Review:
Freedom Planet is, in many ways, a better game than its inspirations. It's gameplay is super fun, fast paced and polished, the addition of a combat system is incredibly nice, in my opinion it has more likable characters and a more coherent and well thought out setting. The music is also great but that's to be expected from this kind of game. There's a lot to like about Freedom Planet. However, I also feel like the level design is quite there, with many levels being either forgettable or frustrating. As well, there's, in my opinion, a pretty massive quality shift between the first and second halves of the game, with the latter half really dropping the ball to me. I could see why people love this game, I think objectively speaking it's a rather good game. I just didn't like it that much by the end of it. I'd be curious to play the sequel, though, see how it is with another decade under its belt. 6.3/10
Diary:
8/9/25
I wasn't expecting to make this diary, tbh. I'm like "what do I possibly have to say about the Sonic-like platformer". And I don't think I'll have A LOT to say, I think this will probably be a short one all told. But like, I was thinking about what I might say about it and was like "you know what, maybe I should do Freedom Planet, maybe I do have thoughts". And really that's the only thing that spurs me to make a diary, tbh, "do I think I can say something interesting about this game or my experiences". It's why I don't keep a lot of diaries for shorter games and/or platformers, because without being able to show you how it plays there's not really that much to discuss about them. But this one I think might prove fruitful. So, here we go.
I think a good baseline would be to start with my feelings about the Sonic the Hedgehog series because Freedom Planet borrows a lot from that series, specifically the classic games. I respect the Sonic series a whole lot. At one point in my life I was a massive Sonic fan, during high school I was very annoying and very defensive about Sonic. I got into a lot of arguments online and unironically believed things like "everybody who criticizes Sonic is just a hater trying to keep him down, we have to fight for his honor", an absolutely ludicrous assertion to make about one of the most successful multimedia franchises of all time. And unfortunately one that still exists considering the heat some critics got for not treating Sonic Frontiers as anything but "a game I liked but had problems with it". Anyways I just grew out of that and now I think most Sonic games are kinda fine.
A big thing for me is that the Sonic the Hedgehog series has always been defined by a specific gameplay ideology wherein the player gets the most out of it if they kind of devote their life to it. A lot of games kind of operate under this logic actually, I like to think of it like sort of "playing to the kids" because children are likely to only get a few video games growing up that they then will get super into. Between trying to S rank every stage in the later games or trying to find the fastest route/all the Chaos Emeralds in the older games, Sonic is usually at its best if you kind of hyperfixate on it and get really good at it. And I respect the hell out of this ideology, I kind of roll my eyes at people criticizing Sonic for "being about speed" when, that kind of true, but the way it's designed is built around the idea of "learning how to go fast". I just personally can't stand it myself. I want a game that's at its best on the first playthrough because I have to really like a game to even entertain the idea of a second playthrough so if the game is at its best once you've learned it super well, I've already bounced off it.
However, there IS a Sonic game I do love, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, a game which I think balances the exploratory nature and "earning your speed" of the first 3 Sonic the Hedgehog games; understanding that the player maybe wants to have a great time the first time they play a game instead of having a fine time that they can then grow into making it a great time. Sonic 3 & Knuckles is designed in a way where you feel as a newbie like you are able to go the fast. Fun fact, I played this like 5 games after I played Sonic CD, a game I absolutely cannot stand because it does basically the opposite thing Sonic 3 & Knuckles does where not only does it constantly roadblock you but you also have to figure out a specific series of paths to follow WHILE knowing how to stay going fast/keeping your momentum to even get to the ending. Sonic CD is one of the worst Sonic games, don't @ me. Anyways, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is superb, I love that game to death and, thankfully, Freedom Planet feels closer to that game than it does the others, at least in the ways that matter.
Freedom Planet's gameplay is spectacular, I'm just gonna say on rip. Like, it has everything good about classic Sonic while also really understanding how to tap into a wider playerbase. Like, Alpharad made a video a long time ago where he started out calling Freedom Planet "not Sonic the Hedgehog" and then had to stop and change topics partway through because he found himself enjoying Freedom Planet significantly more than Sonic. And I think that's a fair assessment. As someone who is put off by Sonic's desire to roadblock speed on a first playthrough, I feel like Freedom Planet does a good job of not doing it too much. I feel like while it definitely encourages me to learn routes to keep up my speed, it doesn't punish me nearly as much for not knowing and/or falling off a route. I can recover pretty quickly and head back to my destination. There's plenty of opportunities for me, a newbie, to go the fast, and I want to go the fast.
