Freedom Planet Reviews

I have some thinking to do. come back later

Peak sidescrolling action!

One of the greatest 2D action platformers out there.

Fantastic platformer in the vein of a Sonic game. Fast paced, but never frustrating.

This game is a lot of fun. I played the first time on hard mode. I don't think anyone should do that for the first time. There are two drawbacks to this game, one is glaring, one is not so bad: I did not enjoy any bosses except for the second fight against Serpentine. All of the bosses were really difficult until I figured out what really only amounts to a "cheese" to which the boss took a few more tries and I was bored and annoyed. At that point the bosses feel less like a fight and more like a chess game. Second, I really had no stake in the story. Not that big of a deal overall, but still. Some cutscenes went on far too long too. The level design and feel of this game is great! Being able to blast through some levels via dashing will never not be satisfying. Be prepared for a lot of collectibles you don't know what to do with. I still have no clue what the rainbow ying-yangs do...

This is a wonderful send up to Sega Genesis/ Mega drive platforming games, particularly those of the Classic sonic series and Rocket knight games. I highly recommend giving this a shot. The developers of Freedom planet really went places to try and fully replicate the look and sound of a Genesis/ megadrive game, from how backgrounds scrolled, sprites interact with environment , and even to finding sound effects that are direct rips from those Genesis/ megadrive games. Freedom planet nails the look of a game release in the last year of the Genesis/ Megadrive. The Music is stellar. The game decided(wisely) not to replicate the sound of a Genesis/ megadrive, so no Yamaha Chip emulation to make the Metal Grindy tunes of the Console. This is a wonderful send up to Sega Genesis/ Mega drive platforming games, particularly those of the Classic sonic series and Rocket knight games. I highly recommend giving this a shot. The developers of Freedom planet really went places to try and fully replicate the look and sound of a Genesis/ megadrive game, from how backgrounds scrolled, sprites interact with environment , and even to finding sound effects that are direct rips from those Genesis/ megadrive games. Freedom planet nails the look of a game release in the last year of the Genesis/ Megadrive. The Music is stellar. The game decided(wisely) not to replicate the sound of a Genesis/ megadrive, so no Yamaha Chip emulation to make the Metal Grindy tunes of the Console.This is a wonderful send up to Sega Genesis/ Mega drive platforming games, particularly those of the Classic sonic series and Rocket knight games. I highly recommend giving this a shot. The developers of Freedom planet really went places to try and fully replicate the look and sound of a Genesis/ megadrive game, from how backgrounds scrolled, sprites interact with environment , and even to finding sound effects that are direct rips from those Genesis/ megadrive games. Freedom planet nails the look of a game release in the last year of the Genesis/ Megadrive. The Music is stellar. The game decided(wisely) not to replicate the sound of a Genesis/ megadrive, so no Yamaha Chip emulation to make the Metal Grindy tunes of the Console. The music is runs a whole course of sounds, from the bombastic boss themes, to the more adventurous tunes of say jade River or the Sense of Finality in Dreadnought 3. The composer really put something great together . The game plays in very similar vein of Genesis/ megadrive era platformers, particularly the classic sonic games and unexpectedly The Rocketknight series of games from Konami. The basics of the game are run generally to the right of screen avoiding obstacales, taking out enemy forces and try and get to the end in as fast a manner as possible. The Main characters of Lilac(purple dragon girl) and Carol(green catgirl) share basic mechanics with each, they both have a basic attack button. Attacks vary depending on the direction held (the game does have a slightly higher focus on combat compared to the inspirational 16 bit games i.e several non boss enemies take multiply hits to defeat instead of one). Both characters have a jump; though if the jump button is pushed again in the middle of jump, Lilac will have a midair jump that consumes a bit of her special meter getting her a bit of extra height(it also has attack properties) Carol on the other hand, after jumping will perform a small lunge forward, giving her a bit more horizontal momentum(it is also utilized with her basic attack ) . Finally both characters have a special button, for Lilac it doubles as both a movement/attack mechanic but it will drain her entire special meter; as for carol, her special button allows her to pump out continuous damage as long as there is meter to burn. Now of the character's unique properties; Lilac is the stronger of the two and could be compared to being Freedom Planet's Sonic, except she handles like Sparkster from the rocket night adventure titles. Her entire gameplan revolves around her special, which is a speed dash forward or at 45 degree angle upwards. When used it, burns her entire meter sending her forward. For the most part, you will be using this for movement/platforming but it does do damage to enemies she runs into and can even do more damage if Lilac is lucky enough to be dashing as an enemy is moving away from her, basically maintaining her hits on the enemy. Carol is the speed focused character, weaker than lilac in the fight department but makes up with a higher range of mobility. Being a cat allows her to wall jump ala Megaman X, allowing Carol to get to areas that lilac can't . she also has access to special jump pads, that bounce her to the next pad in the sequence. Besides these things about Carol, her biggest mechanic is the Motorcycle. Carol gains access to the motorcycle when she comes across a gas can,which are scattered throughout most stages. When on the motorcycle, carol's jump looses the lunge and gains an attacking double jump; her special button, depending on contact with the ground will either do her continuous attack(off the ground) or will give her a speed boost( on the ground). she also gains the ability to drive up walls with enough speed. The only nitpick i have is how closely she is tied to the motorcycle, she feels incomplete without the motorcycle, which can be destroyed after 3 hits. There is a third character, Milla. She plays quite differently from both lilac and carol. She lacks the combat capability of the other girls, no actual attack button. instead she creates a green energy block that she then tosses at enemies from a distance. Milla's special button is a shield that reflects attacks back at enemies and has little lance attack when she disengages the shield. There is an extra thing that Milla can do and that is combine her block attack with the shield to make a big shield that has a massive lance pop out, decent damage and more importantly has a blow back property on milla; if used in the air it can get Milla just bit more height to reach really high places her extended jump. Other major differences is Milla is physically weak. instead of 8 pips of health that Lilac and Carol of have, Milla only has 4 and she has no special gauge, which means she can keep The shield up indefinitely or until she suffers a hit. She feels simultaneously an easier and harder character to play than the other 2, easier in that she has range and many of the boss fights puts her in a position that makes getting hit by the boss more difficult but also harder in that she has less room to make mistakes due to her low health pool. Also Milla can dig in certain tiles, it's used like 4 times the entire game it's whatever. The Narrative of Freedom Planet feels like a late in the run of Archie Sonic comics, when they started getting out there with their story arcs. The basics of the story are there is a Coalition of planets that are in conflict with a Warlord known as Brevon. This coalition is able to best Brevon, forcing him to crash land on the planet of Avalice. Avalice is populated by three Chinese themed kingdoms, all of them sharing a single power source: The Kingdom Stone. Brevon wants this Stone to repower his Warship and double his strength to defeat the Coalition. Lilac the Dragon, Carol the wild Cat, Torque the last survivor of the coalition force that brought Brevon to Avalice and eventually Milla the hound, team up with allies from the various kingdoms to try and stop Brevon from taking the Kingdom stone. As I stated earlier this feels like a later arc in the archie sonic comics. A very late 90s to mid 2000s feel, pretty fun overall. was hoping for same story different perspectives but that doesn't hold for long, I get it, limited assets but would have been awesome if they could pulled it off. Anyway Highly recommend, i'm looking forward to picking up Freedom planet 2 now.

