LogFAQs > #932952137

#29





Years of release: 2014 (PC), 2015 (Wii U), 2017 (PS4), 2018 (Switch)
Beaten?: Yes

Look, I may be a furry, but I'm a furry with standards, alright? One thing that falls below my level of standards is the Sonic fandom. Never really been into the series very much (aside from Sonic 06, which is a masterpiece) and I share little in common with the fandom, aside from those who just like classic Genesis games. It's a bit embarrassing to be as deep into the Sonic fandom as some people are; the worst of it are Sonic OCs. Sonic OCs are the very bottom of the barrel in the eyes of this snobbish furry. So if you think I played Freedom Planet because it's a furry game, well, you are still correct. But I'm not PROUD of it.

Okay, all joking aside, Freedom Planet is definitely a game that falls into the "guilty pleasure" category. I really have to cast aside my inhibitions to get fully into this game, because the plot and writing would otherwise be barely worthy of a failed saturday morning cartoon pilot and with a cringeworthiness that makes Sonic look pretty good by comparison. But, you know what? Fuck it! Life is too short for me to not throw my notions of what's worth taking seriously and fully immerse myself in this ridiculously cutesy and mildly embarrassing world. The characters are cute, the world is fun, and the game kicks some ass, so why the hell not!

In my opinion, though I haven't played Sonic Mania yet, Freedom Planet might be the best Sonic game ever. The game is a combination of the fast-running and ridiculously large levels of 2D Sonic games with a slightly greater focus on combat and over-the-top boss battles that you might see in a Treasure game, plus the ability to airdash like a motherfucker. These elements are all super polished and work really well together. This game seems to know how to use its ridiculous speed better than the Sonic series ever did; the levels seem to actually contour well to you speedrunning them, and there are stops, but the level design flows from slow to fast rather naturally. Lilac, the main character, is an absolute joy to control. She's fast, her jumps are floaty, she has a midair attack that feels really satisfying, and her ability to stop in midair and do a huge midair-dash in any direction turns this game into a dream speedgame. Speedruns of Freedom Planet are some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen; precise execution can ensure that Lilac nearly never stops moving, and everything blurs by. Sonic would be jealous.

The art in this game is a joy, as well. All of the game's different worlds here feel like they're born out of an entirely new idea to some degree; I've seen fire worlds and ice worlds, but I've never seen "festive Chinese-inspired shopping mall" or "police chase in a giant bamboo forest." The ideas here are creative and lovingly rendered; the backgrounds, foregrounds, and characters are colorful and awesome to look at. So many stage elements here are also bursting with creativity, whether it be giant dandelion fluffs you can hang onto, ziplines you can fly off of, bows-and-arrows that you can shoot yourself from for some reason, or classic Sonic loop-de-loops that wind themselves cleverly around the stage, every little thing you can interact with feels like a gift from the devs to the players. The stages are just fun to run and fly around in.

The boss fights are really good too; there's a fair bit of challenge here, unlike the 2D Sonic games of old that are mostly jumping on Robotnik's head a few times as he floats lazily across the screen and does something ineffectual. The bosses in this game are big and not fucking around. I just love how much flair this entire game has - everything just pops off the screen. This game has presentation down to a fine art. There's only one flaw, which is that the sound mixing is quite bad; sound effects are way too loud and drown out the music, and there's no way to change the sound options. Which is a shame, because the music in this game gets my official seal of approval, even if it is occasionally about as overdramatic as one would expect about a game about Sonic OCs.

Otherwise, I consider it to be one of the best retro pastiches of the decade. Just like the Sonic series before it, it takes all of its best ideas and its most questionable ideas and goes full ham on them without a single shred of shame, and I can respect that.