Planet of Lana is undoubtedly a cute game with a pleasant atmosphere. Unfortunately, what does not satisfy is his peace and well-being.
Platformer for PC, XO and XSX ● Single Player ● Age restriction: 10+ ● No official Czech language
2D jumpers are definitely something we can’t get enough of, so Planet of Lana at least got me excited. The pleasant atmosphere of a seemingly pristine world is interrupted at the very beginning of the game by a kind of robot invasion that enslaves all its inhabitants. That’s when I noticed something strange. The game does not include dubbing or spoken word dubbing. The characters just manage to babble and say what I think a name might be. To be honest, I was a little skeptical at first that it would work in terms of storytelling and character interactions. However, my worries soon passed, and after about an hour I could fully understand that there was no dubbing.
The whole game looks beautiful even during the robot invasion. Even threatening-looking enemies are cute creatures with a somewhat different appearance than what we’re used to. You won’t feel the heaviness of the whole situation or the feeling of excitement or tension throughout the entire game. Planet of Lana excels at presenting you a relatively serious and not-so-joyful story in a very nice and warm jacket.
As I mentioned above, I feared that not being dubbed would deprive me of valuable information or parts of the story. However, this did not happen. I immediately understood what happened and how the silent story of the main character, not what anyone said, affected you. I just love the subjective storytelling and the possibility that everyone will probably get something a little different from it.
In terms of gameplay, we will come across both good and bad features of the game. One of the advantages is definitely good puzzles. To avoid misunderstandings, I do not count encounters with enemies in puzzles, although they can be included there. The puzzles look fresh and simple, but they can also torment the brain. Your feline-like animal friend will help you significantly in solving them. It will naturally jump higher than you, so it helps in lowering the ropes and so on.
The synergy between your character and the cat works well and guides the levels intuitively. As for the movement itself, I have a neutral attitude towards it. It’s nothing out of the ordinary and the character animations don’t look good, but nothing that spoils the overall gameplay.
We come to the problem when we encounter enemies. Simply put, the template of the environment you encounter them doesn’t change, and the only thing that changes is a few little things in the middle of your screen. I continued to experience deja vu because I had done almost the same thing before. Unlike puzzles that are always different, it provides a new environment and opportunities to use what you learn during the game.
Another minus for me is the very calm and generally boring landing. Basically nothing happens, you jump from boulder to boulder and sometimes you have to move a boulder to get higher. When you encounter a robot, you perform a maneuver similar to the one you did a few moments ago. The game clearly does not want to make high demands on the player. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well and gets relatively boring after a few hours.
Decision
Planet of Lana definitely manages to impress people with its storytelling and atmosphere. But paradoxically, he loses wherever he wants. No action and almost zero effort to finish the game doesn’t quite suit me. You can easily write thesis and not break a sweat while playing. However, if that’s exactly what you’re looking for, there’s nothing to discuss. The game will give you space to think and the opportunity to pet your friendly cat.
Source: Doupe
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