The Last Friend Review

Synopsis:
Doggone tired of the typical brawler or tower defense that is all bark and no bite? Then join Alpha and T. Juan on a dynamic adventure that has you battling hordes of baddies and bosses on their mission to save all the Doggos!

Publisher: Skystone Games
Reviewed on: PC
Also available for: Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Mac

Developer: The Stonebot Studio, Ludus Games
Game Direction & Design: Mario Aguirre|, Zhonghua Liu
Art: Julieta Rivadeneira, Saul Orellana, Mario Martinez, Americo Andrade, Mario Aguirre, Victor Velado, Sofia Gonzalez

The Last Friend is an entertaining adventure melding two different gameplay styles in which you engage in the noblest of pursuits: saving dogs from people that would do them harm. Along the way, you save dozens of dogs that spice up the gameplay and allow you to approach missions as you see fit. You are Alpha, the only two-legged being in your arsenal, and along with your best Chihuahua T. Juan, you set out to free these dogs from these evil dog exploiting characters.

Playing as Alpha, you are a bit of a grey nomad, travelling around a desert into new locales, saving the dogs, and housing them in your RV. The story beyond that is fairly simple as you move through different backdrops saving dogs from different caricatures of people, including a live streamer and a CEO looking to use dog-power to his business’s benefit. The dialogue and story in the game can lead to some fun moments, though it might not be to everyone’s taste due to its silliness. The Last Friend’s landscapes and general visual style are also quite good, with vibrant colours across the varied backdrops.

The Last Friend blends gameplay from tower defence and 2D brawlers in a very cohesive way, leaning a touch more to the tower defence side of things. Going into each mission, you choose your loadout from the dogs you have saved previously. Typically you save a dog in each mission, and they fall into two main subtypes; turrets and skills. There is a limit on how many dogs you can bring along on each mission, but you are given the freedom to go all-in on either subtype or play the balancing game. Starting with five dogs in the loadout, the total number of inclusions increases slowly throughout the runtime. This encourages experimentation to give each dog their fair go, but your favourites can be levelled up with dog treats to improve the benefits they are offering you.

Turrets have some variety between being straight damage-dealing turrets, traps and utility turrets. Other than the basic damage turret, which is the only turret forced into your loadout, all turrets are well balanced and can find a home in whatever build you are going for at the time. In saying that, it was hard to justify some of the more utility turrets, like the ‘hold in place trap’ or the ‘electric zapping turret’, when that spot in the loadout could instead be a more powerful skill. Turrets are paid for in scrap, which is dropped by enemies or mined by a utility turret and can be levelled up in missions once you have unlocked it with the dog treats.

The three lanes you are protecting become five early on, and the early stages of each mission can be a bit frantic as you try to place down turrets while brawling with the incoming attackers. However, once you’ve set up defences, the RV never felt truly threatened by the attackers.

Skill dogs offer passive benefits across a range of areas. Some add an extra flair to your attacks, and some improve your stats. Naturally, these lend themselves to augmenting and refining the brawling aspect of the game. The brawling is good, hitting all the notes it needs with some good exaggerated animations, though combo attacks do not develop a massive amount of depth. Enemy blocking could be pretty difficult to time, especially with the game serving up a lot of visual clutter in the latter stages of missions once your turret defences are firing on all cylinders. This clutter could also lead to times where you lose your character as he is not imposed over the top of defences. Both the gameplay styles within The Last Friend are good and fun, whilst not necessarily being new or innovative.

Missions come in two main varieties, defensive and attacking. Defensive missions have you engaging in both gameplay forms while you protect your health and the health of your RV. Whereas attacking missions are only for brawling (turret dogs not available) and feature a few more twists to the formula, such as fighting your way through a maze or sneakily avoiding spotlights. Side quests are also an option, which dictates the dogs in your loadout for that mission. While a nice little challenge, side quests are not available for every mission, which would have made it a nice challenge and encouraged the use of some of my neglected dogs.

Play

The Last Friend also subscribes to the 3-star mission rating on completion. Defensive missions are scored on how little damage the RV takes while attacking missions on how quickly you can clear the horde. With the starred mission structure and individual mission length being around five to eight minutes each, The Last Friend lends itself to a casual pick-up and play playstyle. On my first attempt, I managed to 3-star most missions, limiting the need to replay missions unless I wanted to experiment. Since these stars purchase permanent upgrades, the ease of gathering these meant I always felt ahead of the competition.

The Last Friend is a solid casual experience featuring a fun, if cheesy story and characters. The blending of brawling and tower defence is quite cohesive and is the main reason to pick up the game, with plenty of opportunities for experimentation through the dozens of dogs to be saved. Yes, you can pat all of the dogs.