For Your (Wishlist): Last Time I Saw You
Gorgeous, hand drawn art and quite the mystery
For your wishlist consideration today: Last Time I Saw You, a narrative adventure with a gorgeous, dreamy art style from Maboroshi Artworks, a small studio based in Osaka, Japan.
The game is set in Japan in the late 80s, where you are Ayumi, a young boy just navigating life, living with your mother and father. You’ve lost your grandfather, and it seems like it’s a recent event. There’s also the matter of Ayumi’s dreams, where he’s chasing a girl through an idyllic, pastel-drenched landscape, but can never quite catch up to her.
The demo, a playable prologue, took me roughly half an hour and is still available to play as of publishing. It begins inside Ayumi’s dreams, chasing after the girl he has no memory of, finally waking in his bedroom after failing to catch her. We also learn from Ayumi’s mother that he’s been experiencing headaches, but it’s nothing he can’t handle, as he promises his mother he’ll go pick up carrots from the store that afternoon. A large typhoon is slated to hit the island, so being stocked up is a necessity.
He heads out, but not before you discover that YES, you can pet the dog! There’s an adorable pup just outside your home. You run into some friends on your way into town, including an aspiring baseball player, a police officer who you believe is nervous about the storms coming, and a classmate who works at her father’s bookstore.
On the way, you also have a moment where you pass the entrance of the mysterious forest next to your town, and you begin to get a theory that this forest is no ordinary forest. The art in the game is already stunning up to this point, but the color shift that happens here reminded me a little of some moments from the Spider-Verse movies.
Carrots obtained, you head back towards home where you take part in a baseball mini-game with your friends. (Little did I know, this was training you for what’s to come!) This took a bit to get used to, but after going a second round, I had a better handle on it. Finally, it was time to head home and FINALLY tackle homework, before going to sleep.
You go to your dream world again, and instead of the girl, you find yourself in the city center, but instead of people, there are white shadows. By the end of it, you finally catch up to your dream girl long enough to ask her a question, but then it’s time to wake up. Alas, there’s still school.
You get a gift from your mother before you leave for school, an item that belonged to your grandfather. Things go downhill quickly while at school, leaving Ayumi to rely on his baseball skills, grit, and the gift from his grandfather to try to make it out relatively unscathed.
And that, my friends, is where the demo ends. The last half of the demo truly took my breath away. Between the story, the music, the art, and the environment, Last Time I Saw You deserves a spot on your wishlist.
Last Time I Saw You is coming to Steam, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox this Fall.