Freedom Planet: coming to a Wii U near you! Indie Assault starring Spade is also a thing!

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

I already own this game on Steam but after reading up on the extras included in the Wii U version I think it's worth purchasing again

[Teoskaven]

Indie Assault on paper sound a very smart idea, but watching the trailer doesn't give me a lot of hopes: the best part of the game so far are the characters artworks. I hope it will get better and polished in the future.

[JaidynReiman]

I was planning on getting this on Steam, but sure, I'll get it on Wii U once its out. Nice.

[Phos]

This game, giving me some nasty motion sickness...

 

Pretty odd game, what with putting an illustration an illustration off DeviantArt in my steam library, being familiar with the character well before the game existed, and it's fan game turned retail history.  

 

Well, after all that, I'm not crazy about it.  I often describe Sonic Colors as being like dropping Sonic into a bunch of Megaman levels, and this game kinda feel like they did the opposite, that I'm playing a Megaman game set in a bunch of Sonic levels.  Or specifically, Zero in a Sonic level because I've been going through the game as Carol.  I dunno how much difference I could expect Lilac to make because then I'd be going through a Sonic level as Sparkster instead.  Why that's a problem is down to how often I'm fighting something or other, which wasn't a major problem early on, but later on enemies are thick on the ground, and later on fighting seems to involve just putting yourself on an intercept course and sticking out an attack and the because of it the camera is just always jolting around and the combat mechanics seems out of their depth to carry the game.    

 

Bosses are also Donkey Kong Country levels of way too long, which I can't help but find odd considering there's a boss that wears its Seven Force inspiration on its sleeve.  The bosses are probably the worse culprits to the motion sickness.  

 

That "Indie Assault"... oh my, that's not gone well.  

[Junko]

Finally happening.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Now how long for that Spade and Torque DLC? Nowadays, I've been playing Freedom Planet on Hard Mode just for a challenge to pass the time.

Also, I want to flip my desk upon recently discovering that the Flower Shield protects you from those stupid, fume spewing mutant plants that have been annoying the piss out of me in Pangu Lagoon and Final Dreadnought 2. I've been jumping like a maniac just to avoid their smoke. This is S3&K all over again...

Edited September 28, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Metal the Mario]

Today's the day: Freedom Planet is up on the eShop. Looking forward to finally getting the game and trying it out.

Aside from that fact, it's worth noting that if you already have the Event Preview demo from the Nindies@Home event, you can get the game at a 15% discount. I thought that was a nice surprise.

[PC the Hedgehog]

I'm trying so, so hard to love this game.

I mean, it's inspired by my favorite game series ever and stars adorable female characters. What's not to love?

Maybe I'm just not paying close enough attention, but the story throws so many characters with so many different allegiances at you so quickly that I found myself having trouble keeping up with who was who.

The gameplay is decent, but doesn't flow as well as classic Sonic games. Haven't played the other characters, but Lilac moves fairly slow for the layout of the levels.

Probably the worst offender, though, is the difficulty. I've been playing platformers for over 20 years. The levels themselves aren't hard, but the bosses are insane. Despite their fairly predictable patterns, they're still a pain to try and hit and move way, way too fast. I got at least three game overs on the giant peacock robot boss. And this is on normal mode.

On the plus side, I admire their attempts to tell a decent story; it's definitely keeping me entertained. People seem to complain about the voice acting, but I think it's fantastic. Each character has a voice that fits them to a T and displays a perfectly fine level of emotion. Pretty impressive for (I assume) non-professional voice actors. And the music...lord, the music is AMAZING. Once I beat the game, I plan to buy the soundtrack and blast that bad boy on repeat.

So all in all...while the game isn't nearly as good as I was hoping, I have a feeling my enjoyment will increase dramatically the more I play it.

[Diogenes]

Yeah I wanted to like this, but...nah.

The story is just terrible. First off there's way too much of it, for something so strongly influenced by Sonic I would think they'd know to get to the point so you can get on with the action. But every level the scenes drag on and on, dumping exposition and trying to be cutesy when I feel I've barely even had a chance to stretch my legs. The story itself is about as generic as it gets; evil alien, magic rock, plucky teens, dumb adults, oh no they had a fight oh wait they made up, oh no torture that's super edgy, whatever. They didn't keep my attention any better with the characters, either; it feels like they're written as if we're already supposed to care about them, so they never bother giving you reason to.

