Overview
The Final Specimen is an indie platformer that puts comedy first. The colorful but chaotic retro art style, the contrast between the symphonic music and the driving rock, and the ridiculous characters all work in concert to underscore the game's difficult action with humor. Levels oscillate between tense dramatic moments and absurdity while the cutscenes create levity and whimsical drama. Only through precision jumping, a whole lot of punches, and the hurling of bombs can our hero hope to survive his alien abduction.
In the year 1996 and on a day that should be just like any other day, a young earthling named Thomas is suddenly teleported to a distant world called Groovitopeler. He learns that this new world is ruled over by his abductor, a nefarious alien known only as The Insane Monster. For a number of years, The Insane Monster has been snatching people off of Earth to test the human will to survive, and he won't stop until he has proven that humans are weak. For his final experiment, The Insane Monster has chosen Thomas as his subject. Groovitopeler will be destroyed with Thomas still on the surface, and only if Thomas can somehow escape the destruction will he prove that humans could resist an invasion of Earth. If he fails, then The Insane Monster will enslave all of humanity. It is up to Thomas to find a way to unite the other stranded abductees and fight back before it too late.
Gameplay
The goal of The Final Specimen is to brawl with deadly enemies and leap over environmental hazards in order to save the world from annihilation. Gameplay is fast-paced, so precision movement and timing is necessary to avoid taking damage. Bosses contain puzzle elements and require some clever thinking to defeat. The easy difficulty is much more forgiving and gives infinite continues while the hard difficulty is there to challenge platformer veterans. More damage can be absorbed by collecting the red floating hearts, and extra lives can be earned by grabbing a golden glowing T. Pits and some obstacles will instantly kill, but there are checkpoints throughout each level so that some progress can still be made. The safest way to kill enemies is with bombs, but they are a limited item that must be collected. Bombs are often the only way to damage a boss and certain normal enemies. The unlimited basic attack is a punch. It hits for less than a bomb, but it can stagger some targets.
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