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STAFF REVIEW of One Last Breath (Xbox Series X)


Wednesday, October 2, 2024.
by Peggy Doyle

One Last Breath Box art One Last Breath, not the song by Creed, is a relatively short 2.5D puzzle platformer from the small 5-person team at Moonatic Studios. It’s beautiful, with visuals that reminded me of the game Inside. You play as the Earth Goddess, Gaia, as she navigates her way through a post-apocalyptic world trying to restore life to the ravaged landscape.

The game can be played in one sitting if the pacing and tension don’t cause you to take a break. It has moments that are both scary and suspenseful, as well as those that were completely aggravating to me as someone who doesn’t always do well with navigating moving parts in platformers. The ‘enemies’ are tall and lanky aliens that you can’t fight, you just have to avoid, outrun or trap them to move along the levels. Most levels you’ll find them lingering on the peripheral or the background. Sometimes they will spot you though and make a beeline for you. Unfortunately, you have no sprint option for your character movement. If they catch you, they will rip you apart and you’ll start back at the last checkpoint. You can also die from falling, and each time Gaia dies she lets out a scream that was very unsettling.


You will die a lot in One Last Breath as the game doesn’t explain the mechanics or controls, allowing you to learn through trial and error. Not a choice I prefer in games, but effective in also ramping up the tension in the game. The fantastic sound design allows you to hear louder growling from the creatures as well as Gaia’s heavier breathing the closer the creatures get to you. These moments are tense and when you get a moment of safety you feel relieved.

The puzzles and platforming are navigated with the aid of Gaia’s powers to manipulate the environment at specific points, creating paths using vine and plant roots. Most often you can figure out how to solve puzzles by simply looking around to take notice if there is an obvious lever, button, switch or block to move. While you can see what you need to do, sometimes it’s several steps to solve a section fully.


The controls were generally okay until I encountered sections where I needed to have more precise moments. When trying to dodge saw blades I found the controls a little less responsive than I would like, or perhaps I could not simply predict timing better.

There isn’t much in the way of storytelling in One Last Breath. You will move silently through the abandoned world only picking up a loose idea of what has happened from your surroundings. While it’s clear that something has happened, you never fully understand what or why you are there other than you appear to be trying to bring life back. Working through forests, factories and laboratories, there are also some calm and serene moments when you are in the open world.


There are collectibles in the form of animals to be freed. If you manage to free them all you can access a vault at the end. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t let you know what levels you missed animals in, so unless you want to play the entire game again, you may want to use a guide or choose not to get into the vault.

While I do wish there was a bit more overt storytelling, if you like games similar to Inside and Little Nightmares, One Last Breath is a short game (I played through in about two hours) with a delightful art style and captivating score to check out and spend a few hours with.

**One Last Breath was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**





Overall: 6.8 / 10
Gameplay: 6.0 / 10
Visuals: 7.0 / 10
Sound: 7.0 / 10

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