The Last Door: Season One

The Last Door is one of (if not THE) best indie adventure games I've ever played. The atmosphere and the setting are heavily inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, and will effortlessly suck you into the game's story. The environments are very well done and the music does a good job of compensating the lack of voice acting. The only reason why I can't honestly give The Last Door a higher score is its simplicity: it's short (each episode takes about 1 hour to complete, or more if you set out to find all the optional secrets) and it's pretty easy (even for an adventurer who easily gives in to using walkthroughs like me). But for its price (which is ?4 lower here than in the Steam store, at least in the EU2 region) I feel it's more than competent a product. Verdict: If you're into point and click and/or horror games, you should really, really check out what's behind The Last Door, and place this great game next to The Cat Lady on your virtual shelf.

I've played the first episode of this game more than a year ago, and I was very excited to play the rest! Seeing how the game was being funded by each episode, I decided to wait until it was "finished". When it released on Steam, for 10$, I assumed it was. After getting the game... I realized it's not finished at all. There are 4 episodes, and yet no closure. Each episode ends in a sort of "cliff hanger", and the last one follows the same principle. So, know that you are paying for only a part of the whole story. Now, there's also the fact that this is purely a homage to Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft (and other similar writers, I assume). It's far more Poe than Lovecraft in both atmosphere and scenes. It's not the scientific exploration of grander-than-life terrors and beings of ultimate power, but more about the schizophrenic perception of the world, one that is full of ravens. The atmosphere in the game is really well achieved! And there are scenes that felt genuinely creepy and unsettling to me, which is awesome! The game, despite its very low resolution, looks good, and, for the most part, gives the player enough information. The soundtrack is my favourite part of the game, it definitely fits the theme and is very pleasant to hear. ... Unfortunately, that's about it. As a game, it's a very average point n' click, with some obtuse puzzles, although it manages to be reasonable, most of the time. There are some frustrating sections, though. There's no player agency. The game doesn't really feel like it wants to express something, or tell a story. It just keeps going, with each episode being very disconnected from the previous, instead of building up to something. It borrows from the mentioned authors, but that's all it does. The story revolves around the occult, but not in any meaningful way. I just felt nothing, playing through it. And, for a point n' click, it's a hard sell, to me. In a genre that relies mostly on story, it as very little going for it. I'll leave it with a fairly high rating for the fact that it's well done. Great scenes and audio-visual design! It's just something that I felt was very forgetful.

Even among adventure game fans this is sorely overlooked. If you aren't a pixel art fan this probably won't win you over but for everyone else this is an atmospheric and engrossing experience with one heck of a soundtrack!

If you love Lovecraft, if you love point and click adventure, you should try this. Pixel art is well done (very similar to Home, if you've tried it), the soundtrack is good and there are four scenarios to play. Maybe is short, but is still worth its price.