It seems impossible to get away from a perception and is that the ‘gamers’ are those who now take the reins of the video game industry. Redundant? Not that much. I speak of those people who grew up in this sector of just over thirty years, and now in their maturity are dedicated to creating video games, some, like those who enjoyed the abandonment of childhood,
others, radically opposed. The fact is that this generational issueIt has been taking place in other arts for decades, which explains why there is an exaggerated ‘revival’ of eighties cinema today. How could it not happen, if the young directors lived that time as mere spectators? In the end it does not matter which way you work because there is something common to
all people, regardless of medium, profession or experience: nostalgia . It throws us what we grew up with and in independent videogames we are seeing it clearly. First it was the excellent Shovel Knight , and now comes Galaxy Planet Freedom Planet , which in the opinion of this editor is as good as that. We will see the reasons below, of course.
The project, led by Stephen DiDuro, born in Kickstarter of the need to recover some mechanics of the past that even their banners have chosen to forget.
So it’s easy to see a video of the game and automatically remember the SEGA Sonic saga; easy and necessary, but nuanced. Because beyond being a ripoff, what we have here is basically an update of those ideas executed with amazing precision, being the Sonic 2D that would have made the company Treasure
(Gunstar Heroes, Ikaruga, Astro Boy: Omega Factor) if the franchise of the Hedgehog would have fallen into his hands. Technically outstanding, with a
two-dimensional finish that surprises with its richness and variety, good size sprites, numerous types of enemies with sizes in some titanic cases, fluidity and hardly any drop in frame rate punctually, it is a pure delight for the eyes that also enjoys a very remarkable ‘acting’ work, in which we can see how the characters really react as if
they were animated in pencil with a good variety of faces and positions. The scale of the scenarios and their size is also worthy of mention, but it is already clear that at the graphic level it is an excellent game , which can be very, very few hits. The same thing happens with what is truly important in a video game with these characteristics, its playable aspect. Shovel Knight
He knew how to create a personality of his own, despite paying an undisguised homage to classics such as Megaman, both in the structure of the phases and in the control over our knight of the shovel. Freedom Planet does something similar with the type of 2D platforms that Sonic inaugurated, so the base remains largely unchanged: we control one of the three available
characters and move along nine phases (the last one is divided into four stages of variable duration) until finding the exit, where we will find a boss who we will have to overcome in practically all of them. The interesting thing here is not in arriving from A to B, but in the path we walk, because it is a game that allows each player to experience the phases in their own way;
There are not many roads, in a strict sense, nor does it work like a Metroidvania. But the levels are great , enough so that there may be a dozen secrets in each of them and that they are not easily accessible.
In this way, we find that a player can do a ‘ speedrun ‘ and finish the game in four hours, avoiding exploring the phases and going at full speed. There is an achievement in Steam that in fact can only be achieved by completing the main campaign in less than 90 minutes, task -as we warn- impossible in a first game, because it requires knowing the levels at your fingertips, with its shortcuts and avoidable areas, in order to obtain this score. On average, if we dedicate enough time to each phase,
the thing can go even after thirty minutes, so forget the prototype phase of a classic platform: here the thing goes further, it is not a corridor unless, as we say, you know the path of memory and avoid exploration, combat with enemies, et cetera. Which, obviously,
takes away some of the game’s grace. This duration would correspond to the story mode, which tells a simple but interesting plot to follow (and fun to read, very inspired by the shonen) that involves a dozen characters in total. Of these, we will manage to control a total of three, each with its own abilities and particularities. Our main heroine is Lilac