The addition of proper combat to this gameplay too is just excellent. Like it adds a lot being able to do simple combos both on the ground and in air, and also being able to double jump and spin right into enemies for a multi-hit. It feels like I have more control over enemy encounters than I do in classic Sonic. I've always found the ways you're meant to deal with enemies in classic Sonic games to be pretty finnicky, ngl. Combat though, fixes this superbly, I feel like every hit I take is on me and not on the game, and it's just really fast and fluid too so it doesn't feel like you're fighting enemies forever. It also allows the game to get very big and inventive with the boss fights in a way that Sonic was never able to do because you're able to actually fight them. I've beaten the first four levels of Lilac's story so far, don't know if I'm going to do both Lilac and Carol, and the bosses have been real fun, I've liked them a lot. I especially like the mobile boss against the jaguar mech, it's super cool.
That being said, though, I don't like the level design that much unfortunately. I think the level theming is great, don't get me wrong. There are some excellent recontextualizations of classic theming from the genre. I'm especially a fan of the decision to make the fill in for the Casino level this huge theme park city with gachapon machines that was fun. Moreover, though, they do a great job of making this feel like an actual world, which isn't always something platformers in general do well. Like I totally buy these are all locations in this world that exist properly in context. It's just... man. These levels go on for FOREVER. Like, I've put 69 minutes into my actual playtime so far (nice) and I think 40-45 of that was just the first two levels. Every level overstays its welcome, in my opinion, and a lot of it is being forced to run back and forth solving puzzles and beating minibosses. I don't think I ever beat Relic Cave when I tried to play this many years ago because I just got so tired of it. And like, I would like these levels if they were shorter, they're well themed, there's a lot of good parts to them. It's just man, they go on for way too long.
I'm trying to meet the game on its level so I'm going through the story mode and it's like. It's not that I don't think the story of Freedom Planet is good. There are things I like about it, I like this sort of sci-fi take on the War of the Three Kingdoms, I like some of the characters on paper, I like the stakes being very high and there being this sort of conspiracy underlying all of it. But I don't like how much story there is in Freedom Planet. It's not surprising to me that a Sonic-alike would be so story heavy, story is like a whole thing for the Sonic series, but like. I think for a fast paced throwback platformer, I don't want to be sitting in like 5 to 10 minutes of cutscenes between stages, actually. This is a me problem, totally, I like when things exist in specific contexts and I'm pretty critical of said things attempting to break out of their context because I don't see it as "this is doing something so above what the product normally would", I tend to see it as "okay, now it's on a different playing field and has to compete with things on that playing field, which it's going to struggle with". This is one of the core reasons I dislike Super Paper Mario, I don't find it to be endearing that it's telling this very un-Mario story about existentialism and the end of the world, I just feel like it's now putting itself in the running with much better art on the same topic. And that's kind of the thing I'm feeling with Freedom Planet right now, it's not bad per se but I just find it kind of like "I wish this was more simple and fast if it's trying to evoke the retro Genesis-style platformer". The voice acting isn't great though, that part is a genuine detriment, sadly.
8/11/25
Before I talk about how this section of the game went, I really want to compliment the game on the thing I've been sorely slacking on: the music. I tend not to really comment on music until a song really grabs me, and in this case it was Thermal Base 1. It's such an absolute vibe of a track, I love it so much, I was jamming out to it the whole time. But this soundtrack is really good in general, it has the classic Sonic the Hedgehog rule of "even if the game isn't doing it for you, the soundtrack is still fire". Jade Creek 1 is another fun track I like, I'm a fan of Fortune Night 2 as well. Pangu Lagoon 1 another straight vibe, Freedom Planet just has really excellent music and I just wanted to highlight before I get too unhappy. The composers of this game, there are three credited, did an amazing job on the soundtrack, these songs will probably stick with me long term, I should probably put the ones I like on a playlist.
