The Last Hero of Nostalgaia Review

ign.com:

When something leans too heavily on nostalgia to entertain, it’s often a sign that it can’t stand on its own without praying on your sentimentality. The Last Hero of Nostalgaia, ironically, is at its best when it’s drumming up gags that are funny and clever even removed from its constantly referential concept. This colorfully pixelated world is filled to the brim with little nods to some of the most iconic games of all time in a way that manages to stay fresh through to the end. That makes actually playing The Last Hero of Nostalgaia much more fun than it would be, as its campaign is otherwise an inoffensive series of checkpoint hunts with combat that might pay a little too much of an homage to the Souls-family of games.

The land of Nostalgaia is a dense tapestry of video game callbacks, with its different regions falling into low-poly despondency because their heroes are no longer there to play out the various stories that keep the place alive. Your hero, a literal stick figure, must bring memories back to a world that is losing them all at a steady clip. That boils down to traveling to various points and killing world bosses called Great Ones, but there are many aesthetic choices that help spice this recognizable formula up. Checkpoint “bonfires'' are called beacons here, and when you light them, the 8-bit, 2D spaces surrounding them become fully textured 3D environments. The same transformation happens to the iconic gear you power up as well, and these are always fun scenes that I never skipped.

Last Hero isn’t fundamentally different from any action game you’ve played attempting to do a From Software impression. The risk/reward relationship between attacking and defending yourself from enemies at the expense of your