Journey to the Savage Planet – Review

Space is always an interesting subject, it is the unknown that we always have had so many questions about. It also works well for video games, bringing endless opportunities to what you want to make. Journey to the Savage Planet’s main point is exactly that, exploration to find out more about all these planets. Mix that with gameplay designed by the same director that was a part of Assassins Creed and Far Cry series Alex Hutchinson. It looks like an interesting idea that I now have had a chance to play.

Name: Journey to the Savage Planet
Developer: Typhoon Studios
Publisher: 505 Games
Released: 28.01.2020
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Reviewed on: PC
Acquired: A copy of this game was provided by a publisher for review purpose

Story

Journey to the Savage Planet will not score any points for originality, it starts off like we often see “during landing the ship gets damaged so the pilot is now stuck, needing to find resources to get back home” You play as aerospace employe for the company Kindred, that travels to space to find new planets to explore and find useful items for them. You quickly learn that HSE (Health, Security, and Environment) isn’t a Kindred top priority when it comes to its employees. Basically, if you die they simply make a new copy of you that gets all your old memories. If you think this sounds too sad and cruel, relax everything is being told through humor and sarcasm. This is tongue in cheek humor at it’s prime. Commercials, emails, and dialogue even the enemies are there to humor you. If you are into slapstick and fart humor you will really enjoy yourself. Most of the story is being found in the exploration and in the environments, while you are looking for resources and looking for what that used to the habitat it.
8/10

Graphics

Colors and drug illusions are the first that comes to mind when explaining the graphics, it has that cartoony art style that makes some really interesting environments. Creatures that walk around are both cute and quite disturbing to watch, but fun to kick or poke in the eye (yes that is possible, but more on that later) While exploring you will see that the planet has many different types of environments. It is the basic forest, mountains, and caves, but with colorful nature with huge plants and crystals filling the place. It feels cheerful and like a really nice place to be in, it makes it interesting to explore.
8/10

Gameplay 

The early objectives are centered on getting your bearings and scanning the surrounding area, which is about all your equipment allows for. However, exploration quickly proves rewarding. For example, I found (and ate) a mysterious orange blob, giving me a permanent health and stamina upgrade. In addition to 100 others to find and eat, you also find alien alloy (which can be used in crafting), as well as resources dropped by creatures and caches. Cracked walls, high ledges, and grapple points hint at secrets worth exploring, with lore-based discoveries like alien tablets and explorer logs that provide you with videos and messages explaining what happened before your arrival.

You can craft a better battery for your pistol, plus thrusters that give you a double jump, and the grappling hook that opens up new paths to explore. These are some of the basics you need to advance to the story. But exploring on your own can bring you resources to use to upgrade to make things easier for you. You also have an assortment of throwables that have their uses, ranging from bate to bouncy blobs and grappling hook points.  It is rewarding to go by yourself and is strongly encouraged.

As much I enjoy discovering the various secrets, the act of reaching them wasn’t always fun. First-person platforming is difficult to get the hang of due to your restricted FOV, making some platforming sequences harder than they should be. Another problem is the gunplay, which is good at best. While your primary weapon is upgradeable with faster reloads, increased damage, and a bigger battery, shooting enemies never feels exciting. Aiming is imprecise no matter how you tune the sensitivity and hitting moving or small targets often proves more like a hassle than fun.
7/10

Controls

Aiming and gunplay aside it controls pretty straightforward as an fps, it is a bit floaty as we often see in space genre games. There is also a sideways dash that is being used to quickly avoid danger, which is easy to use with a push of a button. The grappling hook is quite forgiving with its use and can be compared with the Batarang from the Batman Arkham games with prompts to when you are in range to use it.
8/10

Replay Value

Main objectives won’t take too long to finish, but most of the gameplay is being prolonged with its sidequest and your will to explore and gather all the data. In what order you choose to do so is up to you. I often sidetracked while doing mains quests and saw something interesting and suddenly forgot what I was doing in the first place. You also have the opportunity to take with you a friend on your journey. Where much more of the fun can be found, two friends on an adventure, killing cute birds and eating stuff they don’t know what it is.
8/10

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