Like movies, a video game’s trailer can be misleading. That’s the case for One Last Breath. After seeing its trailer, I wanted to jump into the game and explore its world. So, I reached out to get a code for the game and immediately started playing. While there are some interesting visuals, the rest of the game feels underbaked.

Some backstory would help
You start One Last Breath without any real knowledge of what’s going on. Your character walks out of a cave and it’s unclear what they are. They look human, but they have “magical” powers which I’ll cover a bit more later. Other than that, you’re left uncertain of what has happened or what your purpose is.
Sure, you can start a game under mysterious circumstances. But you have to incentivize the player to want to learn more. There is no tension or mystery here. The game wants you to press forward but I was more interested in the cave that I came out of.
It’s only after walking for a bit that the mystery of the game begins to take shape. You come across a bridge, that breaks appear, and you fall below. You awake in a strange forest, with ominous things around you. There’s a waterfall that has something hiding behind it. As you press forward you finally begin to encounter other things. You’ll get your first taste of the monsters that inhabit the land. Then you’ll get to experience the game’s puzzles and other world interactions.

Lots of running, with the occasional puzzle
Your character is only able to interact with specific environment objects. There will be different glowing plants that allow you to manipulate the environment. The most common one is the ability to control tree roots. They block areas preventing you from progressing. Or, they will be necessary to help you cross large gaps. Later in the game, you’ll interact with a few other plants. One gives you the ability to “awaken” dormant plants. The other gives you a shield which protects you from a poisonous gas.
Most of the puzzles don’t challenge you. For a game that appears to be puzzle-focused, this isn’t. The spacing between puzzles is significant. This means you spend more time running from one area to the next with little gameplay. When you do have to complete a puzzle, they are easy to solve.
The problem is that there isn’t enough puzzle variety. You can always be certain that a puzzle will need you to manipulate some plants, trigger a switch, or move a box. There was only one puzzle encounter that gave me a problem. Funny thing, I only had trouble because I encountered a game-breaking bug.

Technical Problems along the way
My playtime for One Last Breath was long because I was stuck on a puzzle that required a platform to move. Unfortunately, even with the necessary power on, the platform wasn’t moving. I restarted that stage but the bug remained. I was playing the game on my Steamdeck but had to start a new game on my PC to get past this section.
But the performance issues continued from there. I have a good PC, which includes a Radeon RX 6750 XT. I can play most games on High or Ultra settings without issues. Unfortunately with One Last Breath, I had graphic problems. About 1/3 of the way through, my game would crash. I had to decrease the game’s graphical settings to Low to mitigate the errors.
This isn’t a graphics-heavy game. The environments aren’t detailed, with most assets repeating, especially the interior sections. The monster design is generic and your character doesn’t have any extensive animations. This isn’t a long game, so encountering the performance issues so early in the game frustrated me. It’s possible this issue of mine was an isolated situation, but I still wanted to share my experience.

Couldn’t meet my expectations
I wanted to like One Last Breath. Most people will rush through this in about two hours. There is nothing here that stands out or impresses. I hate to downplay a studio’s efforts, but this does give off “game project” vibes. It feels like this began as a class project and someone thought they could turn it into a full release.