Freedom Planet - First Thoughts

[TechnoWolf]

Okay I'm in Level Six right now, so I think this is a good time to start sharing some first impressionsI have on the game.

 

 

So what is Freedom Planet ? It's another of these retro platformer, that actually does not go for the 8-bit style. There are three kinds of retro wanna be games : 

 

- The 8-bit style game, Shovel Knight is an example. There were new at the time, but now we sure do get a lot of those

 

- The 16-bit style, those really make me think of the Super Nintendo era.

 

- The games that pretend to be retro oriented and are in fact straight up lying to you

 

 

Freedom Planet belongs to the second category, I'd say. It really ressembles Sonic the Hedgehog, even though Lilac's gameplay reminds me more of Rocket Knight Adventures for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis (Sparkster on the SNES). The game has voice acting & lots of dialogues, so you don't have a "fully retro" game that goes from level to level only, it tries to have a modern background and capture a retro appearance. It also features anthropomorphic animals, otherwise called furries, which isn't really my favourite style of character design but I can get over it. I know lots of people who wouldn't, though, so I warn you : it really does feel like a cartoon featuring furries so if you're not into this, don't buy the game.

 

As for the gameplay itself : it's pretty much self-explanatory. You run from point A to point B, you don't have to backtrack that much, there are some moments where you'll have to search a bit, but overall : you run, you jump, you attack enemies (don't jump into them), use your "super speed" attack (that is reminiscent of Rocket Knight as I stated above), you collect diamonds to gain a one-ups, there's a boss at the end of the level, beat him up, and bouya, you have one or several cutscenes, and then you proceed to the next level. There's no hubworlds, no pointless stuff to do before accessing a level. It's simple, straightfoward, and many people might prefer it this way.

 

 

Controls : good Lord, I haven't tried the keyboard, but if, like me, you have a pad : REMAP THE KEYS. The default settings feel very very unnatural. You'd think with so few keys there wouldn't be much room to screw up. Oh but they did. Fortunately, you can remap the keys to your leisure, and have a more comfortable experience. And to the devs, I'd say this : "X (or Square if you're using a playstation controller) should always be your default attack button, and B (or Circle) your special move, not the other way around".

 

 

Storywise : Okay, if you really care about the story, it has some science fiction elements, and so far this is a cute little story about a Planet being invaded while war is going on between different realms. The comedy elements is here almost everytime, only a few scenes were super serious, most of the time, you'll smile at the character's jokes at best. I don't know, I don't really take their story that seriously. I'd say it kind of feels like the classic Mega Man series, it is serious but also looks like a cartoon so.... it's not gonna try and be edgy because it's not supposed to.

 

 

Musics : I think this is one of the strongest aspects of the game. Most of the musics are really catchy, and though I probably won't memorize a lot of them, I still have a good time listening them when I'm playing the game.

 

 

There's one big problem however, regarding the save system. The game autosaves & gives checkpoint, if the checkpoints are quite abundant, the autosave feature only works at the beginning of a stage. Meaning : if you quit in the middle of a level, you will have to do the entire thing again. This wouldn't be that much of a problem if you were told that instead of having to figure this out for yourself. Once you start your saved files, you get the cutscene back and you can skip ahead those you've already watched, I sometimes manage to skip the entire dialogue part (and I did not select "Next stage") and missed some plot elements. I don't know if it's a glitch or intended but I think warning the player is a best course of action than letting him jump blindly in the unknown...

 

 

It's available for the price of 15? on Steam (the most evil of dematerialized sellers) and the best thing I can say of it is that : for the same price you could get your hands on Shovel Knight which is an excellent game, and Freedom Planet doesn't feel like it's too expensive for what you get ; so even if it doesn't prove to be as good as Shovel Knight, it's still solid enough on its own. I can safely say I'm gonna finish this game.

 

Alright, folks, don't hesitate to share your impressions, I'll leave you with the invicibility jingle of the game.

 

 

[TheRaven]

Strife, a member over at Sonic Retro made this game btw. (Didn't know if you knew that.) Anyways I've been keeping up with the topic there while the game was in progress here and there, and when I get paid next I do want to purchase this game. I should download the demo to see how well it'll run on my computer. (Though it should run fine, I have a gaming rig so...) It started as a fan game running off of Sonic Worlds I believe if memory serves me correctly. :V If I had a decent computer last year I would have backed the project.

[MechaGS]

I bought Freedom Planet on day one and love it to bits. I'm a massive Sonic fan though, so having a 16-bit era throw-back to that style of game (plus extra) is an instant win with me.

 

I recommend this to all who loved the Genesis / Mega Drive or SNES days. It's a fitting nod to the development style's back then.

[TheCloudyEye]

I have rather mixed feeling about this game. On one hand, the gameplay seems pretty solid, the music is really nice and the graphic is beautiful. On the other hand, I can't bring myself to like the character design. Might give it a try eventually, though.

[TheRaven]

 So... I bought this game recently. I must say, I am quite impressed with the gameplay, level layouts, and especially the soundtrack. (I'm currently listening to it as I type this out btw...) While I won't say that it trumps any Sonic game (nor would I even compare it to a Sonic game, since it plays like a Mega Man X game, Gunstar Heroes, and Sonic...) it's definitely one of the best platformers I have ever played. It's currently half off if i'm not mistaken, I'm not sure if that sale ended already though. (It was half off yesterday IIRC...) I highly recommend it to everyone on here, since the majority of us are Mega Man/Sonic/classic platformer fans.