![]() In an early chapter you must press and hold a series of buttons to make Donna climb up a stack of boxes, but it doesn’t matter if you nail the sequence or flub it completely since she tumbles off either way. Last Stop inserts quick-time events in an effort to make you feel more involved, but they end up feeling equally as futile. Having a conversation with someone who seems to have a predetermined response regardless of what you say doesn’t make for an engaging interactive experience it feels more like being trapped on a bad date. In the general absence of any substantially contrasting dialogue options, it soon becomes clear that each interaction is going to play out effectively the same way no matter which input you select. This isn’t some Telltale Games-style adventure where you’re pressured to make snap conversation decisions while weighing up the potential positive and negative impacts on your relationship to other characters. That’s about as engaged with Last Stop’s dialogue system as I ever felt, however, since the choices you’re presented with for the bulk of interactions are more often than not just three subtle variations on the same sentiment. I found Paper Dolls to be the most refreshing of Last Stop’s three stories as a result, and the chapter in which the aging John has to go to work as game developer Jake and bluff his way through a day in the office was certainly a comedic highlight. ![]() Body-swap stories may be a dime a dozen in Hollywood – a quick search through the Disney+ library reveals there’s almost enough versions of Freaky Friday to populate an entire freaky calendar – but they’re not something I can recall experiencing very often in video games. My favourite story of the three, Paper Dolls, centers around a single dad named John who wakes up trapped in the body of his young neighbour Jake (and vice versa) after a mutual encounter with a mysterious commuter at the train station. In fact, the performance from the voice cast is consistently spirited across the board, and a bouncy orchestral score brings a palpable energy to the unfolding events. It’s a bit like a Stephen King story set on Coronation Street instead of Castle Rock, and I enjoyed the knockabout banter between its central group of school friends. Meanwhile, Stranger Danger takes a sharp turn into more supernatural fare, with teenager Donna developing an uneasy relationship with a soft-spoken stranger in possession of unearthly powers. I enjoyed the adult nature of the drama, although the self-absorbed personality of its lead left me a little cold. Domestic Affairs follows working professional Meena, her struggles with infidelity and being an absent parent, and her rivalry with a young upstart in direct competition for an office promotion. There are clear tonal differences between each of the three tales, and that at least brings some nice contrast to the flow from chapter to chapter. Last Stop could have just as easily been a linear series of chapters that hopped back and forth between characters like a George RR Martin novel and it would have made little difference to how the overall story unfolded. However, it’s not a meaningful choice given that the stories remain largely siloed from each other until the final moments, it didn’t really seem to make much difference to me which order I tackled each chapter in. You can’t binge your way through an individual story in one block – you have to complete the first chapters of all three stories before the second chapters unlock, and so on – but you’re given the choice as to the order in which you play each round of three chapters. ![]() Last Stop is broken into three separate six-chapter stories, culminating in a final seventh chapter that pulls the three storylines together into a singular climax. ![]()
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