Alright, what obscure indie game are we reviewing today? Well reader, I was debating whether or not to cover Trepang2 since it’s basically the spiritual successor to F.E.A.R and people love that game. As the average person seeing bullets go through guys is enough to make their jaw drop and do the cartoonish eye stare where their eyes bulge out. Played it and managed to beat it in three hours. Nothing really impressed me beyond its combat loop, and I wasn't sure there was enough to stretch it out to a full length review. Tried giving Project Warlock another go, but got annoyed by it pretty quickly as its claustrophobic level design and strict ammo supplies made it unfun to play. Not gonna lie, I am getting pretty tired of indie shooters. There’s so many shooters out in the market that they all start to blend together to make this hulking ugly mass. One that eats you from the toes first rather than start with the head, and it seems more eager to lick on ‘em rather than bite down. For a very drawn out period of time. So instead I decided to do what was best and play something that wasn’t a first person shooter. Guess what kids! Turns out playing something outside your comfort zone is better than sticking to one specific genre or thing all the time.
The game I played recently was a short puzzle platformer called Planet of Lana. Developed by a small team, Wishfully Studios, and is their debut title. I did not know this game existed until late last year. Someone brought it up to me, I watched a trailer, and thought “That looks like a game I would enjoy. Why not.” It was colorful, cinematic, had nice sounding music, and it reminded me heavily of Playdead. You know, those guys who made Limbo and Inside. What are considered by a lot of people to be some of the greatest indie games ever made. I never loved those two to those extremes, but that isn’t to say I think they’re overrated. I do very much like Limbo and Inside. As games they’re alright, but from an artistic point of view they are stellar. Making the most of their short run times by delivering thrilling set pieces and moments. Knowing when to scare the ever living sh*t out of the player and get them excited. Telling stories without speaking a single word and letting their imagination run wild as they comprehend what happened. Nothing has captured the feeling of Inside since then, but there have been attempts. Little Nightmares tried to capture said feeling and for the most it succeeded while setting a distinct identity for itself. One that was good enough to warrant a sequel. Then came more games and I’m a bit concerned now.
Inside was outstanding, but I don't think it was mainly the bleak tone that defined it. The horror, mystery, presentation, and all of that. That’s why Inside and Limbo are looked fondly back upon, and I’m starting to get sick of seeing games with bleak settings that lack substance. I want to try a game that’s more lighthearted, and here comes Planet of Lana to answer my prayers. I knew the game was going to be good jumping in. The visuals were of course nice and the premise was interesting enough. What I did expect it to do was exceed my expectations and deliver what is possibly a game that excels past Inside for me. I love this game. It’s a perfect demonstration on how games like Inside don’t always have to be bleak or follow it word for word. Not saying all of these games do it, but Planet of Lana stands out not just for perfectly mimicking the gameplay and design philosophy of Inside but delivering a memorable and beautiful artistic experience. So today we’re talking about why I love Planet of Lana and why it deserves your attention. Welcome my friend to a whole new world...
Story
Our story follows Lana, a young girl who lives in a small fishing village located on a planet that brims with all sorts of life. She lives there with her older sister Elo and ever since their parents died they promised to protect one another. Skipping from hut to hut, swimming in the waters, and enjoying their peaceful lives. All’s well that ends well. Until suddenly on a bright sunny day they witness a series of stars crash onto the earth. Except these aren’t stars and are instead alien machines from another world. There to capture any sentient life and bring them back to where they once came. Elo is the first to be captured and Lana chases after her hoping to get her sister back. She runs back to her village where she witnesses it being torn apart. Set ablaze as the alien machines capture everyone in the village. Lana is distraught by all that happened, but ventures forward in the hope she’ll rescue her people. Away from the village she goes. To explore a land unfamiliar to her and figure out were the damn alien machines originally hailed.