And I still have no idea what's up with goo dog. Just some random superpowered orphan(?) out of nowhere. Dunno if they're going to add anything to justify her in future updates/dlc/whatever but as is I don't even know why she's in the game. And it feels pretty bullshit that

she survived turning into a mutant, getting her eye kicked in and exposing all her braingoop. At least when Cave Story did it it had the guts to actually kill off some characters. Although given the quality of the writing I'm sure I'd roll my eyes just as hard if they tried to make some kind of emotional moment out of it...

The gameplay's nothing to get excited about either. It's like they mashed together Sonic and Gunstar Heroes but never got to a point where the two worked together sensibly. The Sonicy parts almost feel salvageable, save for two problems. One, they split the moves between the characters, Lilac having the closest equivalent to the spin dash and Carol being the only one who can roll naturally (while goo dog is just terrible)...though I can kind of understand that they didn't want to so obviously rip off Sonic. Second is that it's constantly interrupted by the combat, which is something I've never thought was a good match for Sonicy gameplay, but it's especially bad here. These momentum-based characters cannot be reasonably accurate with the short, small hitboxes of their normal attacks. Lilac needs to rely on either her slow (thus punishable) cyclone, uppercut and dive kicks, or risk her dash, likely putting her on the opposite side of the arena and leaving her without a decent way to dodge. Carol's basic attacks are garbage and she's basically reliant on her special without her bike, though at least with it she can spin jump through most things. Goo dog is slow and terrible unless you can reflect bullets, but good luck guessing what you can and can't reflect (in an effective direction, or at all) and hope they don't just put their gun through your shield and shoot you in the face. Most enemies can shoot you before you're even close enough to attack, bosses are super aggressive but heavily pattern-based so learn the pattern or get fucked. Checkpoints before bosses are usually dumb and make you put up with some bullshit to drain health before you can get back to a boss. The last boss is just fucking stupid, if he's not countering you he's shooting directly at you (aka along the only path you can take to try to hit him with a melee character), if he's not shooting you he's stabbing you for literally half your health (he does this both at the very start of the fight and also throughout it, might as well just let him kill you if you flub the first dozen dodges), and if not that he's jumping around outside your range anyway. If there's a trick to it I never figured it out, I just said to hell with it and switched to easy (and he was still pretty bullshit and not fun at all). It's late and I'm tired and I don't want to talk about this game anymore.

Final verdict: Play Shovel Knight instead/10

[MegasonicZX]

The second you guys stop trying play it like a sonic game the more you'll get into it, I always see people comparing it to sonic (and rightfully so since the characters do have that sonic-y feel) but the mechanics aren't really made to play like a sonic game in anyway, sure there is momentum and some occasional segments where you hold right and go real fast but unless you have a plan in mind, on the first playthrough its probably better to just take your time and run through the level like normal until you can start formulating paths to take faster routes and such.

[PC the Hedgehog]

And I still have no idea what's up with goo dog. Just some random superpowered orphan(?) out of nowhere. Dunno if they're going to add anything to justify her in future updates/dlc/whatever but as is I don't even know why she's in the game.

I know, right? I think I'm only about halfway through the game, and she seems like such a random inclusion. I mean, she's been useful story-wise, but it feels like she was just thrown in for the sake of having a third character. Maybe her inclusion will make more sense later in the game.

[Blacklightning]

The Sonicy parts almost feel salvageable, save for two problems. One, they split the moves between the characters, Lilac having the closest equivalent to the spin dash and Carol being the only one who can roll naturally (while goo dog is just terrible)...though I can kind of understand that they didn't want to so obviously rip off Sonic.

Minor clarification here: with Lilac you can perform Cyclone on the ground with down + attack and it functions almost identically to a roll, right down to the slope physics. It still uses a little energy and cancelling out of it can be awkward, but sometimes it beats waiting for a Dragon Boost to charge. Why the game doesn't actually tell you you can do this, though, I don't know. With Carol I don't mind lacking a bit of mobility though because she absolutely rapes bosses, and well you said it yourself, the bosses in this game are assholes.

I never really got used to Milla, but I played her enough to notice that Super Shield Bursting has recoil in midair that pushes her in the opposite direction and I feel like that's supposed to be her speed gimmick? For how long it takes to set one up though I did hate how you basically had to plan redirects several seconds in advance when you didn't usually have that long to react unless you had most of the stage perfectly mapped out in your head.

