Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier Game Review
Content Editor, Film Critic and Writer for ComiConverse.com, the Founder and co-host of the official Nerdcast Network Podcast
Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier Game Review
Planet of the Apes reboot series surprised many people through the last couple years it revitalizes a franchise, near the deathbed with the horrible Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes (2001) remake. It made the apes come alive, and audiences care about their stories, I never cared about the franchise after being disappointed with the remake. But adored the reboot trilogy as it made apes a force to be reckoned with
Fans have been waiting years for a gaming project based on the series, as the potential was apparently there in making the Apes succeed on a video game platform.
We are in luck because a video game based in between Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) has been released. The game is a story based adventure, with pushes players in making ambiguous decisions with no dark or right side. But does it work? Let’s go into ape territories.
Many apes died in the war with Alpha-Omega led by Colonel McCullough while others, fearing the extinction of their kind, fled to start a new life far away from San Francisco, Caesar and the human soldiers. One of these original tribes was lead by Khan, who lost his wife and lead his apes far north. After many months of searching, Khan and his sons, Tola, Bryn, and Juno found a mountain that the tribe could call home. However, now that summer is ending, food is running out, and the tribe is beginning to starve. As each day passes, food becomes scarcer, and the tribe's hunters have to venture farther away from the safety of their mountain.
Unknown to Khan and his troop of apes, nestled in the mountain valley floor, a human settlement has survived the Simian Flu apocalypse. A hundred souls live in a fortified compound, once the nucleus of a thriving town known as Millerton. Food is scarce, and new mayor Jess Ross has to marshal her people as they struggle daily to make a life for Millerton. Times are hard with little communication from the outside; the townsfolk must rely on their crops and cattle to survive the upcoming winter.
The game is set around the movie's chronology; it shares the same high themes of humanity and new breeds of Apes in a new format. You play as two characters with Bryn being an ape part of the campaign, the son of tribe leader Khan: who is sent out to search for food and bring together his people. Human sides of the story evolve around Jess, a leader of human settlements after the tragic death of her husband. It all comes along in the war between tribes.
I wanted to love the story but left feeling disappointing, as Planet of the Apes Last Frontier doesn’t reach heights seen in the movies coming across more like a fan fiction. The in-game choices seem to bring no update character motivations: a total far cry from the experienced advertised.
The last Frontier feels like an interactive companion to the original big budget movies, but without needed weight which limits from being a step forward in tie-in video games. The dialogue choices are limited and don’t allow the player to express their selves through characters; it’s shameful with a franchise so tied around interactions between tribes. Perhaps more reliance on extended conversations could have expanded upon the pitfalls, and give players options.
The game allows multiple players to join up in a PlayLink setting, with the added benefits not bringing much to audiences: with set rules being in place and votes used to agree on what options to make. It’s one way to play and brings out the better experience, but you can play on the PlayStation DualShock. Graphically nothing about the Last Frontier is fluid enough, especially when you compare it to excellent special effects seen in the significant budget movie adaptations. Mixed results leaving some of the human characters looking like terrible wax figures, and the apes lacking needed details.
We can understand the lower budget limited a powerhouse being made it just looks embarrassing on PS4 systems (we played it on the PS4 Pro). I also sat through various crashes which hard reset the system. Hopefully, an update can fix the issues, but it was frustrating to keep repeating sequences.
Decisions don't have the punch seen in Telltale Games and hardly push the narrative forward in the movie series, which is a shame when the source material was built upon grand storytelling and exploration in the world.
I can see right ideas, but ultimately the Last Frontier feels like a demo for greater things to come, the apes behave like the actual movie versions but lacks the needed detail. In a nutshell, a good experience is deep inside the game but final results leave a lot to be desired. Now perhaps another project set in the universe could bring us more joy? I just felt disappointed with the weak quality.