We played half an hour to the action adventure in space, Journey to the Savage Planet, by Typhoon and 505 Games, for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Games that take place in space are all the rage. Recent examples such as No Man’s Sky, The Outer Worlds and even Jedi Star Wars: Fallen Order indicate that humans are still curious about what lies beyond the confines of our own planet. A new title that will arrive on January 28, 2020 and that proposes us a new adventure on various planets of the universe is Journey to the Savage Planet. Thanks to 505 Games we have been able to try it and talk to Reid Schneider, executive producer and co-founder of Typhoon, a studio full of developers who have worked on big games.
The first game of a talented team
As Reid explains in the presentation before passing us over, Typhoon is a studio made up of developers that come from large companies such as Ubisoft and WB Games, among others. Journey to the Savage Planet is their first project and as the producer assures us, they have had a greater freedom of creation due to the fact of being a small team of 17 people, where all ideas are taken into account and anyone can contribute in The creative process
Journey to the Savage Planet screenshots
As for the spirit of the game, Reid tells us how they intend it to be "fun and strange", in addition to having a black humor like the one we find in Futurama-style series. This is something that we can verify only when starting the game and see the first kinematics, which details that “Kindred Aerospace” (the space company whose services we have hired to reach space) is very proud to be the fourth company in the Ranking
On the other hand, by selecting what will be our character (there is no editor, since it is a first person title and the protagonist will wear a helmet at all times) we can choose fun versions of the team's developers and even a dog . As Reid tells us, they initially added it as a joke, but finally they had a hard time implementing it due to having to add various dog sounds when performing actions such as falls, attacks and others in which sound expressions escape. At this point they confirm that the protagonist has no voice of his own, only these sounds on specific occasions.
Exploration through several planets, where the movement stands out
The first thing we will know in the Journey to the Savage Planet universe is our spaceship. This is our base of operations where we can rest, store collectibles, choose the point where we want to descend on the various planets and more. To help us manage every aspect of the adventure we have E.K.O., an AI on board that will allow us to decide the degree of conversation that you provide between: very talkative, just enough to give us directions and shut up. This is another point that demonstrates the humor that the title presents.
Before going down to the mainland, we investigated a little more our stays in the ship to discover the computer on board. It is an old-looking PC where we can read messages, watch videos, discover our statistics, observe the collectibles and read the cards of each of the aliens we discover. To fulfill this function we have a scanner, which we can use both to find out the characteristics of the beings that inhabit the different biomes we visit and to scan closed doors, monuments and others.
Another function that we can perform on board is to summon a partner to form a cooperative team. To achieve this, the other player must have the game in order to join our game or us to his. Once together, we can perform various missions and explore the worlds in company. The point in favor in this cooperative system is that we should not go together at all times, but that everyone can go on their own.
When we descend to the first planet our AI will remind us of the mission we must carry out. There is no NPC, so the only contact we will have with other characters is with the aforementioned E.K.O. and with some recordings of a mad scientist that we can observe on board, in addition to other human players who can go on our adventure.
Exploration and movement are the main keys of the title. We have a tool with which to get hooked to certain surfaces and advance through the various platforms, so a determining point of platform is added to the mixture that presents the title. We also have a special grenade that grows plants in which we can get hooked on various surfaces, which will allow us to build our own path to move forward and climb to the designated place.
The control is quite accurate, something to be grateful for when moving around the map. In addition, in our game session we find some simple environmental puzzles such as having to open a door for which it is necessary to find and activate some magic crystals. We also had to survive some traps such as rotating laser beams and, in general, various aliens whose main purpose was to attack us.
Original weapons and varied enemies
To defend ourselves against these aliens we have a wide arsenal to choose from. In the weapons section we could not prove more than a simple gun, but the originality and variety came in the multiple grenades we had at our disposal. We tried various and some produced electrical, fire or corrosive damage and others grew flowers in which we could get hooked to climb, among other effects.
As for the variety of enemies, we could see up to 4 different species (a number that will be much higher in the game). After examining them to discover their weaknesses, it is a strategy to end them. For example, we run into a kind of chicks with bulging eyes whose weak point is a sphere that comes out of their heads when we hit them with electrical damage. Therefore, before shooting we must activate some electric flowers to give them a discharge and bring to light the sphere. Of course, there are more ways to kill them, such as throwing a pringue grenade on the ground so that they get stuck or aiming at the ball in a resting state (something more complicated but not impossible).
Other examples of aliens are a kind of great electrical enemies with which we cannot end until we have the appropriate improvement of the suit or weapon, which allows us to overcome the barrier of damage they produce. As we could see, we do not have our own skills (so an RPG dimension is not added to the game), but we have improved armor and weaponry. This is another indication that demonstrates the simplicity of the title.
A simple title, with various shortcomings
After more than half an hour at the controls of Journey to the Savage Planet, we left with a bittersweet feeling. The sweet taste of the game comes mainly for its variety of grenades and its system of movement and displacement through the maps, while the sour remains after discovering that the title is too simple and could give more of itself. The absence of NPC and a history without too much substance, in addition to having only 4 different biomes, make the total duration of the title estimated at 10h – 12h.
The latter does not have to be a negative point, because due to the great length of many of today's games, it is appreciated to have a somewhat shorter one from time to time in order to give us a break. Even so, we feel that Journey to the Savage Planet does not put anything revolutionary on the table and most of the elements it contains we have already played in other titles.
However, we must explore the game in its entirety in order to get out of doubt and confirm or discard these suspicions. We can do it from January 28, 2020 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, platforms on which the Typhoon title will land to try to convince us to enjoy a new space adventure.
