| Developer | Publisher | Platforms |
|---|---|---|
| Raccoon Logic Studios Inc. | Raccoon Logic Studios Inc. | Microsoft Windows-Xbox Series X/S-PlayStation 5 |
Raccoon Logic’s Revenge of the Savage Planet is a vibrant, comical, and bold sequel to the 2020 cult hit Journey to the Savage Planet. Expanding upon its predecessor’s colorful foundation, this installment moves from a first-person perspective to third-person, opening up new dimensions in both exploration and combat. Combining a quirky aesthetic with lighthearted satire and an unexpectedly deep sense of progression, Revenge of the Savage Planet successfully distinguishes between parody and polished gameplay.
Metroidvania Meets Mayhem
At the heart of Revenge of the Savage Planet lies a deeply interconnected world brimming with secrets, puzzles, and alien oddities. The game’s structure borrows heavily from the Metroidvania genre, requiring players to revisit earlier areas with newly unlocked tools to uncover hidden paths, resources, or lore entries. The primary planets, Verdantia, Frostscab, and Moltara, each offer their unique biomes, hazards, and traversal challenges. Verdantia is a lush, overgrown jungle teeming with weird plants and bouncing spores, while Frostscab provides icy caverns and slippery vertical puzzles.
Moltara, on the other hand, is a volatile region filled with heat hazards and aggressive fauna. The environmental diversity keeps exploration fresh, and the third-person view enhances spatial awareness, making platforming more engaging and less frustrating than the original game. Progression is both vertical and lateral. Players gain tools like a double-jump booster, grappling hook, glider wings, and corrosive gel spray, each unlocking new mobility and interaction options. These aren’t just traversal gimmicks; they are fully integrated into puzzle-solving and combat, making their discovery feel genuinely rewarding.
A Colorful Chaos
Combat in Revenge of the Savage Planet is fast, kinetic, and often amusing. You begin with a basic plasma pistol that can be upgraded in several ways, like faster reloads, elemental shots, and wider spread. Based on resources gathered from scanning wildlife and exploring, over time, you unlock gadgets like The Bait Blaster that lures enemies into traps or distracts them during tense moments, and the Magnetic Fork that is used to pull metallic objects (and occasionally enemies). There is also an Exploding Fruit Cannon to use as a puzzle tool.
Enemies range from passive herbivores that explode when provoked to flying jellyfish that chain lightning when grouped. Combat can often feel like a sandbox of chaos, especially when multiple tools interact with each other in unpredictable ways. That said, this is where one of the game’s weaker aspects emerges. While the variety in enemies and tools is admirable, the depth of combat strategy is somewhat shallow. Many encounters can be resolved by kiting enemies or relying on one dominant weapon upgrade. Boss fights are humorous and well-designed, but rarely mechanically challenging.
Smooth but Occasionally Cluttered
Controls are responsive and well-optimized for the PS5 version that we played on. Tool-switching is mapped smartly to the D-pad, and the default controller layout offers intuitive access to core abilities. The platforming segments, particularly those involving wall jumps and grapple points, feel fluid and satisfying. However, the user interface can become cluttered, especially when multiple objectives and crafting prompts appear simultaneously.
The in-game scanner is extremely helpful for navigation and analysis, but it sometimes overwhelms the screen with too many icons, detracting from the visual clarity during exploration or battle. Teleportation stations are generously scattered throughout each map, and fast-travel is nearly instant, eliminating most backtracking frustrations. The map itself is detailed, offering clear markers for quests, scanned objects, and upgrade points.
Satire with Substance
True to its roots, Revenge of the Savage Planet is as much a comedy as it is an adventure game. The writing is sharp, often poking fun at late-stage capitalism, corporate bureaucracy, and tech startup terminology. You once again play as an underpaid employee of the fictional cartel named Kindred Aerospace, tasked with “peacefully evaluating” planets that may or may not be uninhabitable death traps. Throughout the game, you’re bombarded with absurd training videos, unhelpful AI commentary, and company memos that blatantly disregard safety protocols.
One particularly memorable subplot involves the company sending you a “supportive partner”, a hyper-enthusiastic robot named Brundlebot who gradually becomes more paranoid and dysfunctional as the game progresses. Despite its tongue-in-cheek tone, the game occasionally surprises with moments of environmental storytelling. There’s an underlying commentary about the exploitation of ecosystems, employees, and even truth itself that adds unexpected emotional depth to an otherwise lighthearted experience.
Visually, Revenge of the Savage Planet is a marvel. Its color palette is wildly imaginative. Every biome bursts with exaggerated colors, glowing particles, and animated vegetation. Creature design is a standout, whether it is a lizard or a blob that imitates your every move, there’s always something to make you stop and stare (or scan). Animations are fluid, and performance is stable, thanks to Unreal Engine 5’s optimization. Loading times are virtually nonexistent, which keeps immersion high.
Flaws and Final Thoughts
While Revenge of the Savage Planet excels in many areas, it is not without its flaws. Combat, while enjoyable, lacks long-term complexity. The humor, though often clever, occasionally veers into the overly silly or repetitive. And though backtracking is designed to reward exploration, some players may find the pacing slows down in the latter half of the game. However, these flaws are outweighed by the game’s boundless creativity, engaging exploration systems, and atmosphere.
The game never tries to be more serious than it should be, but neither does it settle for shallow parody. It’s a game that knows what it wants to be and commits to it fully. Revenge of the Savage Planet is a joyful and chaotic evolution of the original, offering a robust exploration experience, creative world design, and sharp satire. While its combat systems could use a bit more refinement, and not every joke lands, the game’s charm, ambition, and playability make it a must-play for fans of sci-fi, satire, and silly-yet-smart adventure games.
The review code was provided by the publisher
| GAMEPLAY | ART | VALUE |
|---|---|---|
| 80% | 90% | 85% |