The world’s interesting parts seem a lot less magical when you’re seeing them for the dozenth time, you know?Īnother aspect of Journey to the Savage Planet that probably should have been left on the cutting room floor is the combat. When you’ve made a world this interesting, it feels silly to lock so much of it away until you reach arbitrary checkpoints, particularly when the game’s design means you’ll go back and see the same parts over and over and over again. I’ve seen some people describe Savage Planet as a Metroidvania, and it’s accurate…much to the game’s detriment. Sure, the game opens up some shortcuts now and then, but they don’t get around the problem that Journey to the Savage Planet is one big loop. The problem is that you spend so much time on the rest of that pattern - with a heavy dose of repeat, and repeat, and repeat - that it quickly loses its lustre. You scan in all the different flora and fauna, and get a sense of what this new world has to offer.
The world you’re exploring lives up to those first vivid moments.
Given that Journey to the Savage Planet is an exploration game, that first part is great - exactly what you’d expect. Basically, it’s explore, collect, return, craft, repeat. Then you have to collect a few things, return to your ship, create something, and then go back out into the world and go a little bit further to do the same thing over again. Your ship’s moderately funny navigator guides you to what you have to do. You see a bright, beautiful world around you, populated by bizarre creatures and crazy plants.
The pattern for the whole game is set early on. No, it’s frustrating because it’s so close to being a good game, and you can see the tweaks that would have made it a good game…but absent those tweaks, it all just feels like a giant missed opportunity. Not because it’s that hard (it’s not, at least not intentionally), and not because it’s broken (at least not too much). Journey to the Savage Planet is a frustrating game.
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