I really want to like Last Minute Hero by Squax, so instead of a harsh verbal reprisal lets consider this a sort of love letter to a game that attempts to do something exciting and interesting, but ends up breaking my heart by never managing to finish what it started.

You play as a girl, perhaps a cosplayer of some sort, stuck in a cordoned off area of the Shibuya Crossing that is being invaded by giant mutated spiders. So naturally you whip out your weapons of destruction and go to town on them because with every monster you kill your life is prolonged from termination by mini-nuke. It's a ludicrous setup and features enough holes in the concept as to be almost mind-numbing, but who cares? You're a cute chick armed to the teeth battling mutant spiders right?

Unfortunately the game just feels rough in almost every way and it's hard to feel satisfied by the survival gameplay. The controls remain stiff and laggy despite recent bug fixes; requiring taps to aim and quickly turn around. The camera uses an odd field of view that skews the depth to give you more vision while warping the artwork, which while we're at it is bright and bubbly, but bad model designs give the game a seriously dated appearance. Lastly, the variety of gameplay comes down to the selection of weapons that are slowly unlocked by repeated 'longer' playthroughs, but limited ammunition and the same handful of monsters quickly gets boring.

Last Minute Hero has the distinct feel of a game released far too soon and in time it may blossom in to something beautiful, but until then it's a sharp reminder of how a great idea can completely miss the mark.