The Final Station

The Final Station is a 2D side-scrolling zombie survival game with enough challenging combat to offset its predictable pace.

The Final Station is a simple game, which is always just compelling enough for its duration. I’ve come to think of it as an efficient, low budget horror movie: it has a high concept it can’t afford to show directly and so it wrings as much as it can from the mystery and the satisfaction of piecing the plot together from snippets. It’s only a shame that its action suffers more from never having a particularly interesting concept of its own.

Overall, The Final Station is a contemplative slice of sci-fi horror. It might not be utterly original - spot the shades of Snowpiercer, Evangelion, and That Insidious Beast if you get the chance - and it can be ever so slight, but it rattles along at steady pace, taking you on a reflective journey, all the way to a gut-punching end.

The Final Station is a unique journey among the current Switch library you will not want to skip on, especially if you managed to stay away from the original PC release up to this point. World building and plot is brilliantly delivered by numerous little details of which we have rarely seen developers explore with such efficiency to deliver so much tension and sense of urgency from the player. Despite linearity, when you do reach the end game you can immediately jump into the ‘The Only Traitor' DLC included in the Switch version, which will enable you to experience the same events under a new character. Make sure you don't miss out this train ride.

There’s few complex systems in place to either discover or manage and while that may feel like a misstep, Do My Best live up to their namesake when by setting the scene and giving even the most basic of pixel graphics feel like something far more grandiose and important in the wider scheme of things.

As a vehicle for story, The Final Station is a tremendous effort which keeps you wondering as you piece together the snippets of story and while the combat and exploration suffices, it doesn’t live up to the narrative the developers deliver.

This game is a hell of a lot of fun to play. It's not overly complicated, but it puts the sense of horror on the screen beautifully. It's easy to pick up and gets interesting very quickly. The way the story is told through features of the world is very creative. Those little touches absorb you into the world so completely that your heart rate rises every time those little white eyes loom out of the darkness.

In The Final Station, you're never quite entirely sure what is going on, but it also doesn't matter because you'll enjoy the ride.

While it is more linear than I would have liked, it delivers on a thrilling experience that I can't get enough of. The pixelated style and its gameplay are some of the smoothest seen on the platform, and it is hard to pull yourself away just a tiny bit. The Final Station is an intriguing journey through and through.

The Final Station tries to do many things, but fails to deliver on any of them. It has some interesting ideas, but explores no deeper than the surface. It's a perfectly serviceable game, but you're better off looking elsewhere for a fresh and exciting experience.