Some games you don’t really have an expectation for what you expect when you start to play them. Revenge of the Savage Planet developed by Raccoon Logic, was pretty much that for me. I knew of it, I was interested in it, but having never played the original, I was pretty much going in blind. I had no idea if my time in outer space would reward me, and how addicted I would get to the loop of discovery and unlocks I would get, pushing my time well beyond what I had initially planned to put in, yet here we are.
Revenge of the Savage Planet takes its cues from the space movies of yesteryear, seemingly put through the filter of mockery that is and was Mystery Science Theater 3000. The player is a space explorer that learns through a series of live-action and hilariously acted computer messages that, in route to a colony you are supposed to start, in 100 years, cryostasis, your company has been acquired by another. This means that your position has been downsized in the process. I mean Mondays, am I right?
This puts you on a planet that kind of wants to kill you. Thankfully, the company was nice enough to let you keep all your gear, so the only thing you can really do is everything that was expected of you anyway, just for free, and the occasional coupons. The game’s look at corporate control is honestly one of the most refreshing parts of it, as one of the first tasks you are given is a quick quiz based on your company handbook. Having played Outer World, where corporate word is king, I assumed some of the more outlandish answers, like burning alien villages you should come across, would be correct. But no, the game makes a point to inform you that, no, there are these pesky things called laws to interfere with bottom line shenanigans a company ‘might’ want to do. Who knew?
Upon landing on the planet, you are given free rein to pretty much explore to your heart’s leisure, though most of the early missions make your character able to function better in this process, netting you important tools like the whip, and later the upgrade that lets you use it to reach higher areas. The game has a Metroid-Vania, old-school take to exploration, with a multitude of elements you come across early on being locked away till you have the right tool. One of the most welcome parts of this is that the map actually reflects which items you can’t claim yet with a lock icon, so you don’t waste valuable time trying to unlock them. On the converse side, it can be very unclear just how much progress you need to make to earn unlocks, with a few being mentioned early, then taking till you reach the next planet to begin unlocking.
There are a few planets on offer in the game that you will get to explore. For the most part, they do not diversify the gameplay on offer, mostly offering locale shifts like a lush forest or desert, but the game does so well with the most minute of experiences that it rarely ever matters. Enemies all have their little quirks that make fighting them (well, most of them) an extremely fun experience, so the sense of discovery of a new alien variant, or a tool like the parry that now makes fighting them a different beast, means that the vast locales across this solar system manage to engage and delight well into the later hours of the experience, and make the idea of further exploration feel wonderous, which for a game and the vast unknons of the universe is very important.
Combat in Revenge of the Savage Planet primarily revolves around a blaster you unlock shortly into the game, which doesn’t feel great when you first start blasting away, but has a lot of unlocks that bring it up to par with other games. Unlocks include more ammo, a power blast, and a sweet spot for a quick reload. Similarly, you need to unlock a mitigation to fall damage, placing the abilities players take for granted as some of the many they are working towards. This also unlocks work in weird and rewarding ways, such as enemies like the green blobs you fight early requiring your power hose to destroy, despite that weapon being sold to you as a tool simply to clean gunk off objects.
Enemies ranged from cute and cuddly, such as the mushroom and raccoon heads you encounter in the first area, to later enemies you fight, such as the sandworms. Each can bring their own strategy, and any area takes full advantage of every tool in your arsenal. In fact, returning to a place you were and using newly unlocked tools to change how you fight those troublesome earlier enemies is extremely rewarding and makes backtracking feel less of a grind than you might expect. Of course, annoyingly, some of these enemies can be annoying to fight prior to this. Flying enemies, for instance, can often move to odd angles on camera and be hard to hit. The parry skill lets you send the stingers they shoot back at them with ease, but until then, they can be a frustration. Other enemies, like the fecal beetles, require you to whip a layer of armor off before shooting their weak flesh, and while you get these tools early, some fights can still make it hard to land that blow needed to expose them.
Animations for all of these interactions are phenomenal, though. The first enemy you encounter on the beach you crash land on is a mushroom that inflates its top at the sight of danger. They almost make you feel bad for slapping them into the ocean… Almost. The water spray slowly inflates and turns the green goo monsters blue before they explode, and another monster electrifies itself upon being beaten, its body shivering and shaking in the center as it does so. Even the player’s tiny animations for going into their scan function, or sliding down a hill, are both fluid and engaging, heightening the overall experience.
If exploring the universe is too lonely for you, why not bring a friend along, as Revenge of the Savage Planet offers both local and online co-op. I don’t have real-life friends, so I was only able to test out the online function, which was pretty fun. Players don’t have to be near each other, so, for instance, I unlocked the water hose for a mission while my friend was getting chased by goo monsters. This allowed him to quickly switch to it in the field and fight them off. There was no drastic spike in difficulty either while playing with a friend, which made it more welcoming as I already had some hours under my belt and had to help my buddy figure out his way around.
Unfortunately, it was in this mode that I also encountered the biggest problems. At one point (Cause my friend never listens to me), I warned him I was capturing a creature for the mission we were on, and he chose to kill it right as the vortex of capture opened. This soft lock the experience, forcing us to restart. Additionally, framerate dips and pinging issues were in abundance here, often getting trapped against a wall as my character model spazed out. This could have been on my friend’s internet, though we played a few online games that night with relative ease, except for here, so I’m guessing not. It’s an issue I expect them to fix in the future, and it didn’t detract from the experience when it was really working right, but it needs to be noted all the same.
Verdict
Revenge of the Savage Planet is a wild ride from start to finish that both feels like to honors the platformers of old while charting its own course through the universe that is gaming. It encourages you to keep exploring and has you enjoying every minute that you are. The combat is great, but more importantly, a constantly rewarding experience that evolves and grows as you unlock each new power-up. Enemies are both fun to fight and fun to watch as their animations are, at worst, quirky, and at best, a love letter to everything Revenge of the Savage Planet pays homage to.
The co-op can be a mixed bag, being incredibly fun to play with a friend, but also the only part of the experience where I really encountered some issues. I’m hoping the team can fix these bugs and connection issues because, without them, I can see this becoming a new obsession that you can’t wait to get home to and jump into with a group. This really is an experience built around the idea of getting out there and having fun, and I am fully here for it.
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Review For PlayStation 5, Also available for, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, and Windows PC
A code was provided by XSEED Games for the purposes of this review.
Developer: Raccoon Logic Studios Inc
Publisher: Raccoon Logic Studios Inc, Maximum Games
Release Date: May 8th, 2025
PROS:
+Quirky Humor
+live action performances
+Great Combat
+Exploration
+Vividly Beautiful World
CONS:
-Some enemies can be frustrating
-Co-op bugs that hinder the experience
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Revenge of the Savage Planet
