An opinion on a recently released little masterpiece.
Studying the products of the modern gaming industry, you increasingly notice that there are catastrophically few truly “heartfelt” games coming out. Almost every month we receive AAA products with a faceless open world, the same type of quests, empty characters and a banal plot. But you always want something deep, unusual, emotional. And all the more valuable now is the recently released Last Day Of June - a game that is no worse than the recently thundered Hellblade: Senua's sacrifice shows all the pain of losing a loved one and all levels of depression and psychosis about this.
The plot in this game is very tragic. First we are shown two cute characters in love with each other, their care for each other. And just a moment later, all this is crossed out by a random accident, which takes the life of a girl and leaves the main character disabled for life. And then, one day, waking up from a nightmare, the guy discovers in himself the ability, by touching people’s paintings, to return to the past, to that ill-fated day that ended in disaster. And throughout the game we have to try to save the main character’s beloved from death.
Gameplay of the game is a regular quest, an adventure game in which we have to solve simple puzzles based on choice. To do this, we will have to simultaneously interact with several characters and their memories. For example, we remember the boy who ran out onto the road that day and caused an accident. Let's say we made a different choice - we took the rope and went to play with the kite. And everything seemed to work out, and there shouldn’t have been an accident. But then we will discover that the next heroine of the memory will not be able to use the rope (after all, the boy has it) in order to tie numerous boxes with things to the back of the car. Thus, during transportation, all the things will fall out of the back of the car, the girl will stop abruptly, open the door, and then the main character and the girl are driving towards him - and an accident happens. Then we go back to the memory with the boy and make sure he doesn't use the rope, etc. Each memory requires repeated adjustments in the process. Many may find the gameplay boring and rehearsal, but, oddly enough, the main thing in this game is the plot and emotions that we have to experience.
The musical accompaniment in the game is incomparable. The sound background is an integral part of the game, because during the entire plot you will not hear a single word in the dialogue of the characters, and communication is conveyed by sounds in the style of “The Sims”. However, you need to listen carefully, because you will still be able to hear words in the background towards the end of the game. And this is what will help you understand what is really going on here.
The graphics and special design of the characters - without eyes - smacks of Pixar cartoons, but is inspired by the music video "Drive Home" by Steven Wilson, as the game developers themselves admitted. And depicting a character without eyes allows the player to relate more closely to the character, because in this way the character's individuality is erased.
Optimization on all platforms is quite good.
To summarize, I would like to say that “Last Day of June” is a very deep, emotional and psychological adventure. Personally, I was very surprised that none of the critics paid attention to this game as a psychological adventure inside the mind, dubbing it “Groundhog Day” and explaining that the hero simply has the now commonplace ability to travel through time. However, I want to note that the game is much deeper and more multi-layered than it might seem at first glance. As for me, this is a small masterpiece that was a pleasant surprise among other titles this year. 10 out of 10.