Planet of Lana Review (Roberto)
Beautiful if simplistic
As someone who's a fan of the travelling from left to right puzzle/platformer genre; this game feels lacking.
If you compare it to games like Limbo/Inside the puzzles are almost nonexistent. There were only two puzzles in the whole game that actually made me recognise they're a puzzle and stop to really look at what it was I had to do. Everything else was just going through the motions.
Though games like Limbo/Inside managed to also have a sense of tension, a kind of unease to push you forward, even just a curiosity about the world that makes you want to see more. I'd even say the Far games (Lone Sails and Changing Tides) manage to capture a sense of almost panic, pressuring you to succeed. Where Planet of Lana I just never felt any real engagement from the game, no reason to feel like I wanted to see more. The game just feels slow without that special something to make it stand out.
The game also does the telling the background story through the... well background. Finding collectables to explain whats happening in the world but, it all feels very surface level. You can ignore the collectables as it's very easy to predict the plot just from a few hints the game drops early on. There's no twists, no turns, just what you'd expect it to be.
If this game existed in a bubble where there was nothing else like it I'd recommend it, but if you compare it to similar games I just can't recommend it. It's just it feels like there are a lot of repeated scenes and puzzles to stretch out what little play time it has. There's even a few slow panning scenes with emotional music with nothing really happening just to admire the scenery if that's the type of thing you're into. Oh there's even some QTE sections which, for me, kinda killed the tone of the scenes. Like there's a scene from the early trailer but it's not gameplay it just has some button prompts plastered over the top of it.