Journey to the Savage Planet Review

Journey to the Savage Planet is a first-person survival game. It’s colourful and quirky and is being touted as an upbeat co-op game but does it live up to the expectations and hype surrounding it?

In Journey to the Savage Planet, players will take on the role of a volunteer in Kindred Aerospace’s Pioneer Program. You’ll be thrust into the deep unknown reaches of space only to crash land on planet AR-Y 26. AR-Y 26 was supposedly devoid of intelligent life but within the first few minutes of exploring, you’ll soon learn that this is not the case.

Players will be greeted with an introductory sequence which gets them up to speed with what just happened, and they will be left to freely explore afterwards. You’ll be tasked with repairing your ship soon enough and the game world slowly opens up to you as you unlock new items. For example, at first, you’ll literally only be able to slap enemies around. After acquiring some resources, you’ll then be able to craft a pistol thanks to your handy dandy 3D printer back at your crashed ship. The pistol then allows you to break through some crystals to enter the next area. It’s a classic gaming formula that we’ve seen in platformers and adventure titles alike for decades now.

Players won’t be alone in their journey through the savage planet (hah!), as they’ll have a companion Artificial Intelligence chatting to them throughout with suggestions as to what to do and where to go. Unfortunately, though, this artificial intelligence named EKO is incredibly annoying and has dialogue that dives a bit too much into the deep end of crude and offensive at some points. We get that sass was something the developers were aiming for when writing the dialogue for the game however there are some points where you’ll just want to mute everything and play the game with no sound because of the extremely cringe worthy and over the top dialogue. Oh, and there’re live-action cutscenes… And… Ads. Yup, satire filled ads which while entertaining the first time around, will just start to grate you upon hearing them for the 15th time back at your ship.

Gameplay in Journey to the Savage Planet includes a mixture of first-person shooting and first-person puzzle platforming. The game lets you freely explore but you’ll eventually run into a dead-end or an area which you can’t traverse on account of needing something specific to get further into the world. Players will then have to scout out new resources or key items and then head back to their ship to craft the required upgrades to their spacesuit. Players can easily scan their environment and it really is enjoyable learning about new things on AR-Y 26. You’ll find yourself going off the beaten path just to scan something quite often in fact and since there’re collectibles to find, there is a lot of satisfaction in exploration.

However, while there is a lot of fun to be had in Journey to the Savage Planet, there’s not enough variation in the game in terms of weaponry. Yes, you can upgrade your pistol but when the game eventually descends into a full-fledged action-fest with you fighting off multiple creatures, it just lets you down with what it has to offer.

Graphically, Journey to the Savage Planet has a vibrant, colourful art style, but its clear the game has had a downgrade on the Nintendo Switch. Monsters have a cutesy aesthetic but don’t let this fool you. They are indeed, savage. There’s a photo mode on offer in the game and while the number of filters you can use is limited, the game is gorgeous throughout makes for some great screenshot material. The soundtrack is decent but the voice acting never letting up from its sarcastic parody level tone throughout is quite off-putting.

Overall, Journey to the Savage Planet tries to blend a range of ideas into one tasty mix but ultimately is marred by some mind-boggling oversight. Exploration is thrown out the window towards the latter part of the game and combat taking precedence just feels strange when the scanning and puzzle platforming elements were so enjoyable in the early areas. The game is worth playing through just be sure to mentally prepare yourself for a lot of sarcasm, parody and somewhat annoying writing.

Journey to the Savage Planet was Developed by Typhoon Studios and Published 505 Games and is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC

Journey to the Savage Planet has been checked out on PC through the Epic Games Store and on the Nintendo Switch.

Enjoy the review? want to read more of our reviews? then click right here to be whisked away to the realm of our opinions.