If you've been following Raccoon Logic in anticipation of Revenge of the Savage Planet coming out, then you're probably already aware of the journey the studio has been through to get here.
Founded in Montreal in 2017 as an independent team under the name Typhoon Studios and acquired two years later by Google, Typhoon would end up being hit by the collateral damage caused by Google not knowing what to do with Stadia. When Stadia was shuttered, Typhoon went with it.
And, as we've seen before in video games, it didn't matter that their first game, Journey to the Savage Planet, was a hit. At least, it didn't matter to Google. Typhoon Studios quickly became Raccoon Logic, and years after those events, it feels like the team didn't lose a step in all of it. More than that, it feels like Raccoon Logic picked up an edge with Revenge of the Savage Planet.
The studio's ordeal with Google heavily influenced the tone of this sequel, which takes every opportunity to poke fun at corporate culture and the machinations of giant corporations. Right off the top of the game, when you land on an unknown planet, an enthused new employee of Alta Interglobal, the giant conglomerate that acquired your previous employer, Kindred Technologies, you learn that you're actually an enthused former employee of Alta Interglobal.
You and every other Kindred Aerospace employee were laid off while you were on your way to a planet in some backwater corner of space. You're stranded and are forced to make do with the bits of technology and everything else that Alta left behind. The message is not lost in the science fiction of it all when Alta directly tells you that you, and the rest of the technology you have at your disposal, were left behind because it was too costly to send a ship out to get you.
And that's just how the game starts. As it evolves, Raccoon Logic doesn't pull any punches, and Revenge of the Savage Planet is a better game for it.
The absurdist commercials for products that are most certainly killing their customers or the ads for the galaxy's biggest influencer, Shama Lama Ding-Dong and his Ding-Dong Academy, which is 'guaranteed' to make you the next biggest influencer alive, all hit the right notes for me. I appreciated how Raccoon Logic walked the line in these ads and within the messages from Alta, or any other corporate caricatures, between hyperbole and something you'd believe could happen tomorrow.
Which is great, because the story didn't connect with me beyond that. The jokes were great, and the commentary felt sharp, but it didn't feel like it had anything behind it.
There wasn't a strong emotional core to hold it all together or give it any punch, which isn't the worst thing in the world. Revenge of the Savage Planet is more about its satire and providing a solid gameplay experience. It's successful at that, for the most part. Its early hours are, however, annoyingly tedious in a way that I know would have turned me off the game entirely if I hadn't been playing this for a review.
If there's any advice I can give someone looking to jump into Revenge of the Savage Planet, it would be to do your best to golden-path your way through the game until you've acquired a few key upgrades. After that, the whole gameplay experience opens up in a much more engaging way, but before that, it still feels annoying to gain some momentum on a quest and in the story, shallow as it is, only for it to grind to a halt because you need to get a different upgrade.
It's not that I'm completely against the Metroid structure of needing to come back to an area when you have the right equipment. When that kind of game pacing works, it works because there's a period halfway through the game where I know I'm not fully kitted out, but I feel like I can take on the game's toughest challenges. Where I've found a satisfying flow to the gameplay, and have moved past the underpowered underdog feeling that the game opens with.
That middle ground doesn't really exist in Revenge of the Savage Planet. I felt underpowered for the majority of the game, and it wasn't until nearing one of the game's three endings that I started to feel like I had solid options for how I could approach a situation, whether that's combat, exploration, or platforming. It's unfortunate that the pacing and often tedious tasks you're asked to complete to progress dampen the experience right up to the end.
Where Revenge of the Savage Planet shines is in the level design across the four core planets you'll visit, the creature designs, the animations, the audio work with each fire of your blaster and the soundscape of every new biome on each of the planets you'll stomp across, and the visual design of each planet. The boss fights are also solid spectacles that were welcome breaks in the gameplay to change things up for a few minutes.
The platforming challenges and environmental puzzles were also quite enjoyable, even if the floaty-jumping of the former took some getting used to. The combat wasn't anything to write home about, but by the time you're able to take advantage of the environmental systems at play on each planet, leaning into those systems can allow you to create a lot of your own fun. If you try to use your blaster for every situation, not only will it not work most of the time, but you'll bore yourself away from playing Revenge of the Savage Planet ever again.
It's every whimsical step you take and every oddball animation you see that keep you from quitting out of Revenge of the Savage Planet, and make you want to keep searching for the next upgrade. The game survives on its charm and satire, and on the gameplay still feeling good, after you put in the time to get the necessary upgrades.
Speaking of upgrades, I did not expect Revenge of the Savage Planet to have me very seriously thinking the whole way through that I should upgrade my PC sooner than I planned. Even at medium settings, and Racoon Logic's recommended GPU, an RTX 2060, I never went very long without some kind of framerate hitch, or full freezes for a second or longer. My PC isn't anything special, it's a very modest build, but I still have had better experiences with modern games than with Revenge of the Savage Planet.
I also consistently ran into UI bugs, where I had to close and re-open the journal and map because they stopped working. I even ran into an issue where the surprise launch addition of the Dave the Diver outfit was entirely missing when I loaded into the game. It took two restarts for it to reappear, which, again, isn't the biggest issue in the world. But it was yet another technical issue on top of the constant technical issues that plagued my entire time with Revenge of the Savage Planet.
It's not unplayable by any stretch, or at least it's not in this state, so even if the day-one patch can't solve all these issues, you won't be jumping into an entirely broken game. Just be aware that there's still a few touch-ups that the game clearly needs.
Ultimately, Revenge of the Savage Planet is a fun mix of sharp satire and toilet humor, with a layer of environmental systems that do work well together, once you have the upgrades to manipulate and use them all. It thrives mostly due to the charm, care, and whimsy pumped into its design and nearly every aspect, but it lacks any narrative chops to push it further. Tedious missions and a poorly executed gameplay arc dampen the experience, potentially to the point where I wouldn't blame you for putting it down.
But if you're charmed by the parts of Revenge of the Savage Planet that are working overtime to charm you, then it's worth sticking around for what can be a fun romp. Especially if you have a friend by your side, as it's easy to see how much more fun it would be to play this game in co-op.
Reviewed on PC (code provided by the publisher).
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