Journey to the Savage Planet - Review

E3 is always a special event, the spectacle of it all, the people, which now include some passionate fans, but above that, the games and while the show is always loud and busy there are some companies that set themselves up off the main floor, which is a nice place to sample a game or two. It was in one of those rooms where I first played Journey to the Savage Planet and they had to come around and kick me off the station almost an hour later, so absorbed in the game I was, but that the game is out, was my E3 hype allocated correctly, or did the lights of E3 blind me to the truth.

The game starts out with your ship arriving at the planet known as AR-Y 26 and by arriving I mean crashing, upon waking up, EKO, the AI that is with you on the journey, has you complete a small series of tests, to ensure that you have not gone space crazy. These tests double as both a quick calibration of the controls for you and help set the tone for the games humour and then you are giving your first task. The games story plays out as you complete the major tasks, Heading to this location scanning that object, but it is in the minor tasks the side missions where things really start to become interesting. Of course, the main goal is to scan all of the planet to determine whether or not it can support life for the human race given that everything tends to explode into giant piles of goo, early indicators indicate no. But that's not gonna stop the mission as you begin to explore the area around the ship you start to learn more about the planet and whilst previously indicated to be barren to intelligent life there are signs that that was a mistake.

As an employee of Kindred, the “4th Best Interstellar Exploration Company,” One would hope that you have adequate supplies for your mission however the company is broke or at least still only broke enough to send you with anything more than a scanner add a printer. The more that you scan the world around you the more that you discover the more you discover the more you can explore with the right upgrade, the hook is very much metroidvania in its approach, and it is executed brilliantly. very early on you will be stuck because a path that you need to proceed upon requires you to double jump and ability that humans have never mastered an unlikely to master without technological assistance, here though we haven't done with a jet pack but again in order to make the jet pack we need to find the right materials. One of the earlier things that you do in the game is let loose a series of cartographers who's entire purpose is to map out the world and discover new things for you to experience, the game will hold this information back until is actually needed for you and once you find that first upgrade requirements the game will let you know it has a material. Of course, getting to the material is no it's not just a walk in the park, it is a walk across an alien landscape filled with creatures you my hope never to see again, but if you persevere you will get the material and proceed forward.

Moving ahead is not just pushing forward, it is about completing the many experiments that Kindred have requested of you, because the more of these that you complete the more upgrades you can unlock. These upgrades are not just cosmetic they are functional and some of them are more useful than others but at least level 2, is where you want to be. The game will give you some information about how best to complete a particular experiment, but the owners is really on you to do it your way, as you're the only human on this planet. The earlier experiments require you to adapt in ways you might not expect for instance kicking enemies into the air then killing them with your pistol, the components to this experiment have been done in countless games before but this combination is a little unique; sadly they are not all that easy some require more dedication to complete and others require a leap of faith. Once you do complete them though you will be able to upgrade if you have the resources and that's where the other element of the game comes into play is gathering those very precious resources. There are only 3 types you need to worry about, and you will get most of them from killing the creatures that roam the planet, occasionally though you will discover deposits of these elements hidden away in caves or on Cliff edges which again highlights the need for exploration. it's not just resource is that you will find as you explore you will discover some bright orange and oddly disgusting goo, which apart from giving you multiple severe tumours, upgrade your health and stamina, which considering some of the bosses is a good thing.

The problem with the resource gathering, is that there are times when you will be 5 silicon short of an upgrade, which you can usually obtain from killing any random creature but then there are times when you need almost 100 and the creature that drops the resource you need is not near where you are. Now backtracking is pretty well handled with the games in built warping system as you activate these mysterious beacons you can teleport between them at will and even inside of the ship itself. These beacons are plentiful, and they do make getting around a lot easier, but the inherent problem is that there is no map, you can explore all that is there to be seen, but there is no map. Given the size of the world that you're exploring, the unique biomes each with their own unique life forms, a map would have gone a long way to making things easier, being able to record down that in the second location that there are creatures rich in aluminium, would save you having to scour multiple locations and take down dozens of creatures all in the hope that you'll get the resources you need.

There are also some issues with the world's construction, it was something that I notice at E3 but just put it down to being an early build, the game will let you climb up most surfaces with the combination of jumping and jet packs, should a surface be too steep you will slide off at like most games however there are not many of those here. This would not be an issue except for the fact that it let you skip over things, one example is a pass fight that I discovered, as part of a mission that I undertook, was pretty straight forward go in and killed the thing however, I wasn't sure how to get to the location so I went up and over. This resulted in me being able to see the boss long before it saw me and while this is normally a good thing, I was able to take the creature out from a safe distance the problem was it didn't trigger the rest of the fight. I had to then walk all the way back to a teleporter, teleport to a different region come back and then find the actual way up the path in order to trigger a fight. This was something that happened a few times and while it was not game breaking, it was frustrating that the game let me climb high, only for my effort to end up being wasted.

There was another issue that I faced and that is the default controls, as I began to play with a mouse and keyboard, the keys for throw item and scan where right next to each other, not normally an issue, but for some reason Q was the button for throw and Tab was scan. The issue would be that when attempting to scan a creature, or plant, or door, or anything really, I would occasionally throw whatever item I had in my hand, now if it was just the can of goo, annoying, but not that bad, but usually it was a sticky trap or at worst, a bomb. Now swapping to a controller, did make that entire topic moot, but it brought up another one, the d-pad being used for both item swapping and enabling the scanner, using the Xbox d-pad would have me randomly cycling through items, before the scanner would activate, which would prove to be a pain, when attempting to scan an elusive critter.

On the presentation side, the game is odd, not in a bad way, just odd, most of the visuals are fine, the audio is much the same, but there are some parts of it that are not right and when you see them, they tend to break the experience. The oddest visual occurrence is that of the critters that litter the landscape, when you kill one, apart from the satisfying and slightly morbid goo explosion, eventually they fade away to nothing, something we have had on games for decades now, the problem is on the other side. When they respawn, they will just sort of fade in, as if being beamed down by a transporter, there are some creatures that will appear from burrows, but they are few and far between. The other issue with the games presentation is that the videos, which funny at times, don’t sit with the rest of the colourful aesthetic the game offers. Some of the commercials for products, are funny, others gross and the mission updates from Kindred are interesting, but seeing live action content, in a world where everything has a cartoonish vibe to it is odd.

The audio side is a little less distracting, but there are times when I would rather it turn off all the time, due to one specific creature, for the most part the only voices you here, will be that of EKO, which is actually performed very well, and the CEO of Kindred. The rest of the noise comes from the creatures and the planet itself, most of the creatures are solid and have enough familiarity to them, that you can assign them to a creature here, but still enough alien to be odd. The exception to that is the two headed bird, that runs around screaming and it’s a shrill scream, the problem is that if there is one nearby, there are likely more and having that screaming coming at you from multiple directions is just painful. The games score on the other hand is solid and has a nice alien twang to it, while not the most unique, it does fit the mould and is something I can easily see slotting into my game music playlist.

Journey to the Savage Planet is an amazing first effort from Typhoon Studio, it has a strange and quirky premise, but is still based in concepts that gamers already know. The games premise is fun and challenging, but rewards those who want to explore some more, the only issue and it is a big one, is that for a game about exploration, the exclusion of a map, is hard to ignore. Layer on some awkward controls, regardless of input method and it can be hard to enjoy it, though if you can adapt, there is a real gem waiting to be enjoyed.