Freedom Planet 2 Review (Zakon)
Review after 100%
Pure gaming joy. If you enjoy platformers, and especially if you enjoy Sonic the Hedgehog platformers, this game and the first one are both worth your time. I've been gaming since the NES era, and platformers are one of my favorite genres, so it's no small compliment when I say that this might be my favorite of all time.
That being said, you should not come into this game expecting just a classic Sonic experience. Freedom Planet, especially Freedom Planet 2, has some things which set it apart from the series which inspired it. So much so that I feel it's a disservice to compare this game so much to Sonic, since I really do feel it deserves to be considered its own entity and not just regarded as the indie Sonic game series.
For one, you have a health bar, not rings. This means you can't take hits infinitely. But on the other hand, getting hit doesn't kill your momentum.
Secondly, the levels are long. Sonic levels are brisk, but that's not the case here. Some levels take 8-10 minutes on a good run. The levels are masterfully crafted to allow you a sense of speed while also challenging you to jump, platform, and dodge.
And lastly, the character's move sets are much more robust than Sonic's. Each one has different attacks they can do depending on what direction you're holding when you press the attack button, plus some extra abilities. You also have a spot dodge ability. Think Smash Bros and you should get a pretty good idea of the kind of tool kits and control schemes you can expect.
There are four playable characters to pick from. The story is the same regardless of which one you pick, but you see certain events as some that you don't see as others, which rewards playing through the game as each character.
Lilac: The most "Sonic" like of the cast. She's fast, the quickest to accelerate, and has a simple moveset, including a helicopter spin, an uppercut, and a divekick. Her special ability is to do a mid-air dash which sends her rocketing off in a direction of your choosing, bouncing off of walls like a pinball as she goes.
Carol: Has a Mega Man X style wall kick, plus a lot of really great attack options. Her special is to throw a disc which can multi-attack enemies, or she can pull herself towards it after throwing it for creative jumping arcs to get around platforms. I generally found her to be the strongest character once mastered. She also has the ability to acquire a motorcycle, but I found it to be the most redundant part of her arsenal, and all it really does is increase her movement speed at the cost of making her feel slippery.
Milla: This character felt a bit incomplete in Freedom Planet 1 compared to Lilac and Carol, but in this, she's much more fleshed out. She plays a bit like Yoshi from Yoshi's Island, with a flutter jump and an attack that consumes ammo which she generates whenever she dodges. She can also manifest a shield which can reflect projectiles, which is absolutely devastating to some bosses.
Neera: The newcomer playable character to Freedom Planet 2, who was a secondary antagonist and boss character in Freedom Planet 1. She was my favorite to control overall. She feels the most like controlling a Smash Bros character, because she utilizes both of the attack buttons plus directional pad inputs for a wide variety of offensive options.
So the last thing to mention is the story. I found the story to be an improvement over Freedom Planet 1. It's much more tonally consistent, where the first one was light-hearted with a couple of dark and violent moments which felt out of place. Which isn't to say it doesn't touch on any mature subject matter, but it handles it gracefully in a game which has a mostly child-friendly mood.
That being said, there are a lot of cutscenes, and your ability to enjoy the story depends greatly on how much you like the main four characters personalities and interactions. For me, I found all of the characters and the humor to be endearing, so I liked it a lot. Other people may find some of the characters grating, especially Serpentine and the monkey character.
But when the absolute worst thing I can think of to say about the game is that the story (with skippable cutscenes) may not work for everybody, I think that shows that this game is very much worth your money. The developers clearly put their hearts and souls into this one, and it shows in every level, every boss fight, every beautifully detailed sprite, and every excellent music track.