In 2020, Journey to the Savage Planet provided engaging exploration and ingenious fight as you scoured an unaccommodating alien planet for assets and catalogued its inhabitants. 5 years later, Revenge of the Savage Planet delivers the identical primary idea, however because of a brand new third-person perspective, a number of planets, and a extra considerate world design, it affords gamers a extra constant and satisfying expertise.
Getting into the spacesuit of a hapless company worker tasked with exploring planets in distant corners of the galaxy, you instantly get to work scanning each object, creature, and plant. I beloved activating my visor and seeing a ton of beforehand unscanned objects round me. As you discover, you encounter a number of completely different beasts, starting from cute ball-like raccoons to flaming birds that won’t hesitate to spew lava at you.
Armed with an upgradeable pistol, I at all times felt well-equipped to deal with the encounters I used to be thrust into. Add varied peripheral weapons like bait that distracts enemies or causes them to assault one another, a hose that may spray every part from lava to conductive goo, and a magnetic fork that allows you to flip steel objects into projectiles, and Revenge of the Savage Planet affords participating fight encounters all through.
You will want all these weapons at your disposal for the occasions if you bump into nests or end up the topic of an ambush. On a number of events, I struggled to maintain up with the chaos onscreen, as wasps fired projectiles, exploding monsters sprinted in the direction of me, and tongue-lashing beasts tried to rope me in for dinner. In these cases, I relied closely not solely on these secondary weapons, however on my character’s mobility, which can also be upgradeable. Nevertheless, some enemy varieties, like small bees that teleport round and poke at you from a number of instructions, had been extra annoying than difficult.
Upgrades are well-paced as you discover and collect assets, discover blueprints, and full quests to unlock new improve branches. Whereas defeated creatures drop assets, few emotions surpassed the enjoyment of watching a useful resource cache you discovered pop like a piñata. These assets are important for upgrading each a part of your weapon and go well with. Early on, I beloved including extra oomph to my pistol, gaining a double-jump, or eradicating fall injury, whereas later upgrades essentially modified exploration by way of skills like attaching a grapple beam wherever, together with mid-air.
Although I beloved including that grappling skill to my arsenal late within the sport, I used to be glad it got here later, because it flips my favourite a part of the sport, exploration, on its head. Revenge of the Savage Planet offers you a number of planets, every with distinct biomes and myriad secrets and techniques to uncover, both alone or with a buddy, all through its 12-plus hour marketing campaign. Because of this entry’s shift from the first-person gameplay of its predecessor to third-person gameplay, leaping from cliffside to floating platform is far more intuitive and dependable. From the plush rainforest surroundings of the starter planet to the icy peaks, sandy dunes, and volcanic craters of subsequent worlds, I relished discovering each secret I might and scanning each creature so as to add them to my catalog.
Revenge of the Savage Planet succeeds the place many exploration-based open-world video games fall quick: It affords compelling discoveries practically in every single place you go. Due to this, I typically veered off the golden path to see what was nestled on the cliffside above my goal. Its Metroid-like world design dangles engaging secrets and techniques over your head, solely to make you notice you do not have the suitable gear to succeed in it. I misplaced rely of the variety of occasions I excitedly returned to a earlier planet with my new improve to lastly entry an space I realized about hours prior.
Although it falls extra into the background than the gameplay parts, Revenge of the Savage Planet affords principally satisfying satire of companies and the act of working for one, together with a customizable habitat that you should use proprietary company foreign money to brighten. Although I used to be at all times extra compelled by the guidelines nature of my quest log than I used to be by the narrative’s core thriller, I used to be glad to see the story by way of. Developer Raccoon Logic lays the humor on thick, significantly within the habitat, the place you may watch satirical commercials. The jokes did not at all times land for me, however just a few elicited greater than a chuckle.
Revenge of the Savage Planet is an improve over its predecessor in practically each manner. Persistently rewarding exploration pushed me to poke round each nook of the worlds I visited, and often-fun fight encounters saved the expertise contemporary and fascinating. The primary sport was a enjoyable one-off expertise, however its sequel is a much more full and rewarding bundle that left me hungry for extra savage planets to discover.
