The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human Review

By: Omar (@siegarettes​)

With so many apocalypses going on in videogames, we’ve become friendly with the fall of humanity. It’s almost comforting to know the world’s end has come before you arrived. It takes the pressure off, what with all the times we’re asked to save it. Still, we rarely languish in the beautiful ruins, there’s always something urgent to pull you along. So that’s where The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human appears. 

After opening with a Planet of the Apes style black hole time warp, you return to an Earth where human societies have long become sub-aquatic and deteriorated to extinction. That proves to be a boon to the local sealife, which has thrived into lush forests and gargantuan sea beasts. The core of Aquatic Adventure drifts between those two. Languid exploration erupts into violent confrontation upon encountering these beasts, and the ensuing fight assures both terror and awe. 

Combat is stripped down, playing out in a series of chases and retreats. There’s the desperate maneuvering of your ship into a position the limited angles of your harpoon will let you attack from, then a dash away from lethal attacks that can often kill you instantly. This also the crux of where Aquatic Adventure’s highest and lowest points balance. 

Between the gorgeous designs and animations, each aquatic creature undoubtedly provides a highlight in the adventure. The tense struggles require constant vigilance and overcoming each of them saturates you with relief, and even a bit of guilt at the grotesque outcomes of your fight. Even so, some battles end up becoming drawn out, going on for several minutes as you and the enemy engage in a war of attrition, constantly depleting and recharging your health bars. It becomes exasperated by the non-linear, Metroid style, structure of the game, which refreshingly allows you multiple paths at any given time, but also means you can approach a boss without a weapon that might trivialize it. Other times you might actually be appropriately equipped, but a lack of feedback means you’ll waste time looking for other upgrades when they aren’t needed. 

It personally formed my one major blemish on the experience, and the frustration brought on by the ambiguity of those moments did enough to keep me from recommending Aquatic Adventure outright. There are few other minor bothers as well. Text logs are inconsistent in both writing and location, making you wonder why a singular citizen’s thoughts are presented in the same large scale holo-projection that major industrial locations use. It also falls victim to a common genre problem, with obstacles to new areas being so conspicuous they announce upcoming upgrades. It turns the environment and upgrades into what are functionally a series of gates and keycards, and impedes on the feeling of organic progress.

Still, when Aquatic Adventure hits those high points it does it magnificently. The artwork is outright magnificent, well complemented by the way it plays with scale and lighting. The colors shift between several palettes of warm and cool moods and several layers of parallax scrolling create a sense of depth that gives the oceans you explore expansiveness beyond your immediate surroundings. There’s even a periodic low rumble when using a controller that feels as if a low current is surrounding your ship. 

Special attention should be paid to the audio design as well. There’s comfort in sounds of the bubbling of the sea and the chains of your harpoon getting ready to fire. Then there’s the electronic soundtrack, which envelops each area in atmosphere, whether that’s the light of the bright Seaweed Forests or the cold rumble of Trash Central, where toxicity of humanity’s slash and burn approach to ecology rears its head. 

Between the artwork and the soundtrack, this is where The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human communicates best. It makes its point not in the awkward text logs, but in the hum and drone of the soundtrack, the imagery of human ruins slowly reclaimed by nature. And finally, in the violence that you’ll inflict on the ocean’s wildlife, a testament to the destructive power that even a single human brings to our ocean. 

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