‘The Final Station’ Switch Review: TinyBuild Delivers Another Winner

The Final Station has pulled into the Nintendo Switch station. Developed by Do My Best Games and published by TinyBuild, the side scrolling, post apocalyptic survival game continues the streak of fascinating and fun time killers that TinyBuild is known for.

The Final Station is the first of six newly announced games that TinyBuild is bringing to Nintendo’s hot console hybrid. And as the first, it sets the stage for what gamers can expect if they missed these games where they were released previously on PS4, Xbox One, or PC.

The Final Station is the story of a Conductor who traverses an Eastern European landscape, transporting passengers and cargo on his experimental train. When the world is attacked and decimated, the Conductor is one of the few unaffected by the radiation that turns citizens into monstrous shadow creatures, thanks to his train, and he must save as many people as possible, all the while trying to get home to his own family. The catch is that each station has an electronic lock on the rails, and the Conductor has to leave the safety of his train to find the code to unlock the path forward.

Along the way, the Conductor will come across survivors that he can save, supplies, like food and medicine, and various weapons and ammo. He needs to share his medicine and food with the survivors to keep them alive, making resource management key. In each town, the Conductor explores various houses and businesses looking for the key code and shadow enemies will attack on sight. Knowing when to shoot your weapon or go for a melee attack is the key to surviving.

The Final Station features 8-bit like graphics, but it works. This game could have easily found a home on the original NES, which creates a nice feeling of nostalgia. The music is subtle and fantastic and the character dialogue, while stilted and a bit heavy handed, works to fill in the backstory of the action on-screen. There is also a twist ending that truly punctuates the long journey the player and the Conductor have taken together.

Like other TinyBuild published games, The Final Station steals your life away. I started playing and was slightly unimpressed with the game until about an hour in, then I found myself falling deeper and deeper under its spell. As I tried to get through one more town, over and over, I realized that five hours had gone by and I didn’t care one bit, because I was having a blast playing. And having a game like this on a portable system like the Switch makes it so much better.

The Final Station on the Switch also includes the DLC content, The Only Traitor, which features a different character, but happens concurrently with the main game, storywise. It’s a welcome addition to an already fantastic journey, and shows a different perspective to the story.

The Final Station is one of those games that truly sneaks up on you. What starts off as a simple side-scrolling, Point A to Point B game becomes something so much more and I found myself playing it over and over for the sheer joy of it. It’s not an easy game by any stretch, and the ending may be a punch in the gut, but, as with all things in life, it’s the journey that matters, and getting to the final station is but one part of a fantastic ride.

The Final Station is available for the the PS4, Xbox One, and now the Nintendo Switch. This review is based off a Switch review code provided by TinyBuild Games.