Overall, with all its gameplay design simplicity on the surface, Journey to the Savage Planet still held some fun discoveries along the way that was drenched in short stints of tongue/cheek humor. It does bring a solid adventure and the fact that you can co-op with a friend helps to keep it all fresh and fun.
Journey to the Savage Planet
Picture this, you’re releasing a game that is part No Man’s Sky (the original release), except more populated, teeming with multi-tiered levels, and that contains a tinge of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy comedy to drive it all. If you are playing this, then more than likely you’re playing Journey to the Savage Planet.
Story
A corporation called Kindred Aerospace hires you to go explore planets for their gain. The corporation is so good that it’s ‘4th Best in Space’ (sounds like a solid place). You’re guaranteed no return, no safety, but you are guaranteed goopy consumable gloop that can also be used as a weapon. You’re also guaranteed to find new species, interact with new aliens, and discover beautiful environments that will make your journey worth the trouble. All of this advertised and guaranteed through live-action videos that are reassuring your purpose in the known universe.
The nitty-gritty of the adventure has you tasked with gathering material to craft equipment to make your exploration easier, as well as discovering new things and scanning the hell out of them to gather information for your corporation’s benefit. This is the story of Journey to the Savage Planet, a simple game that is brightly populated with colorful environments, strange and dangerous wacky creatures, and a huge journey to keep you occupied for a while (well at least 10-20 hours — depending on your efforts). You’re also given the opportunity to experience all of this with a friend. Sounds pretty darn good, right?
Let’s dig into it.
Gameplay
The gameplay for Journey to the Savage Planet isn’t too difficult to grasp. The level designs are put together and progressed on how much material you find and what you can make/upgrade with said material. By gathering these upgrades to make new equipment or weapons, you gain access to more areas for you to explore. It’s a ‘give the effort to gather, get more to explore’ sort of deal, which is pretty much an element found in nearly every adventure game. It’s simple, you’ve done it before, so if you love this stuff, then Journey to the Savage Planet is right up your alley.
That said, the game does move at a medium pace (to quote Adam Sandler), especially at the beginning. When you land for the first time on the Savage Planet, you’re sent through a long tutorial on how/what your purpose is in the game. You’re given a chance to scan items/living creatures in your environment, find their purpose, solve a small puzzle to get creature A to do thing B, make your first weapon, then find a route into a bigger world. The game moves a tiny bit slow, which I can see will turn people off from it, but it does pick up and becomes MUCH larger.
When the world opens up, you’re on a scanning fest to understand the surroundings and what you need to work to progress through the large world that was left for you. The game’s story gets a bit more intriguing as you discover artifacts left by alien races that don’t necessarily populate the area anymore. You get to see weird constructions and certain items of interest (ex. Things you can hook to and swing from) that you must figure out when you’re trying to explore inaccessible parts. I got a firm reminder of how The Dig worked through this method of gameplay and it pushed me to go further. F you have never played that LucasArts game, then you should check it out. Essentially, you’re dropped on an alien planet and given items/clues to collect to solve why the race on the planet is no longer there. The story can be a solid motivator to effort sometimes, as is the case with Journey to the Savage Planet. The game essentially grows from nothing to lots of something, then requires you to give effort in gathering material and constructing equipment to get you to new places. The scope of the game is perceived as big and open world, but honestly, it’s a meticulous adventure that is carefully crafted with small puzzles and hurdles for you to leap over that sometimes narrow the scope of exploration.
To be quite frank, I enjoy gathering material and finding new places to go to keep an adventure going. Having been born and raised on ‘point and click’ adventures (see The Dig for an example), solving puzzles and finding particular items to progress the story is fun for me. I guess the turn off of this game, a turn off that actually might be a turn on for more than a few gamers out there, is the gathering/crafting portion to progress. The game gives you a lot of things to pick up and lots of moments where you can gather material to craft, but the entire idea of crafting to progress just irritates me to no end. To preface, I don’t do it in a lot of adventure games, like Skyrim, so having it be required to continue exploring is a bit tedious for me. That doesn’t mean the game is bad, but it does mean I have to do a lot to just move to the next point. That is more of a ‘me’ thing than it is a Journey to the Savage Planet thing. Ultimately, people will adore this driving aspect of gameplay and will find it more fulfilling than those who do not.
That said, the game does a solid job of creating a competent equipment/upgrade tree that pays off in the long run when you accomplish tasks or collect enough material. For example, having a strong weapon or having the ability to rocket launch one’s self into the sky to progress your exploration can be a cool and rewarding thing. How you get from item A to item 1A feels rewarding. I can see quite a few people enjoying the visual progression on the skills/equipment tree of the game and get something fro it. Typhoon Studios did a phenomenal job with this aspect of the game.
Anyway, If that is your cup of tea of a structure for a game, then you’re going to have a nice game waiting for you. Being able to explore large environments and go up against bosses and interesting beasts is what makes Journey to the Savage Planet a worthwhile game. I’m not a huge fan of the combat, as it seems rather bland at times, even when you progress, but I am an enormous fan of creativity with regard to how environments and creatures look and act — this game excels in those areas. It certainly helped me to push through the constant crafting and gave me hope that something awesome was waiting for me around the corner after all the effort was given. That’s a good balance for me and one reason I did enjoy the game.
On the presentation side of the tracks, I think this is where the game hits a very strong stride. The environments are colorful, creative, and full of wacky life. The visual presentation of the game could teach No Man’s Sky a few things when it comes to changing environments and bringing in interesting sights/creatures into the mix. When you breakthrough that first initial barrier in the game and see what’s waiting for you on the other side, it’s like being transported visually to another world. It’s akin to Dorothy stepping out of her sepia-tone house into the Land of Oz. The visuals are rich and inviting, which gives more motivation to the gamer to keep playing.
On the audio side of the presentation tracks, the game is well-written. If you’re not getting humor from the CEO of Kindred Aerospace, then you’re getting humor from the computer as you scan items in the field. If that isn’t enough for you, there is a slew of commercials you can watch each time you wake from a saved state in the game. Those commercials are put together with loads of obnoxious humor.
Anyway, the presentation is much better than expected.
Overall, with all its gameplay design simplicity on the surface, Journey to the Savage Planet still held some fun discoveries along the way that was drenched in short stints of tongue/cheek humor. It does bring a solid adventure and the fact that you can co-op with a friend helps to keep it all fresh and fun.
