Revenge of the Savage Planet review: An upbeat solar system that’s fun but frustrating

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It’s refreshing to find a rare gem among the multitude of common survival crafting games that seem to dominate the scene every week. Fortunately, Revenge of the Savage Planet stands out with its captivating visual style.

The aesthetic greatly enhances my enjoyment, as it stands out from other survival/crafting games that often favor gritty realism. Having vibrant settings filled with peculiar creatures and vegetation to discover is like a refreshing change of pace; the creatures in particular have an uncanny ability to be adorably cute yet slightly unsettling at the same time. This sparked my eagerness to venture out and explore the world, eagerly seeking unusual sights.

Initially, I was really excited about exploring the various planets in this game, but sadly, the thrill didn’t last as long as I anticipated. It turned out that each planet had only a few surprises left to discover, which made the fresh feeling of setting foot on a new world disappear rather swiftly whenever I landed on a new planet. Instead of immersing myself in all the side missions and research tasks the game offered, I found myself yearning to complete the main quest as quickly as possible.

In this galactic adventure, I find myself navigating through five captivating worlds, each offering unique experiences. Upon my spaceship’s unfortunate crash upon arrival, my equipment was scattered across the cosmos. The main storyline then guides me on a rather linear journey, taking me through each planet piece by piece after the wreckage.

The primary quest follows a consistent pattern: I’m dropped onto a planet with clear objectives to gather or reassemble pieces of my lost gear, overcome platforming obstacles and engage in combat encounters as I progress. Once these tasks are completed, I’m given the means to propel myself to the next planet, much like a missile launch, allowing me to start anew.

Although I am free to venture off and explore the planets I’ve already unlocked at my leisure to tackle all the additional side content, I found myself losing enthusiasm for these detours quite rapidly.

One advantage is that if you opt to play the game focusing solely on the main storyline, there’s minimal obstruction preventing you from doing so. The goal is always evident, and it’s uncommon that you’ll have to make significant deviations to enhance your equipment. The areas along the primary path provided me with most of the resources necessary for essential upgrades, and I never felt like the game was penalizing me for skipping side activities, which I found refreshing, as other survival crafting games can be quite tiresome in terms of upgrading.

Another way of putting it is: Revenge of the Savage Planet takes a more streamlined approach to survival and crafting elements, maintaining the fast-paced experience I prefer. The game eliminates factors like hunger, thirst, and sleep meters, focusing instead on a restricted health and stamina system that keeps you engaged without giving much room for errors. In terms of crafting, the futuristic setting simplifies things by requiring only three base elements for all items in the game; once you find the blueprint, creating any item becomes straightforward.

The game’s simplicity often works against it, particularly in combat scenarios. In these instances, you’ll frequently find yourself dodging enemies as they charge at you while you retaliate with your pistol. Unfortunately, this results in relatively mundane encounters. The game’s bosses serve as entertaining spectacles, but they rarely present a significant challenge. While identifying an enemy’s weak spot to stun them for research purposes does offer an additional layer of complexity, you only need to do so once per species encountered.

In this game, there’s a part that can be quite frustrating due to its design. Specifically, you have to jump across several tiny platforms suspended in mid-air, and enemies that explode when you least expect them to appear, knocking you off course if you don’t respond quickly enough. While the odd occurrence of this can add a bit of excitement, it happened so frequently that I had to pause the game for a while to cool down after getting frustrated. This instance showcases an element of carelessness in the level design, although it doesn’t necessarily ruin the overall experience.

Though there were several issues, I’d like to stress that I did have a good time overall. The game’s frequent FMV cutscenes are filled with clever humor, and this humor is also reflected in the gameplay. Although I sometimes got irritated by the exploding enemies, I can appreciate their slapstick element – an aspect that could be even funnier if you play cooperatively with someone else.

Although the expedition didn’t deliver the continuous thrill and astonishment I anticipated, “Revenge of the Savage Planet” maintains a lively and swift pace, transforming it into an entertaining survival crafting escapade you can breeze through with a companion. It might not bring anything groundbreaking to the genre, but I’d be pleased if other games adopted some of its strategies for streamlining this type of gaming experience.

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2025-05-07 13:06