There’s very little I enjoy more than a silly game, but some games lean a little too hard on the wacky crutch. When something like floppy physics is all a title brings to the table it’s just not enough for me, because I’m still trying to enjoy myself playing an actual video game. Revenge of the Savage Planet walks the silly tightrope perfectly, by combining slapstick comedy with seriously compelling Metroidvania exploration to create a must play experience.
In the corporate hellscape that is the Savage Planet universe, you play as yet another worker for a greedy megacorp. Tasked with creating a new settlement on a distant rock, your job is quickly terminated leaving you stranded. Now with only a lonely futuristic settlement on your side, it’s up to you to find a way home and dish out some sweet revenge. To do this though you’ll need to explore some planets and upgrade your kit.
Above all else, Revenge of the Savage Planet is a game about exploration. With a variety of colourful biomes to scour, there’s all sorts of unique flora and fauna to check out. All of this can be scanned with your handy scanner, which will give you important information or at the very least provide you with a delightfully daft description of a mushroom shaped cactus. Once scanned each plant or creature will change colour in your visor’s vision too, and there’s a real satisfaction to clearing all the orange unscanned objects from a planet.
If you want to investigate every corner of a lush jungle or desert you’ll need to upgrade your abilities by finding crates or doing scientific research. At first you’ll only really have a double jump at your disposal, but before you know it you’ll be getting around with even more jumps, a grapple, and even the ability to grind on energy rails. Other abilities can be used to access new areas too on top of this, like a ground pound that smashes weak floors, and the ability to move metal with a big magnet. It always feels good to unlock a new ability, and it happens constantly.
As with any great Metroidvania, Revenge of the Savage Planet features that wonderful backtracking with new abilities that I desperately need. Getting a new skill and returning to an older planet to find all sorts of health upgrades or handy types of currency is an absolute blast, and as you play you’ll notice plenty of areas you can’t yet access yet that you’ll need to return to later. Thankfully there are lots of ways to find and track unobtainable collectibles, making map cleanup a breeze once you’ve got the jump upgrades you need.
Alongside movement abilities you’re also able to upgrade your weapon selection, be it your basic blaster or other offensive options. Your pistol is totally adequate at taking on the almost harmless chibi racoons, but before long you’ll want to have a charge shot and active reload to gun down teleporting mantises and flying ice dragons. Other enemies require different tools to deal with them, like your squirt gun that you can load with all sorts of elemental liquids and slippery slimes. There’s a wonderful variety of ways to deal with aggressive creatures (or passive creatures you just fancy murdering) and it’s fun to experiment with them all.
If you’re not feeling quite so violent, you can also capture these space animals instead of blasting them into a pile of green goo and eyeballs. Once you unlock the whip you can use it on any stunned critters to take ownership of them, and send them to a little space zoo back at the colony. This isn’t just an adorable side activity though, because each species you obtain can also be researched which will grant you new abilities. This automatic process does take a while though, so it’s a good job there’s plenty in this game to keep you busy.
The amount of different side quests you’ll have in your quest log at any given time in Revenge of the Savage Planet is rather impressive, but what’s more impressive is how enjoyable they all are. You’ll get challenges to complete that task you with unique objectives, like diving into water from a certain height,or killing enemies in a specific way. You can also design a kickass base by buying decorations and sofas for the perfect hangout space, which is totally optional but a lot of fun. There are quests tied to scanning and capturing, hidden puzzle shrines to take on, and when all else fails you can just go out to gather resources. There wasn’t a single second of my time with Revenge of the Savage Planet that felt wasted or boring. Seirously: not one.
Revenge of the Savage Planet is such a friction free and compelling experience, but alongside all the delightful Metroidvania hooks and exploration there’s also a whole lot of comedy. Even your run animation in this game is funny, but that’s just the tip of the funny bone. The ridiculous adverts that play at your base made me laugh more than anything else, be they propaganda messages from the Shama Llama or promotional videos for squirting burgers. I laughed out loud multiple times playing this game, and with local and online co-op available you can also amp up the laughs with a buddy.
Revenge of the Savage Planet is a brilliant game, and it’s hard to really think of many issues I had with it. Sometimes your robot companion can be a bit annoying, and a few times it said things that didn’t make sense (such as assuming I didn’t have an upgrade when I’d just used it). Some might find the game a bit straightforward and easy too, although that frictionless fun will be what some appreciate the most.
Very very few games have given me as much joy as Revenge of the Savage Planet this year. This game is effortlessly compelling, laugh out loud funny, and one of the best sequels I’ve played in a long time. Whether you like exploring beautiful alien worlds, getting grabbed by powerful Metroidvania hooks or stomping on eyeballs, Revenge of the Savage Planet is a game you need to play sooner rather than later.
