The Last Campfire

By the time I finished The Last Campfire, the sun was already popping up and I felt a strong sense of melancholy. I don’t often get moved by a video game from an emotional standpoint, but this was definitely one of those times. This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking journey that the industry needs more of.

I wanted to play The Last Campfire because I was curious what Hello Games could do with this type of game. What I found was a story I needed, and a game I didn’t want to put down. You’ll likely pull some of your own meaning out of The Last Campfire’s world and characters, but it is a meaning worth looking for. Beyond its narrative value is an excellently designed puzzle adventure that manipulates a few simple mechanics in an incredible variety of ways. The Switch version does have some performance issues and wasn’t without an odd glitch or two, but these were momentary setbacks in a wonderful journey. While the entirety of the Last Campfire only lasts around five hours, it is an adventure you’re unlikely to forget anytime soon.

The Last Campfire is proof of the creators of No Man’s Sky’s ability to conjure up an exciting game of a wholly different genre and scope. This is not a risk, this is a game that leans heavily on those that came before it, but the end result is a comfortable, emotional adventure made to fill one fine afternoon.

While The Last Campfire might not be bristling with new ideas for the genre, it packs more or less every kind of puzzle you could expect and embellishes the package with immerse charm and creative ingenuity.

But when The Last Campfire captivates--which it does so often--it's difficult not to sink into its breezy pacing and satisfying puzzle-solving. It never overstays its welcome or stretches puzzle ideas beyond their limits, letting each one leave an impression despite their brevity. The Last Campfire's narrative contextualizes each of these with small anecdotes, letting your imagination fill in the blanks of its world between worlds to the backdrop of its colorful imagery. It's a consistently relaxing and pleasant experience.

The Last Campfire teaches us that a flame can be rekindled and that we should not be let down by difficulties encountered throughout our lives. What a pity that the technique does not always follow… without these little clashes, The Last Campfire would come close to perfection in its category.

The Last Campfire gets lost in its good intentions. There’s a sense of shallowness, and overall it feels like a very simplistic adventure that, even if enjoyable, doesn’t seem offer anything special.

Wonderful graphics, sound design, gameplay, puzzles and storyline. And the narration is one of the best I've heard, perfect choice for this game. Absolutely recommended if you like puzzle games.

Simple but varried ****. Watch a wounderful story unfold. Sometimes made me feel with the guts.

An absolutely beautiful and cute game. This 3D puzzle game had me scratch my head more than once trying to figure out its many puzzles. I was pleasantly surprised with the difficulty. I usually find puzzle games to be somewhat on the easy side with only 1 or 2 more difficult ones. But in The Last Campfire, there was quite a handful of puzzles that I was like: « how the hell am I supposed to do that ? » Next thing you know I figured it out and every time it was very satisfying. I thought that most puzzles were above average in their design. It was quite nice to have the narrator talk a bit to indicate that I had made progress in the puzzle, a welcomed hint during those hard ones. There were definitely some puzzles that were quite easy but I think it was deliberate to fit in with the context of the story. The goal of the game is to reach the last campfire. However you have a journey ahead of you which involves a few different areas. In each area you have a campfire and you must find and help enough Forlorns to progress to the next area. Forlorns are others of your own kind that are frozen in stone due to their lost of hope or personal issues. Each time you reach one, you are presented with a puzzle and upon completion, the Forlorn is saved. To reach every Forlorn in an area you have to navigate this intricate map full of puzzles and a few interesting NPCs. I’ve had quite a few issues with the frame rate and loading times. Too often, the game freezes for a few seconds to load. This is quite annoying because it could happen anywhere not just when you change to a different part of the map, it could be right in the middle of a 1 room puzzle. Often, the frame rate randomly dropped significantly. The game was still quite playable though. The game crashed on me once when leaving the last area to reach the end. Narration was perfect, that voice fit perfectly with this game. Sound design was extremely good, the stones moving, water, everything was high quality in that department. Music was excellent and memorable in some cases. 5-6 hours to complete. 7/10

The Last campfire is the game which we were told we would get (they didn't lie!). It's a comfortable, casual, peaceful and cute puzzle game. It does expect of us to use our braincells, but at the same time it's a game which you can finish in two sessions like I did. The last campfire is really the comfiest game I played in a while, I haven't wanted to finish my session it was that nice. Beating it with 100% rather than just finishing didn't make it impossibly hard, so that was nice.. Oh, yes I praised the graphics, but the sound in this little gem is really nice. As I said it's a gem, and that's a thing which brings me back to the indie and puzzle genre.

The art direction, atmosphere, story, and narration carry this game (I really loved the single narrator for all text - I felt like someone was reading me a story). The puzzles are just fine but not noteworthy. Performance and resolution on the Switch isn't great. I experienced some glitches and one crash.