Repainting Memories
The Last Day of June is a beautifully somber experience through the brushed world of Carl and June. Tragedy has struck in the form of a car accident claiming June’s life and Carl’s ability to walk, designating him to a wheelchair for the entirety of the game. One day when Carl’s is wallowing in his sorrows and reminiscing of what was he rolls his way into June’s artRepainting Memories
The Last Day of June is a beautifully somber experience through the brushed world of Carl and June. Tragedy has struck in the form of a car accident claiming June’s life and Carl’s ability to walk, designating him to a wheelchair for the entirety of the game. One day when Carl’s is wallowing in his sorrows and reminiscing of what was he rolls his way into June’s art parlor where something magical happens. He finds that upon touching the once painted canvases of June’s masterpieces he can propel himself through time and repair the timeline where he and June had their devastating crash. This is where you will dwell for the entirety of this terrible and touching tale and will feel your heartstrings plucked and spirits soar on this emotional ride.
In this third-person puzzle game you wade through Carl’s painted memories and puppeteer his neighbors in an attempt refabricate time and save June’s life. While in the neighbors’ shoes you complete various tasks that will alter the flow of time and the events that occurred within. Soaring a kite in the magenta skies instead of playing soccer with a bulldog as the young boy in the tale within will cause a new variation of the story to be revealed, but each new outcome will ultimately lead to the same result, the fatal car crash. This causes you to continuously pluck at the strands of fate, jumping among mortal shells to perpetuate the desired result, June’s survival. But with each pluck new puzzle items and routes to emerge, allowing you to explore newly fabricated areas, inching closer to the salvation of your love.
I love this utilization of timeline hopping between characters to solve puzzles, but this also reveals the lone gripe that I have. Each time you venture between characters’ timelines you must repeat the same actions and watch the same cutscenes. Some of the resumptions of replays are abridged, but the cutscenes are un-skippable and it grows increasingly tiresome watching the same events unfold over and over. This is especially annoying when you return to a memory multiple times due to a single minor flaw, but cannot progress until you rectify that mistake, leading you to gaze exasperated at the same un-skippable cutscene, prolonging your progression by a few more minutes when it could have been avoided entirely. This somewhat removes you from immersion and I wish that they would’ve given you the option to skip cutscenes.
But let’s not dwell on this minor hiccup and talk about the aesthetic of this game! The Last Day of June is beautifully designed! Looking as though June painted the landscape herself, you waltz through a canvas in motion, soaking up the warmth of the sun’s orange glow and allowing the water-color waves to lap at your toes, as this melancholy tale unfolds. Everything about this game oozes artistry, from the brush-style of the artistic design to the characters resembling carved, wooden mannequins, and the soundtrack is absolutely entrancing. You sway with gaiety during some tracks and feel your bowels hollow out in others. The tunes and design perfectly portray the mood in each scene, and this is especially important when you consider that this game has no voice acting or dialogue. Or, at least, not of a familiar language that you and I could perceive. The fact that this game can produce tears while the characters utter nothing but groans and yips, is a testament to the heaps of effort and affection poured into this game.
And, oh, how it achieves this goal! Throughout my playthrough I found myself letting out grief-riddled gasps and groans because of each unfortunate circumstance that occurs after you think you have solved the puzzle that will ultimately save June’s life. The game reflects your frustration as well, because as you tamper more and more with the timeline it will begin to fracture, making it more and more difficult to achieve your goal. This bring about the whole ideology that not everything is achievable, and sometimes heartbreak is inevitable. This concept leads us to one of the most heart-warming and most disappointing endings that I have witnessed in a video game. I must leave it at that to keep from spoiling anything, but it is still a tear-jerker none-the-less.
Although, I was slightly underwhelmed with the ending and was upset about the lack of a skip feature when it came to cutscenes, I thoroughly enjoyed this story and the characters within. The Last Day of June usurped my expectations by a wide margin and continuously ran a river of tears down my face during its few hour long run time. The moments of melancholy mingled cozily with an adorable charm and kept me trudging through the tasks to help Carl find his truest happiness and I hope that if you give this game a try, you enjoy it as much as I did!… Expand
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