[JaidynReiman]

I'll pick this up soon-ish, not sure when exactly.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

 With Carol I don't mind lacking a bit of mobility though because she absolutely rapes bosses, and well you said it yourself, the bosses in this game are assholes.

Which is interesting, because the Final Boss is where Carol struggles more than Lilac. Either that, or I'm too used to playing this game on Hard Mode, because Lilac heavier attacks and boost makes Brevon more of a cakewalk than Carol, and I think Carol is much better to play.

Regarding Milla, am I the only one who thinks she's currently the most broken character because of her ability to reflect or block damn near any ranged attack?

[Sean]

I really enjoyed what I played of this game but actually never even finished Lilac's story. I was waiting for the Wii U release because it's not currently convenient for me to play PC games. But I think I'll wait for the cutscene freeze patch to drop before I buy it

[Candescence]

I really enjoyed what I played of this game but actually never even finished Lilac's story. I was waiting for the Wii U release because it's not currently convenient for me to play PC games. But I think I'll wait for the cutscene freeze patch to drop before I buy it

Uh, that fix is already out, the freeze bug is what caused the game to be delayed in the first place.

[Sean]

Another one was discovered post-release.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/10/freedom_planet_bug_causes_screen_freezing_problems_for_some_players

[Phos]

Yeah it seems like both characters are partially reliant or greatly helped by non obvious moves, carol has this pouncing attack that inflicts a lot of damage and doesn't take meter, and lilac has a dragon punch (ic wut u did there), her spin thing isn't actually that potent an attack. Either way, I feel like both characters have way too much inertia for the amount of fighting you do, and challenge through navigation is almost non existent, it's like as if Gunstar Heroes had really slidey controls, which weirdly seems like what they were going for? 

[PC the Hedgehog]

Welp, I beat it. The bosses started getting so ridiculous that I quit having fun, so I turned the difficulty all the way down to casual. Not the most fulfilling experience, but at least I could beat the game without wanting to throw an axe through my TV.

All of my problems still stand, though. There are so many unnecessary characters that it's hard to keep them all straight, Milla still feels like she was tacked onto the game for the sake of having a third character, and the levels become progressively more muddled down with enemies and unconventional stage design that blasting through them just isn't as fun as it should be.

Still, soundtrack and voice acting was spectacular, every level had at least one clever gimmick that complemented the gameplay, and the game looks pretty darn gorgeous.

All in all, Freedom Planet had potential to be a fantastic game for Sonic fans and non-Sonic fans alike, but there are just too many missteps to keep it from being the great game it could be. I do have faith that GalaxyTrail will learn from their mistakes, and hopefully their next game will knock everyone's collective socks off.

[Phos]

The trio predates the idea to put them into the game.  Of course, it's kinda weird because some time between the trio's creation and them being put into a video game, Milla's basic design was reimagined as male rabbit wizard character unrelated to Sonic.  

[Sean]

There's a noticeable loading pause during certain moments in the Wii U version, like after the invincibility music stops playing, when a boss appears, or during a music change in cutscenes. The rest of the game operates smoothly but those pauses last a good two or three seconds so it's a little unnerving when I think the game has frozen on me.

[Metal the Mario]

Milla/Torque DLC is coming in December. Also, a teaser trailer.

Freedom Planet DLC is coming soon!

We will be releasing our DLC in two batches. The first DLC set includes Milla's Adventure mode and Torque as a playable character, and will be released on PC/Mac/Linux this December. Spade requires additional content and will be released sometime next year. We will try our hardest for a prompt Wii U release for both updates, but we can't be certain about it until it's submitted.

Stay classy, and thank you for your continued support and patience!

 Good timing, too, as I just finished the game not long ago and I've gotten myself invested in the world and the characters. Although I have it on Wii U, so hopefully it releases on there just as quickly.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Time to chew on some wood as I play them on hard mode.

[Thigolf]

 

Freedom Planet will receive a physical release via Indiebox!

As per usual with Indiebox, the Content is secret until it ships, though every indie box includes the game (duh) on a USB cartridge along with a steam key, the OST, a Manual, and some other goodies that vary from box to box (some of them have Controller-replicas of a certain era, some of them playing Cards, others have Buttons etc.)

Anyone interested in picking this up? I'll certainly keep this on my radar.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

YO EVERYONE! FREEDOM PLANET IS GETTING A SEQUEWL!!!!!
 

Edited December 25, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic