The cinematic platformer: though some nice examples have emerged over the many years, the style maybe under-celebrated, with its followers particularly under-served for an extended stretch within the 2000s. It has nonetheless supplied some really legendary video games: Prince of Persia, One other World, Flashback, and Inside. Planet of Lana gathers collectively probably the most interesting parts of all of those – together with different notable examples of the style – and rolls them up into one thing fashionable and interesting, if not completely authentic.
Planet of Lana, the debut title from indie developer Wishfully Studios, is a visually placing puzzle-driven platformer. It has shades of Studio Ghibli in its muted palette and nature-versus-technology themes; it additionally maintains a low-stress ambiance by its mild issue, sweeping surroundings and wealthy musical rating. The story begins with Lana enjoying video games with a buddy. A sudden robotic invasion results in her buddy’s seize and kicks off a quest to rescue her. Alongside the best way, Lana is joined by an alien sidekick, with whom she cooperates to beat obstacles and stealthily evade baddies.
Whereas feeling and looking fashionable and accessible, Planet of Lana makes some neat callbacks to basic cinematic platformers. One characteristic of these early video games, for instance, was a form of modularity. Prince of Persia and the like achieved cutting-edge animations by transferring their characters in little chunks. Every unit of the slick, rotoscoped animations at all times performed out, with the participant’s subsequent transfer – altering course or timing a soar – solely following after a step of the animation. A aspect impact of this was a type of “soar help”, the place the lag within the controls gave beneficiant home windows wherein to manoeuvre. Though Planet of Lana is far more fashionable, similar to marrying its flowing visuals with better responsiveness, it fortunately replicates that forgiving nature by permitting a really beneficiant “coyote time” – a wide-open alternative to hit soar even simply after operating off a platform.
A aspect impact of the flowing however fastened animations in older cinematic platformers was an equally modular stage design: Lester in One other World, Conrad in Flashback, and the Prince of Persia all moved in predefined chunks, so the degrees had been composed of items of a corresponding measurement. Flashback’s gun fight additionally operated in discrete items of motion, so scenes performed out like a sequence of pre-calculated puzzles. Planet of Lana completely harks again to this, the world being constructed of a sequence of set items, constructed round a basic moveset of runs and jumps, ledge-grabbing, and rolling. The general result’s a extremely playable mixture of contemporary fluidity and retro specificity, with a deal with gentle, sequential puzzling over exploration.
Traversal is swish and pleasing, too, extra like Playdead’s Inside than the abstracted controls of the classics, constrained by these animations. If you’re operating, leaping, climbing, or swinging on ropes, all of it feels strong and enjoyable. If there’s one criticism, it’s that there’s a bit an excessive amount of time spent simply operating proper, with out vital obstacles or any want for different inputs. It made us consider Beethoven & Dinosaur’s The Clever Escape, which used a easy – even foolish – however fairly ingenious thought of including a single button press to play a guitar whereas the hero runs. In need of a guitar, Planet of Lana may need benefitted from a extra playful soar or roll to toy with whereas operating.
“Simply operating proper” is a symptom of the cinematic platformer’s fashionable drive for spectacle. Because the background and foreground explode with colors, flashes and world-enriching depth and scale, operating proper is a method to have it play out in a method that the participant can sit again and respect. Planet of Lana opts with confidence for that low-difficulty design strategy, liberating you to drink within the spectacular surroundings and soundtrack. It does imply all of the occasions lack a component of peril – in contrast to, say, Adrian Lazar’s Planet Alpha, which used skill- and patience-testing challenges to offer the visible set items a little bit of oomph. Planet of Lana’s simple operating is tons of enjoyable should you’re glad to play fairly passively at instances.
And the spectacular presentation helps construct the story – to an extent. The narrative is obscure, to say the least, so whereas the stunning vistas add flavour, it’s not at all times clear what they’re including flavour to. The less-is-more strategy nearly works, and we loved the reminder of One other World with its alien helper. Calling the alien in an unknown language and dealing to assist one another, the connection is slightly like guiding Yorda in Ico, with some related, if spatially extra simplistic, puzzles. There’s, in reality, one other unfastened Ico connection: composer Takeshi Furukawa gives the rating, as he did for Fumito Ueda’s Ico descendent The Final Guardian. The music sits quietly within the background for the regular play of the sport, spinning up the stress successfully for the motion and stealth interludes, transferring from gentle piano to highly effective orchestra, even breaking at one level for a vocal set piece.
Lana’s critter companion does a bit greater than observe alongside and obey orders, too. By way of it, Lana can management enemies for sure puzzles, paying homage to 2023’s One other World-callback Full Void, from OutOfTheBit. These are among the extra fascinating and difficult puzzles amongst a reasonably gentle assortment. When ordering your companion, manipulating the surroundings, steering enemies and platforming all mix, the world feels richly interactive. Nonetheless, these moments are scarcer than the bits the place you simply run proper.
Conclusion
Planet of Lana intelligently combines parts of basic cinematic platformers to make one thing distinctive and characterful. For a good 5 hours or so, it retains up the tempo, with only a few taxing puzzles or tough motion segments to sluggish progress. Leaning into simpler gameplay in favour of visible and auditory spectacle, it seems the half and runs persistently nicely. It’s a deal with for the long-suffering cinematic platforming fan – even perhaps destined to affix that quick listing of classics.
