The Final Station is a Post-Apocalyptic Action-Adventure game by Oleg Sergeev, Andrey Rumak and Do My Best and published by tinyBuild. I did have the chance to make an (admittedly terrible) video with the demo, so my trip through the game wasn’t entirely blind. There were, however, some pleasant surprises.
Title: The Final Station
Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie
Developer: Oleg Sergeev , Andrey Rumak , Do My Best
Publisher: tinyBuild
The setting is a somewhat dystopian post-apocalyptic world. While humanity has rebuilt, a few old people still remember the first attack. The effects of the gas turn most people into nearly mindless shadow creatures. Mute, powerful, and pupil-less, they’re easily capable of overpowering the engineer if they get in striking distance. And the game will take every opportunity to put them there; you really have to prepare yourself to enter every room. Well, on your first playthrough, that is.
Much of the story is deliberately obscured. There are more questions than answers to be found talking to various NPC’s. This isn’t necessarily made any better by the fact that the game was translated out of, I believe, Russian. You never really figure out what’s going on with the few people that were changed differently by the gas. You’re always just the tiniest distance away from really finding something out, but you’re constantly denied, since the meat of their conversation is already done. You finish the game roughly as in the dark as you were in the first place.
Graphically the game, for lack of a better word, donuts its environments according to the story. The very beginning and end of the game are relatively vibrantly colored. The middle, however, is very bleak and monochrome, getting darker and darker right up until the end. The desolate cities and towns you come across are all very grey, but not in the sort of way that is usually maligned. It fits the mood they’re going for to a great degree.
There were a few major changes gameplay-wise between the demo and the final version. For one thing, the train no longer requires you to run around fixing it. This is an improvement, because originally there were only two things that could actually go wrong. In the final version, it rotates between compartments per section, and there are more things that you would have to juggle. Running between five things and dealing with passengers would quickly leave you frazzled. Having only one thing malfunction per train section gives you the time to make sure passengers survive and craft enough to make it through the next area.
In keeping with the survival horror flavor, your resources are fairly limited. You don’t really want to waste ammo on things that can be handled otherwise; you might actually need it later. In the demo, your only other choice, besides throwing limited boxes and chairs, was a weak melee strike. Now it can be charged, taking down the basic shadows in a single charged hit. Also, once you get the shotgun, you can use a slightly stronger strike with the butt of the shotgun when you have it equipped.
Late game, your pistol gets replaced with a rifle. It holds more ammo per reload and also has the butt strike, but discards your pistol upgrades. It’s no big deal, since you have hoarded enough ammo of both types to handle the endgame, and most big or fast things need the shotgun. But it makes the money spent on them a waste, when that too is a resource.
The game does feature a very limited crafting system. You can find the elements necessary to make ammo and first-aid kits by searching cabinets and boxes in the cities. Overall, they made sure you really have just enough to get your passengers through a section. The same is true for food, though you can’t craft that.
The soundtrack reinforces the creepy atmosphere of the story. I can’t speak much to it overall, since it’s the sort of music that is crafted around enhancing an experience. It’s not the sort of bombastic themes that, say, a platformer might use. But it works with the game.
Overall, The Final Station is a pretty fun, if relatively short game. The short part might be fixed in the future thanks to DLC. The price is a little steep for a game of this size; but if it seems like your thing, it may be worth it. I know I’ll be interested to see what this team does from here on out.
Pros:
+ Great atmosphere
+ The settings are beautifully desolate
+ Blasting the runners with a shotgun shell is very satisfying
Cons:
– It only lasts a few hours
– Conserving ammo can make some parts very tricky
– Injured passengers bleed out frighteningly fast.
“Though short, The Final Station provides a satisfying apocalyptic experience.”
3.5/5
“Quite Good”
*We were provided a copy of this game for review*
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