Anyways, this section of the game was awful. Just a game ruining second half, like my lord. I had my problems with the game in the first half obviously but like, on top of those problems the things I liked about the game are now just much worse. Like, I don't know, it feels like the gameplay has gotten considerably more gimmicky and less solid as it went on, levels are trying to do things that I don't think really fits what the core gameplay is built for. Like as much as I liked the Thermal Base as a song, its level is boring. You have to keep going back and forth trying to find key cards and it's like, man, these levels are already kind of too long in my opinion, and this just makes this so much longer. Pangu Lagoon, Pangu Lagoon might've been my favorite level in the game, the vibes are immaculate, the song is great, I hated playing it. The whole extra dash mechanic was just kind of frustrating to me. And there's a shmup stage! I wish to never play another shmup stage in a platformer I swear. I don't know, it feels like the gameplay was so perfect, so well designed and well polished and what not and now it's trying so hard to build upon it for no reason and it's making it lesser, in my opinion.
Also, the bosses suck now! Like genuinely, it just kind of feels like the game has fully fallen apart in the second half. Like they're way too long now, it feels like there's a difficulty spike where now the bosses are just able to drain your entire health bar by stunlocking you, they're all way more particular about where they can even be hit and usually are only vulnerable for tiny windows of time. It's sad, I really want to like this game but it feels like as it goes on its just nosediving. Pangu Lagoon once again breaks my heart here with its boss, the Ice Dragon, a larger than life monster that I wish was so much cooler than it was, but like. High key, I think this might be a bottom 50 boss in gaming history, I hated fighting this thing so much. Even if I played optimally, it still would've been awful, it's just not a good design. It's heartbreaking, honestly, this game was going so well in the first half.
I think weirdly though I'm like. I'm not invested in the plot necessarily, it's just not something I care too much about. But I'm enjoying it more than I was in the first half. I think it's just that I do, at the end of the day, like Lilac, Carol, and Milla. They're very cute characters and I love their dynamic a whole lot, how Carol doesn't really want to be a hero and just goes along with it because Lilac is her best friend and her sense of morality is too strong. How Lilac is kind and moral drive, but also self-righteous and throws herself head first into dangerous situations because she feels like she needs to prove herself, needs to redeem the sins of her past. How Milla is excitable and extroverted but also keeps her distance from her other friends because she has too much baggage. They're good characters, I like them. I'd almost be interested in playing Freedom Planet 2 if it meant seeing how these characters and, moreover, these actors in these roles, evolve. Like I have and will criticize the voice acting, I don't think it's very good, but by and large I just attribute that to inexperience like. Lilac is voiced Dawn Bennett, a now accomplished video game and anime VA who, at the time, was still new to voice acting. Her other roles besides this were Fairy Tail and a game we don't talk about or acknowledge anymore. Freedom Planet 2 is probably much better.
But also I'm probably not putting Freedom Planet 2 on the list because, man. It's just upsetting, you know. Like, this isn't the first time and probably won't be the last that I've encountered a game where it really had me in the first half. Final Fantasy XV was like this, really liked that game until it stopped being a Route 66 themed open world JRPG. Banjo-Kazooie, I liked that game until you got to Freezeazy Peak and then I just couldn't with it anymore. Link to the Past, loved that game during the Light World section, started really not vibing with it once you got to the Dark World. This is where Freedom Planet sits with me, just a game I liked until I didn't. And it's depressing every time, because I was ready to score this high, despite my issues with it I was really enjoying the game and now I'm just not. I even have four levels left and I'm just like "I'm not sure if I wanna do this" but like. I'll see it through, I try to be very choosy about which games I shelve and it's usually if "I'm not having fun but also I'll be not having fun for another 6 hours". See you on the other side, I guess.
8/12/25
Before I get into the remainder of the experience for me, I just want to talk about the jumpscare I had in the credits. So, Alejandro Saab, who is now a very big voice actor and also a pretty big VTuber named CyYu, voices one of the characters in this game. This was one of his first professional roles, like, period, much like the previously mentioned Dawn Bennett his career as a professional voice actor kind of began with Freedom Planet. So like, obviously, he's in the credits for the game, that's how credits work, that's not the jumpscare. But then in the "Special Thanks" section they list basically everyone who was involved with the project's online handles, so right in the middle is "KaggyFilms", a YouTube channel Alejandro used to run that was huge like almost a decade ago now but slowly wound down before finally ending a while ago. Seeing KaggyFilms appear out of nowhere was wild. Anyways, the game.
