Journey to the Savage Planet Review
Congratulations, you have been chosen to explore planet ARY-26 working for the “4th Best Interstellar Exploration Company”, Kindred Aerospace. Sadly, your arrival at the planet did not go very smoothly and you’ve crash landed. You will have to not only explore this planet but you’re going to be tasked with trying to put your ship back together. If only it were that easy… You see there seems to be more to this planet than everyone was led to believe. There are ancient structures that shouldn’t be there, and you’re going to have to figure out what that’s all about as well in Journey to the Savage Planet.
This is a game where you’re going to be upgrading your equipment as you go. You’re going to be given tasks to complete that will allow you to unlock upgrades so that you can get further into the game. You’re going to need a gun, a jetpack, a grappling hook, upgrades to your health, stamina, visor, and more, and you’re going to have to get all of these things through tasks in the game. The health and stamina portion will increase as you ingest Orange Goo, some absolutely vile natural plant/organism that after you’ve ingested enough of it will increase your health and stamina. The rest of the upgrade/unlockable pieces you’ll have to work for. Most of the time you’re going to be given the task of trying to find the suitable alloy or components needed to unlock the upgrade, which can then be created in the 3D printer on your ship.
My advice to you is to scan EVERYTHING, once you get into an area that looks a little different, turn your visor on and find all the scannable things and scan them. Scan the rocks, the trees, planets, creatures, statues, anything that glows that lovely shade of orange. I really do wish that all you had to do was scan everything, but the final step in almost all the unlocking of items is a boss fight, most of which took me two or more attempts to complete. All of the bosses have patterns, and you just have to figure out the pattern, but I will give you a helpful hint, DON’T STAND STILL. Yes, I know it is a fatal flaw of mine, I get wrapped up in trying to land that perfect shot and so I stop moving, don’t do that, you’re more likely to get your ass kicked than do the ass kicking, I promise.
There are a ton of areas that you’re going to have to come back to once you’ve gained the correct ability to access that area. There are areas that require the use of electric fruit, bomb fruit, the ability to power stomp, and the ability to power grapple. Most of these abilities will be pretty easy to unlock as long as you’re following the story, as some of those power ups are needed to advance the story. Speaking of the story, I got the credits to roll within 10 hours of starting the game, however there was about 35% of the game left to play. I point this out because I know that there are some completionists out there who fear the credit screen thinking that maybe they can’t get their perfect score if they go ahead and beat the final boss (who is a frustrating piece of work).
There was definitely a balance of frustration and fun that I had in the game. There are some jumps or grapples that I thought I had, but missed and so I ended up falling to my death, or having to start a complicated section all over again, but overall I enjoy this game. There was a level of silliness to it, I mean look who your employer is, right off the bat, you’re working for the 4th best, and the scientist that you’ll be reporting to throughout the game screams crazy, possibly mad, scientist. So if you’re up for a first person shooter, action, planetary exploration game, I'd say you check this game out.