Things don’t go out as planned as the alien machines roam the world in search of other life, and the other lifeforms on the planet want to eat Lana whole. The world is dangerous, but within the first few hours of her journey Lana manages to make a friend. A weird cat mouse creature that is plump and soft to hold. Lana saves this creature from an alien machine and the two become close friends. She names the cat mouse thing Mui, and Mui follows Lana for the rest of her journey. Helping her with whatever problems stand in her way and protecting her from any danger. Along the way they learn more about the alien machines and the world that came before them. Ruins of a now lost civilization and what they planned for the rest of humanity. Basically, the writers are pulling off a Horizon Zero Dawn or Nier: Automata, but trust me it’s good.
Gameplay
If you ever played Limbo or Inside before then you should feel right at home with this game. It’s the realistic physics platformer you come to expect. You jump, grab ledges, and swing on ropes except instead of jumping twice your height you make it a few inches off the ground. Jumping from a high enough place will kill you, and if not then something else will kill you. Whether that be environmental hazards, animal life, or robots with tasers, Dear god, you will die from getting tasered a lot. Stay out of their line of sight and venture forth. You could jump around the world, or you could hide in tall grass because Planet of Lana has stealth mechanics. There’s a crouch button and it allows you to duck down or squeeze into tight passages. If you can’t reach a ledge then try dragging over an object you can hop onto. That being boxes, logs, and plenty of other things lying around. There’s terminals in the world and these terminals allow you to do one of many things. Turn machinery on or off, or gain full controls of said machinery. You can control robots and these robots need to be used to solve puzzles. The game is cleverly pacing you into the mechanics and builds upon them by combining the mechanics or throwing harder puzzles.
It’s not just your basic survival skills you’ll be relying on. Early on you free and unlock Mui. The tiny cat mouse creature who can help you out and be commanded at your will. Mui can crawl under tiny gaps you can’t fit under, jump to high places, bite away at wiring, and activate any machinery you can’t reach. He can wait at specific spots, help create distractions, and the list goes on and on. Mechanics for Mui are quite diverse and this combined with environmental rules introduced each level help create variety for what is a straightforward puzzle platformer. There are times where you are gonna need to think, and it feels rewarding when you finally find the solution to a puzzle and pull it off successfully. It's great. Outside of that there really is not much else for me to say. It’s simple to play, and I like games that are simple to play. They’re much easier to pick off and I think anyone can enjoy them, especially Planet of Lana. Let’s hope you can find where your sister is, rescue her, and bring peace back to this humble world.
Thoughts
This review is kind of short. I was planning on saving Planet of Lana up for a Brief Look, but I felt like there was much more to this game than I thought. There was and that’s why I decided to give this game the special treatment of a full review. I love this game. You already know this by now. I can see you already predicting that I give a strong recommendation and urge everyone to play it. Sadly, Planet of Lana is not going to be for everyone. Yet again, the last indie game we covered had me saying the exact same thing and I’m getting tired of saying “Not for everyone.” Who cares? I don’t care if you don’t like it. Opinions are subjective afterall. I can’t force you to like something, and you aren’t gonna bring me down with your negative thoughts. Even so it’s pretty bad if you can’t look at games beyond a certain perspective and enjoy it for what it does well. Planet of Lana is a one and done experience. These types of games and their worth will depend on what type of gamer you are. Do you want a game with tons of content, endless replay value, or gameplay you can sink your teeth into? This is not for you, but I’m someone with quite varied tastes and Planet of Lana managed to surprise me.
I want to first mainly talk about how this game one ups the design philosophy of Inside and any other game like it. You are gonna die a lot, but at least the reason why you died makes sense. In Inside you tend to die for weird reasons, but that was due to how weird the world of that game is. In Planet of Lana it’s usually due to survival instinct. Of course that creature that looked like a hog was going to charge at you at full speed. Of course that height was good enough to kill you. Of course trying to rush through a stealth section will get you killed faster. It’s by placing a big focus on core mechanics that Planet of Lana manages its gameplay and design better. Puzzles are well designed and built upon what you have. They’re not easy, but they don’t feel arbitrary. It just takes a few minutes to think through, solve, and wallah! You got it. Chase sections are well designed too and give you clear indications of what to do and where to run. The controllers are good and I like how simple it was to direct Mui. That’s another thing I like. Mui, despite being a cat mouse creature, is quite helpful and a lot of puzzles accommodate him well. You have to protect him just like you have to protect yourself, and these limitations that get to play a bit carefully. Consider the options you have, and how to get both of you to where you need to be. It is good puzzle design and you don’t get that often from games doing multiple things on mass.
