The Last Alchemist review

Alchemist fuses cozy and cumbersome. The result could be a hidden gem if it wasn’t tarnished by the game’s irritating control scheme.

If you’re a fan of cozy, combat-free games, there’s a lot to like about The Last Alchemist, developer Vile Monarch’s (Oh, Sir! The Insult Simulator, Floodland) latest effort. Following your mentor’s passing, the game places you in the eponymous role, as the only practitioner of alchemy. Instead of attempting to save a plague-affected world, the stakes here are more personal. The disease has taken your leg and most of your energy. Soon, the affliction will take your life if you don’t intervene.

And while the ‘find a cure or die’ situation might seem glum, The Last Alchemist is anything but melancholic. While initially distrustful, a community of spirited mushroom people soon become your partners, assisting in the production of tools and providing an endless supply of direction and eccentric charm.

Learning to Live with Fungi

After years of interacting with the locals in Story of Seasons and Harvest Moon, I was ready for change, and these sporefolks didn’t disappoint. And unlike some of the Atelier games, there’s no strict timetable to worry about. So, take all the time you need to experiment before finding the cure.

Complementing the mushroom people’s peculiarity and the game’s pastoral settings are a legion of rather fussy machines. These work like the mechanisms found in most crafting sims, asking for raw ingredients and spitting out items that can be used to build newer technologies.

Temperamental Machines and Other Nuisances

But alchemy often requires a blueprint, which you’ll have to grab from your in-game notebook and insert into one of the machines. And while that’s fine in theory, Last Alchemist’s mouse-and-keyboard control scheme is frequently fiddly and just getting a machine to accept a page can feel like trying to get a vending machine to take a crumbled dollar bill.

Even with the game’s auto-collect ability turned on, inventory management is also a chore. There’s a shortcut to automatically drop the proper resources onto their proper places which is compassionate since manual placement is just as finicky. And while the game’s sickly protagonist shouldn’t move with the agility of an agile athlete, the need to constantly use the right mouse button to adjust the game’s camera while walking around feels absurd.

My Kingdom for Controller Support

I can’t think of a contemporary game that needs controller support as much as The Last Alchemist. Yet, at present, the developers have no plans to include it. Should Vile Monarch ever change their minds, feel free to add ten points to the review score. As it stands, expect to sporadically get wedged between objects and have to wait until the alchemist is exhausted and in returned to his bed.

Sadly, the game’s cumbersome control scheme mars what could have been a thoroughly enjoyable experience. There’s a steady drip feed of discovery across the campaign, as you venture outside the confines of your stronghold and across a map to gather resources.

Chemistry Modeling

Occasionally, passageways are temporarily blocked, requiring players to use craft an Essence that will allow access. And it’s here when The Last Alchemist embraces the spirit of scientific research, as you extract ingredients from items around the world and combine the tetromino-shaped objects at their connector points. Pleasingly, those who’d rather not be puzzled by the in-game molecular modeling can use a supplied microscope.

Mercifully, once you’ve successfully discovered a new Essence, the formula will show up in your in-game journal. Persistently referencing the tome and steadily filing in the tome with additional data makes you feel like you’re truly role-playing as a scientist. Multiple games have attempted to simulate research, but Alchemist is one of the few that truly gets it right. As such, it’s disheartening that the developers didn’t do their own analysis. They might have found that an improved input method would allow The Last Alchemist to truly sparkle.

The Last Alchemist was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.