Going back to much earlier times, I was a fan of what I’d call cinematic adventures in the vein of classics like Prince of Persia and Out of this World. Blending together story beats with some platforming action and puzzle solving, these titles showed a different way to build a narrative without skimping on the challenge and fun. In more modern times, the likes of Limbo and Inside have further refined expectations for these sorts of experiences, adding quite a bit of atmosphere to the mix. One Last Breath appears to be shooting for that style, but it unfortunately stumbles a bit in more than one area in trying to deliver it.

Going over what works, there is a nice sense of place in the various environments you’ll work through. The forests have depth and dimension, with you and some of your pursuers working on different planes and that can help to build tension as you generally try to avoid detection. There’s also obviously a story that is trying to be told here, relating to what appears to be the decline or even the outright fall of human civilization. Working your way through the remnants of areas that appear to be quite long abandoned, you should at least be mildly drawn into wondering what happened that has left the world in such a dire state.

The issues mostly revolve around the fact that for the most part it doesn’t feel like the story beats come to an interesting conclusion. Perhaps the issue is having been spoiled so much by surprise revelations in the likes of the aforementioned Inside or even the fantastic Braid, here there’s no comparably satisfying payoff, so that’s disappointing. Worse, on the whole the gameplay side comes up a bit short as well, with many of the puzzles feeling quite ordinary, and the mechanics of the controls not being quite up to the task of cleanly getting you through tough spots. Your movements are just a bit too loose and sloppy to give you confidence as you try to get through more involved sections, and since that’s one of the cornerstones for this type of game, coming up short is disappointing. 

Pulling that all together what you’re left with is a game that obviously had some ambitions, and is able to cobble together elements to help realize them, but it just doesn’t quite get there. It’s possible that the conversion to the Switch may have not done it any favors, as its looks and performance don’t feel top notch by any means, but I’m not sure even on other platforms with less technical limitations that the gameplay would improve that dramatically. There’s a decent experience to be had here if you’re a fan of its style, but if you’re expecting it to live up to the level of its peers you’re likely to be disappointed.