Frustrating in all the right spots.
I was super excited when I heard that Hotel Dusk was getting a sequel. It was a neat adventure game with an interesting story and compelling characters. Sure, there were some problems with the minigames (they tried too hard to utilize all of the DS’s features) and the story got a little too far up its own butthole as it went on. However, it still managed to deliver a heartfelt mystery story that had quite a few interesting twists and turns. Enter Last Window, the sequel to Hotel Dusk. I had to import this one from an exotic and far-away as it wasn’t released in the United States or Canada.
Kyle Hyde the sleepy salesman is up to no good once again at Hotel Cape West. Well, it’s not actually a hotel. It was a hotel some years before, but has since been converted into apartments. There Kyle makes his residence, and shortly before the building is set to close down he receives a mysterious order from one of the tenants in the building. Kyle is tasked with tracking down the “scarlet star” an item that went missing years ago when Cape West was a hotel. It also ties in somewhat ham-handedly to the murder of Kyle Hyde’s dad and current mayoral candidate Hugh Speck. I won’t reveal too much more about the plot as the story is one of the strongest suits of the game. It’s a tale that starts out interesting enough, but really goes downhill into melodrama as more characters get introduced that the player does not actually interact with.
The game itself is a lot less interesting than the story that you get out of it. You have direct control over Kyle, but it still ends up playing exactly like a point-and-click adventure game with few exceptions. Those few exceptions are the mini games that make use of the DS’s unique features and shape. There are a few puzzles that require you to close the DS, and some that require you to blow into the DS microphone. Most of these are easy to do, but there are a few that are hard to execute on and super frustrating as a result. Apart from the minigames, there are a few diversions that unlock after you beat the game. 9-ball is a billiards “simulation” that actually has some decent physics. Pinkie Rabbit Land is a game-and-watch styled LCD game that you win from a soda contest. As a point-and-click adventure game, Last Window has a bunch of issues including but not limited to: set interaction points making puzzles too easy, handholding in between clear objectives, and a tell don’t show mentality that is a casualty of the art style. Said art style is great when the characters actually animate, but it doesn’t happen frequently enough to be remarkable.
It’s telling that there’s a novel version of this game that unlocks as you play through the chapters. The story and gameplay are interesting in some ways, but the latter is no fun to go through a second time. It’s an interesting place to visit, but Cape West is not a place I want to spend any significant amount of time in.
