Happy Be-lated New Year, Everyone! For my New Year resolution, I’m going to start posting reviews here again, and I’ll start with one of my favorite new games on my Steam account: Freedom Planet, GalaxyTrail’s answer to the good old Sonic the Hedgehog series.

From left to right: Milia, Lilac, and Carol

Apparently Freedom Planet had a Kickstarter project with explosive success, and it shows. The story begins with an alien overlord named Brevon crash landing on an anthropomorphic planet. He quickly plans to escape to continue his conquest by stealing the planet’s prized relic and source of energy, the Kingdom Stone. To make sure his plan goes off without a hitch, Brevon usurps one of the three kingdoms as a front of invasion, and sparks a war between them while he gets away. What he didn’t count on, however, was a captain of a space fleet landing on the planet to stop him, and reluctantly enlisting the help of three of its inhabitants.

Freedom Planet’s story is linear and the same throughout, but you can play as the three main heroines for gameplay changes and see scenes otherwise exclusive to their point of views. Lilac is similar to Sonic in that she’s the fastest and can charge herself for a boost of speed, but is ultimately her own character with kung-fu moves involving spinning/hovering and kicking. Carol specializes in climbing and fast physical attacks, and in some stages can blaze through on motorcycle power-up. Milia has the lowest HP bar, but can hover, shield, protect energy cubes, and dig for items. There is also planned DLC characters for future release, with the space gun-slinger Torque and card throwing Spade.

As fun as the characters were, I’m a bit disappointed how the story of Freedom Planet was handled. The scenes were done well, the art was well rendered, and even the voice work was done amazingly IMHO. But at the same time, there wasn’t enough explanation. The story just starts with Lilac and Carol living on their own, and deciding to rescue a young turtle-duck(?) named Torque from his attackers. But the history of their past with Spade and the Red Scarves is left ambiguous and without context. All that’s known is that Lilac and Carol were once thieves and there was a fallout between the three of them. I get that it wasn’t as important as the story plot of Brevon and the Kingdom Stone, but it still felt tacked on and an afterthought for the sake of giving some character depth. One can hope that there will be some more light shed in Spade’s DLC story mode.

At least the game tries to slowly build up the conflict, and the friendship between characters. For Lilac and Carol, they’ve always known each other. But Torque literally comes from outer space hoping to save their planet, and Milia is just a stray dog that decides to help them out. She feels like an outsider, but the girls take her so quickly it’s like they’ve been friends for years. I found it pretty endearing personally.

Some of the best shining moments of Freedom Planet are the gameplay mechanics and the soundtrack. Unlike Sonic, you can take more than one hit before dying, as your health is shown by red leaves instead of power rings. You collect those, as well as blue crystals, for high scores. There are still time attacks, but the stages are set up as places to explore with multiple pathways than just getting to the other end ASAP. Then there are the boss battles, each more intimidating than the last with their own strengths and weaknesses. The trick is always figuring out their attack patterns, dodging them, and strike them fast and hard while they recover. Oh, and it’ll take a lot more than three to four hits to win. Since the characters have more than one move, some attacks might do more damage than others. For example, Lilac’s hover Cyclone skill and stack up a lot of hits if timed right, but it pales in comparison to a short-ranged but very strong kick.

A battle race boss fight!

In short, Freedom Planet is very much a nostalgia trip for people that loved the older Sonic games. Sprite graphics, intense bosses, and a good Saturday morning cartoon feel on the story line. I hope to play and finish the Carol and Milia runs in the future and see just how different the game is outside of a speedster’s shoes. Until then, I recommend to anyone to look online and buy this game for their computer. Or better yet, buy it on the Wii U as it was just recently added to the Nintendo e-shop library.

There’s plenty of time to play through before the sequel, Freedom Planet 2 comes out (just announced last Christmas).