So, for the purposes of finishing the game, I did lower the difficulty. And I will admit, I had more fun on the lower difficulty, being able to blast through at higher speeds without much worry. Probably something I should've done earlier since I was having a rougher time but like. I don't know, I always feel bad judging a game on a lower difficulty because it feels like I didn't get the "full effect", you know? Like this isn't an "ego thing" you know, I don't particularly care about challenging games at the hardest difficulty. Trust me, I have no misgivings about my skill level, I talk about being bad at games in most of these things. I just believe very strongly in trying to meet games at their own level, it's why I did the story mode in the first place instead of just rocking in Classic mode. I feel like too many people don't try to meet games at their own level, they come into them with too many notions of what they should be, and I'm not going to act like I don't do that. I spent a lot of this diary comparing Freedom Planet too Sonic, a probably unavoidable comparison but one I still regret. But like, I feel like a lot of people ruin their own experiences with games by coming into them deciding what they want them to be ahead of time. Anyways, that's why I was trying to beat it on Normal and I definitely could've, like, if I still liked this game enough to try to go for Normal I would've. But I did just want this to be over.
I don't really have a lot of thoughts about the final levels. Like, the theming is kind of standard for this kind of game, it's a pretty bog standard space station stage. The only real unique flavor it has is that, because Freedom Planet has combat, they're able to take some notes from beat 'em ups and have parts with waves of enemies. But other than that, it's pretty no frills. The one thing that definitely stood out to me though was the boss of the third section. Such strong Cave Story vibes coming from it, I kind of wonder it was a homage. Like, it's a "taking a small cute creature and turning it into a grotesque version of itself" thing, which is obviously common in Cave Story, but also like. It looked so much like a mutated Mimiga, I swear. It was the one neuron firing in an otherwise pretty standard and totally fine finale, again, I lowered the difficulty so that's gonna temper my feelings on the final four stages but it felt like the gameplay was better than stages 5-8 but it's also just. Way less interesting thematically.
Something I haven't complimented the game on but I do want to before the end is how much it plays into Lilac's verticality. The way you gain top speed through most of the game is through Lilac's "Dragon Dash", an ability to allows her to dart off when her meter is full to reach top speed very quickly. It also plows through enemies, making it a very effective combat tool if you're facing a mob. But what the Dragon Dash also lets you do is dart up at an angle, allowing Lilac a lot more verticality than at first glance. She can also, then, pinball off walls, allowing her to gain even more height. The game uses this level design ideal to pretty solid effect, allowing them the freedom to have just giant tubes going up off screen with no clear way to enter them because Lilac can just Dragon Dash up them. It's a fun little thing and I meant to talk about it earlier on in the playthrough but just never got around to.
So, again, I haven't been the most interested in the plot. It's not bad, I just want to put that out there, the story is fine. If you are more into the stories of colorful cartoony retro platformers like Freedom Planet's target audience would be, it's decent enough, and I can definitely see why so many people wanted more of this. But I do really like the core trio, I like Lilac, Carol, and Milla. So, the fact that the big bad made you fight Milla, potentially killing her, by turning her into a big monster was actually kind of a thing I was invested in. Milla's fine, for the record, she's on the cover art for the second. But like, I already liked this Cave Story-esque boss they put in there so the fact that it's just a mutated Milla too. So good. A plot beat I definitely cared about. Glad I didn't give up on the game after how the last section went.
In conclusion, Freedom Planet is a game that certainly has its ups and downs. I really liked the core gameplay, characters, world, and music. Those were all real strong, and I think if I had only played the first half of this game, it would rank top 20 on my end of year list. On the other hand, the level design and late game bosses really do just hurt this game so much. And I'm indifferent on the story. I think I might actually be, cautiously, interested in the sequel, because I think this game actually does have a ton of potential. There's enough I like about it to give it a second chance, maybe I'll look into Freedom Planet later down the line or maybe I'll play through the other stories to see how I feel about them. We'll see. As it stands though, man, I really wanted to like this game more than I actually did, I was really having fun in the first half. 6.3/10
No comments:
Post a Comment