"The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human" (TAAOTLH) first interested me by the amount of Global Climate Change deniers haranguing it in the reviews. I'd seen other games that actually covered this topic and they had no where near the same torrential abusive reaction.

TAAOTLH is also not a game about this issue, which made the situation even more bizarre to me. I had planned on picking it up on the weekend, partly in protest to the negative reaction it was getting, but was contacted by a PR representative and given a key to check it out.

I then proceeded to use the incorrect hashtag as I copied and pasted from what they misspelt. Rather than resubject my followers to another flood of tweets, I posted a correction.

I've since played the game a few hours more, but will use this F86M to expand on what I posted about earlier.

My initial reaction to TAAOTLH was somewhat worrying. The intro scene looked very low quality, even for a pixel game. The player is in a space ship and is swallowed by some kind of anomaly. Around 10,000 years pass and you are spat back down to the planet Earth. Hitting a field of ice, you emerge below in a tiny submarine. Why were you in a space ship? Why did several thousand years pass? Who knows! But it does not matter as the action immediately after all of that takes place underwater.

With no weapons or indication on what the goals are, you set off underwater to explore. Here the game really starts to look pretty, the contrast to the sparseness of space to the flooded underwater cities is stunning. The camera will slightly zoom and tilt depending on the map area to showcase the large background scenes.

There's also the music. Suitable of the 'underwater music' genre it is calming and tranquil. It will change in tone depending on what zone you are in, and ramps up when fighting the bosses.

These two combined really makes TAAOTLH shine. It is awfully pretty, even in the areas where the ruins of humanity are even more apparent. From glowing open seas, to toxic dark ruins, there is a good amount of variety in TAAOTLH. Areas are small and there are not that many of them, but with the way it showcases and prevents a lot of backtracking TAAOTLH feels larger than it is.

Bosses are the real meat of TAAOTLH. While it does fit in with the metroidvania genre, there is no real combat outside of the boss battles. Shortly after starting you find your first weapon, a little harpoon that shoots in a 180'deg arc beneath your submarine.
It quickly shows you how the weapon works in order to open a door before putting you into battle with a giant killer worm.

I died. I died a lot.

This is the real juxtaposition of the game. Calming exploration levels with a few minor hazards, and brutal boss battles where you have to think a bit quicker. The worm I fought had a mix of ramming patters, a reach from the sides, and a bullet hell attack.
It was a bit shocking at first as I was not expecting it, but it was surprisingly easy to learn to counter and attack it.

TAAOTLH is harder than a game of this type would suggest. But it is not so difficult I felt the need to rage quit and flip my keyboard in protest. Bosses are doable, but they each require you to pay attention in order to defeat them. Some are easier than others but still a decent challenge.

After the worm I was able to explore a fair bit more and come across a giant undead fish. I died and died and died and died. So I went exploring. Found some powerups, and the possibility of another type of boss. It appears each boss or boss room has a powerup that will help overall combat. Be it new weapons, better healing, faster speeds, and so on. If you get stuck after the worm go back and look around a bit, you may find the advantage you need. Though there does appear to be a steam Achievement if you can beat the game without any of the non essential bonuses.

So what about the story? Through out the game I encountered little 'holo-pods' that gave short snippets of warring factions and some kind of additional threat. You can also come across old giant screens running in the background that give little hints on what happened.

This is not a story on shoving a Global Warming message down the players throat. Which really makes the reviews that prompted me playing this game rather amused. At the time of writing I'm really early into TAAOTLH, but there appears to be a much larger narrative at work. And for how it is told it is rather well done. Little hints and snippits of the flooded world really help with the atmosphere of the game, and makes me want to continue on with it.

This is not a game genre I would normally play. But there are no real game breaking flaws or bugs I've encountered, and it really feels like something special.

Since I posted F86M to twitter, I've spent the next few days with it. In doing so I really can recommend it. It has a really nice style, and the combat while challenging is not at impossible levels of difficulty.

I was not able to capture screenshots via the Steam Overlay for this one, so included shots are from YCJY's website.

Game Acquisition: Key from PR
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Thread: 1 - 21 January 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009

Windows: Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
Processor: 2.5 Ghz
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: 128MB Direct x9.0 Compatible Card
DirectX: Version 9.0
Storage: 1 GB available space
Mouse, Keyboard supported
Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller or Direct Input compatible controller supported