REVIEW | Until the Last Plane

LifeisXbox’s Until the Last Plane review | You’re extremely likely to have never heard of Until the Last Plane, but it was first made available on Steam back in March of 2021. Before the recent console release, I had never heard of it either, and after playing it, I now understand why. I was excited since I thought it would be a retro shooter like those for flip phones, but surprise, it’s a strategy game. This console port’s publication is the work of Eastasiasoft Limited, which also assisted CarloC in its creation.

ℹ️ Reviewed on Xbox One | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion of the writer.

What we Liked!

• A good amount of content | If there’s one thing I can’t complain about Until the Last Plane, it is the number of different campaigns available. There are three campaigns for each faction. They are divided into easy, medium, and hard campaigns. This being a World War II game, the factions are none other than the US, the USSR, and Germany. If you want to complete them all, it’ll take you quite a few hours, considering one campaign took me more than an hour to finish.

• Simple, but nostalgic visuals | From the screenshots present in this review, you may already feel what I’m about to tell you about Until the Last Plane‘s graphics, but nevertheless, here we go. They are pretty simple to look at, but as I’ve mentioned before, they give me nostalgia from when I played a jet game 11+ years ago on an old flip phone, I don’t have the slightest clue what the game was called, but I really enjoyed it at the time.

• Events | After you complete a few missions, (the exact amount depends on how many planes you’ve sent), the day will end. At the beginning of every day after the first one, you’ll be prompted with an event that can just straight up give you resources or give you a choice that can have negative, positive or even neutral outcomes. It’s not too elaborate, but it does add something to the game.

• Management | You’ll have to keep an eye out for your planes and pilots. If all of your pilots die, it’s game over, so I recommend you hire new ones as soon as one dies. Also, if you take too long to repair a plane it may explode and kill its pilot on your base. You’ll have to keep an eye out for your pilots’ fatigue, stress, and morale as all of them can be the end of your pilot if not taken care of. Planes will come back to base for some different reasons, it can be because they were damaged, but it can also be because they’re running out of fuel or ammo. So you’ll also need to keep an eye on your reserves.

• Mission accomplished | By successfully finishing missions, you’ll be rewarded with skill points and money. Money can be used to hire new pilots and buy ammo, plane parts, bombs, and fuel. Skill points are used to buy skills that will help you with things such as how big of an area you’ll be able to shoot and how easy it’d be to aim at a bombardment mission, but they can also upgrade some of your pilots’/planes’ characteristics.

Mixed Feelings

• Passable soundtrack | You’ll only get to hear music when you’re in a menu, and when you do, it’s a generic war song. And even though it’s repetitive, it does fit the game. The sound effects are also passable, nothing amazing, but also nothing horrible, except for one thing that I’ll be mentioning in the “What we disliked” section.

What we Disliked

• You’re saying that AGAIN?! | Hearing the same voice lines over and over again is one of the elements that will rapidly grow tiresome to you as a player. You will typically only hear one vocal line for each of these events, whether it be when your jet is shot down, you miss a bombardment, or when you perform nearly any other action in the game. I can’t overstate how annoying it was to hear voice lines like “go go go!” and “target on sight” on a US campaign, not to mention the most common ones like “mayday, mayday” and “enemy down!”

• Not engaging enough | I know I’ve said it before, but this game isn’t quite what I was hoping it would be. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s awful, but sadly, it’s not the most captivating. The turn-based combat isn’t particularly engaging because you can only do each of three moves for a limited number of times; these moves are for dodging projectiles and shooting foes, both of which occur automatically at the end of the last turn. Other than that, your duties will include managing your planes and pilots, conducting reconnaissance missions, and bombarding targets and vehicles. It’s not terrible, but the gameplay isn’t interesting enough to retain your attention for very long. I suppose it’s more a matter of taste than anything else, but I get the impression that this game is from a bygone age of gaming.

How long to beat the story | 8+ hours to finish all campaigns
How long to achieve 1000G | 2-3 hours

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