So the core gameplay and design is quite good, but how about everything else. How is the style for a game that puts a heavy focus on its visuals? It’s great too. A lot of people will be entranced by what Planet of Lana presents. This game supports my claim that not every game that will kill you often needs to have a dark tone or setting. Why not a bright colorful world teaming with life and all sorts of locales? I like how the game has a heavy usage of blue, green, and gray. How it all pops towards your eyes and nothing meshes in with the background. I like where you end up going and they introduce enough stellar set pieces so that one section doesn’t feel samey. No area or level in this game goes on too long and can be finished within thirty minutes or so. It’s a well paced game and I was surprised how such a small indie studio could knock it out of the park with some of these scenes. There’s one section late into the game that feels ripped out of Dune or the desert scenes in Star Wars. In fact, I wouldn’t doubt if the people making this game were huge fans of either or. You’re riding through the sands at full speeds. The alien machines surround you as you try to get away. Briskly avoid their attacks until you reach the center machine lying in the midst of the desert. One of the biggest highlights of my journey to be honest with you.
During your travels you’ll here a variety of tracks and sounds, and let me tell you that soundtrack is top f*cking notch. Audio design, the pitch of them, and the music. The soundtrack is beautiful and I’m surprised the composer did not get nominated for what is music that belongs in films. It is cinema alongside the rest of this game, and I plan to listen to these tracks on car rides. Story is great and I like how much of it is conveyed without speaking a word, exposition dumping, or if a word is said it’s usually done in a made up language. What do you expect from a game literally titled Planet of Lana. Do you expect them to speak perfect English? Hell no. It very much shares the same reason why I love Hyper Light Drifter so much. Much of the world building is done through pictures and visual storytelling. You see it, you piece the information you get together, and if not much else is provided you let your imagination fill in the blanks. It is well done and by the end I had a very good grasp of what was going on and the central mystery of the game. The plot twist wasn’t anything original I mean there was a reason I called this a Horizon Zero Dawn. Yet again, it’s done well and fits in with the narrative perfectly. Good story and one of the ending scenes may send some tears down your eyes. Just a beautiful narrative done without talking.
Planet of Lana is a masterpiece in my book. This is a game review though and I do have to find a few nitpicks for the game, so here goes. I don’t like how the flying robots control. I feel like it should’ve been just dragging them around rather than having a trigger you press back and forward to propel them and tilt the joystick to see them hurl in one of two directions. I feel like swinging on ropes should be better, because logically you swing back and forth to make the rope swing farther. However, that is not the case because sometimes it just squirms depending on the position you are on the rope. Yet again, I don’t understand physics so that’s just a problem for me. While the puzzles are well designed for some of them I’d say take pictures with your phone, because the evidence you are given is spread far apart from each other and it leads to needless backtracking. I don’t like the slight delay for when you call Mui back, but need him to stop while running back. A few puzzles need you to do this and he either runs over the button you need him to weigh down on or before. It’s only a few puzzles though and you can nail it quickly. There’s nothing truly bad I can say about Planet of Lana. It is a wonderful work of art and I’m not afraid to say that it’s a masterpiece. For their debut title Wishfully Studios did well and I hope any of the projects they have for the future are as good as Planet of Lana. This is perfect for anyone who wants a lighthearted Inside. I am going to give Planet of Lana a 9.5/10 for being superb.
This critique was written by the single man at Review on. Stay tuned for more content and feel free to check more reviews out over at my site!
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