Revenge of the Savage Planet (PS5) Review
Summary: A pointed satire of the human cost of corporate shenanigans, Revenge is a solid sequel that almost didn't exist but I'm sure glad it does.
3.6
Guck Foogle
Revenge of the Savage Planet’s absurdist corporate satire strikes far closer to home than the planet-hopping adventure would have you believe.
Return is brought to us by Raccoon Logic, an indie studio made up of former developers from Typhoon who created the fantastic Journey to the Savage Planet, who were left stranded after Google bought out the studio and then shuttered it after axing Stadia.
Return to the Savage Planet opens with our protagonist waking up on an uninhabited world after being in cryosleep for 100 years to discover that the company they were working for has axed their space colonisation program and has fired them, essentially on the first day of the job.
Thus, it’s up to you to make the best of your awful situation by carving out something resembling an existence, and eventually escaping, by plundering the environment for resources and recovering all of the equipment the crooked company has kindly let you keep.
The first thing those who played Journey to the Savage Planet will notice is the change in perspective, with the action taking a step back from first to third person. It’s an interesting choice, but it makes sense considering most of the game is spent clambering up mountains, grinding laser-guided rails, and hopping between floating islands.
The gameplay sits between a platformer, a Metroidvania, and a very light survival sim. The crafting elements are limited to 3D Printing new equipment from the three elements you collect from the environment and the menagerie of mostly vicious flora and fauna that inhabit each of Revenge’s unique biomes.
It’s a simple but compelling loop as you scour the environment for the next piece of equipment that enables you to reach the next cartridge of printer slurry, health upgrades, and other goodies that help you craft more equipment and explore more remote areas of the small solar system you find yourself trapped in.
Although the exploration elements are mostly top-notch, and the maps themselves are varied, fun to traverse, and have an excellent sense of verticality, the same can’t be said of the combat, which is a little scrappy at times.
Although there are a variety of gadgets you can turn on the unfortunate inhabitants of the planet – from a hose that allows you to suck up lava, conductive liquid, flammable goo and water, to acid, bouncy and explosive grenades, and you can even bait enemies and set traps for them. (Something you need to employ to access higher-tier upgrades)
However, you only have one trusty blaster, and although you can upgrade it, it never feels all that powerful in your hand. Even when upgraded, it feels as effective as a pea shooter when trying to gun down or capture one of the many creatures with specific weak points.
It also doesn’t help that death in Revenge of the Savage Planet is an absolute ballache that gets more irritating the further you get. It’s another case of pointless Soulslike elements. Every time you die, you drop a large percentage of your loot, including printer slurry, which is vital for upgrading your gear (and can only be collected once, in certain places).
You then have to trek back to roughly where you dropped it. If you die again, the crate doesn’t vanish, thankfully, but more resources are added. But here’s the kicker. Every time you die, you are 3D printed back at your condo. This wasn’t an issue in Journey when there was only one planet to explore. However, now there are several planets to pillage. After the early stages, you’ll need to go to the correct planet too, which means sitting through several loading screens. (Well, two). It confuses and irritates me that you don’t just respawn at the nearest teleporter on the planet you died on.
The pointless planet hopping continues when you want to do research. Since the only way to access the research menu is to return home. This wouldn’t be so bad if it were instant, but every creature you capture takes time to research, so you’re stuck rearranging the furniture and watching the same spoof adverts until it’s complete. At least if you have a few animals to dissect, the game automatically moves to the next one until they’re all done. So it’s worthwhile to save them up or try to grab as many as you can before the timer runs out.
Still, certain research projects are tied directly to the main campaign or major upgrades, and hanging around when you have orange goo to wolf down is irksome.
The strongest part of the experience though, are the worlds themselves, each feels unique from a verdant forest planet, complete with stinking swamp, an ice and fire planet that has both lava spewing volcanoes and freezing tundra, an obligatory desert world complete with Tatooine-esque dunes and bustling oasis, and vast oceans of tar.
Every one of them is inhabited by a wide variety of weird and wonderful creatures from exploding pink unicorns to gelatinous blob monsters and bellowing great alien hippos. My personal favourite though are the monkeys with a butt for a face, because I am a child.
There’s also a load of costumes to find a change into, including some fantastic cameos, including a marvelous Dave the Diver costume that gives your hapless cosmonaut a mighty paunch. Mix this with the raccoon head, and Revenge of the Savage Planet becomes the Bucky O’Hare spinoff I always dreamed of.
The other thing Revenge continues from Journey is its tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, However, you get the feeling that the main plot, at least, may be directed at a certain tech giant that abandoned its attempt at breaking into games at the expense of all the people they’d hired to work on them.
Most of the jokes land, especially the weird commercials for futuristic products, which have a Tim & Eric meets Interdimensional Cable vibe. The interactions with your awful bosses also had me guffaw a few times. The same can’t be said for the annoying quippy robot that accompanies you on your journey, which is forever leaning on reference humour that was old 20 years ago. (Whip It came out in 1980, guys!)
The Couch co-op also returns from the original, which is always a welcome addition, especially since it’s a ton of fun to tear up the place and cause as much chaos as possible with a friend.
The one drawback is that Revenge’s missions and world aren’t set up for cooperative play. There’s no increase in enemies, and the objectives aren’t adjusted either. This makes blasting through many of the game’s challenges an absolute cakewalk. It’s easy to take out creatures quickly in three ways if you can do two at once.
It’s a minor gripe, though, as I said, couch co-op is always welcome, and Revenge does contain some wonderful sandboxes to explore with a friend.
Final Thoughts
Revenge of the Savage Planet is a bright and breezy space-faring romp that fans of the original are bound to enjoy. Designed with a more-is-better philosophy, Revenge presents players with a whole solar system to scavenge from, though the perspective may have changed, much of what made the original such a blast remains, from the weird and wonderful inhabitants of each planet to the bizarre future tech and accompanying adverts.
Though there are times where you think the script might be trying a little too hard to get a laugh, overall, Revenge of the Savage Planet is a great way to lose a weekend exploring (and exploiting) the far reaches of the cosmos.
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