Good gameplay, nice art, and cringe voice acting (but they're doing their best).

Amazing level design and fun mechanics, but boss fights are a truly miserable experience. I am conflicted on recommending this game due to how clunky and sometimes unfair it feels, but the core mechanics are just too fun to mess around with. My review is after a full campaign completion as Lilac and over half of Carol's campaign. Pros: - Movement is fantastic - Graphics look great - The game sounds great - The story is interesting - Voice acting is good - Three playable characters with unique mechanics - Feels like Sonic without feeling like a ripoff Cons: - Boss fights feel unfair. Many attacks have little to no tells, leading to tons of hits that don't feel like your fault - Later stages have some incredibly unfair enemy placement - Later stages are not nearly as fun as the first half of the game. Late game enemies are complete damage sponges compared to the early stages - Controller support requires messing around in the properties menu to get the game to actually detect a controller in the first place

-Nostalgic Pixel Artstyle: Check! -Amazing Soundtrack: Check! -Poor physics based controls: Check! -Main character with iconic design: Check! -Cute sidekick with wider moveset thats more fun to play as than the MC: Check! -Story thats way too dramatic for whats needed for this type of game: Check! -SPEEEEEEEEEEED: Check! Ill give this the Knuckles stamp of approval. It checks everything one could ask for in a great Sonic game. Highly recommend!