Touching and Fun For All Ages

Conceivably the most folktale-like aspect to all of it is how the story itself is told. Cleverly narrated by Rachel August, it’s spoken entirely in the third person. It calls out developments as you make them in a way that’s hugely suggestive of Bastion’s storytelling technique. This design decision has bafflingly still been used sparingly outside of Supergiant.

Not only does the narrator tell the story in a fable-like manner – voicing all of the characters like a parent reading a bedtime story, but also offers bits of reassurance to Ember as their adventure continues, dramatically performing as an enduring partner.

Last Campfire Forest Easter Egg Gamer Ninja

Concluding OUr Video Game Review of The Last Campfire

The story this game tells is one that any age can relate to. Taking pages out of Aesop’s Fables and Grimm Brother’s tales touches on real-world dilemmas in fantastic ways.
 
The Last Campfire addresses advanced senarios with easily absorbable behaviors by having many character’s grieving from their problems such as suffering a great loss or hidden phobias of the mind. It managed to put many magically smiles on my face during and though, its touching, impactful and emotionally packed finale which serves as a appropriate close to Ember’s grand adventure.