Freedom Planet from Galaxy Trail and XSEED Games is an action platformer that pays homage to the old-school Sonic the Hedgehog series while doing its own thing. Learn more in our Freedom Planet review!
Freedom Planet is a 2D action platformer in which you’ll go on an adventure to protect and later try to recover the Kingdom Stone, a powerful gem that is in high demand and that might end up bringing three nations into a war that would devastate the land! There are also some nice plot twists that I won’t be spoiling here that will show you that some things are not what they seem. Are you up for the challenge?
You can select between Casual, Easy, Normal or Hard for the difficulty setting. Once you do this you can select between Adventure Mode, in which story and gameplay are mixed, or Classic Mode in which every stage is played in order. In Story Mode you will get to meet many characters as short cut-scenes play out to flesh out its tale. You can play as Lilac, who sets out to investigate what has happened to the pilot of an airplane that has crashed after being shot down by helicopters, or as Carol, who goes on a different direction… until she realizes she should also help out.
Each character has a different set of moves and special attacks that will greatly change how you approach a stage. Lilac, being a dragon, will dash around each stage and be able to use a special burst attack that will send her flying forward, while also having a spin attack that works as a double jump. Carol can climb on walls, which she can easily get anywhere she needs to get, and can also use her motorcycle in some stages to quickly dash through as she attacks enemies with her mighty claws. Along with Lilac and Carol, you will unlock a third character as you play: Milla. She’s a basset who can create blocks to use as weapons, create a barrier to protect herself (which can also be used as a weapon), or flap her ears to float for a bit.
On top of the main gameplay modes there is also a Time Attack in which you will use each character to complete bite-sized challenges that ask you to destroy a number of golden targets as fast as possible. Each character will have her own progress saved for the Time Attack mode, so if you want to 100% the game you will need to take all three characters through all Time Attack stages, which will certainly increase your overall playing time with Freedom Planet.
As you play the game, you might notice some shiny cards with a star that you can collect. These will unlock bonuses in the Gallery Mode, giving you access to tracks from the game’s soundtrack, voice clips for the characters you’ll play as as well as the NPC you’ll meet, or concept art for some of the characters in the game. Here you will also get to check badges, the in-game achievement system. You will get badges for, say, clearing all stages with a character, defeating a stage’s end boss with a particular attack (or special attack), completing all Time Attack stages as each character, collecting all ten cards for a stage, and more.
Freedom Planet is a fun action platformer that is a blast to play on Nintendo Switch. I finished my first run with the game in around 3 hours and change, and was definitely ready to do it all over again with another character since they each play very differently. Be sure to check this one out!
Disclaimer
This Freedom Planet review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Galaxy Trail.
