Planet of Lana Review (AquariaMoon)
This is a cute game. It's very pretty and it's obvious a lot of effort went into it.
It missed the mark for me.
Story wise I didn't feel any connection to the characters and felt there wasn't enough characterization done to really hook me into the narrative, which felt shallow and cookie-cutter. I understand what the writers were trying to do having Lana call out for her friend at various intervals, but it jolted me out of the story rather than pulling me back in as the timing of those calls made no sense in my mind. The world's background was predictable, which of course isn't bad, but it didn't feel like it made the trope its own.
When it came to the puzzles there's some fun ideas and some of the ones asking you to interact with your companion character to solve them were even fun! But more often than not the puzzles stayed pretty simple and easy to solve. they were just soemtimes a pain in the ass to complete for control related reasons.
They were quite modular too, which makes sense but also broke my sense of immersion a little. Very 'alright, puzzle done, next one'.
Except that they sometimes have very long sections where all you're doing is walking. Which is fine for establishing tone etc. but I was missing something extra here. Yes the game is pretty, but for most of these sections you can't really see the landscape beyond the level you're actually walking on. Gris and Neva are very good at this, they make you walk straight with nothing going on but the landscape changing or creatures showing up and that's enough to be captivating. Iw as missing that in many spots here. Planet of Lana does also employ those moments, and they're quite effective, but they moments get repeated and every time they do it cheapened all instances for me.
In the end I had an okay time with this game. There were a few moments I did stop to take in the beautiful scenery (the coastal area and special sunrise sequence for example), but other than that nothngg really stood out to me. And on the other side the clunkiness of the controls and the occasional trial-and-error segments left me very frustrated and/or confused in certain puzzles or chase portions. And since the narrative didn't click with me there was just nothing to balance it back out.
All of this isn't helped by the fact that in my opinion the primary trailer shows most of the highlights, painting the experience as something with more variety and depth than it actually has to offer.
If you don't mind slightly janky controls and nothing groundbreaking narrative wise, but really enjoy playing through a beautifully rendered world with a cute companion character with only the occasional challenge (and some very sudden difficulty spikes for one-off segments) this game has a lot to offer you.
It just wasn't for me.