14 DAY TRIAL // 
If you look online, Journey To The Savage Planet is a game that has caused a lot of controversy in the gaming community.
Some people call it a shooter, others claim it’s a platformer. Fans of the genre say this is 100 percent an adventure title, while occasional players believe it’s focused entirely on the action.
Put all these together and you perfectly get a sense of what Journey To The Savage Planet is all about.
But the two words that accurately describe the time you’ll spend playing this game are “world exploration.”
Journey To The Savage Planet is an intriguing release, and you’ll figure out from the very first minutes of playing that developers have tried to implement a subtle sense of humor. To be honest, this didn’t work for me all the time, but some of the real-life references did make me smile. The ads on the ship are definitely a nice touch, and if you didn’t notice them, well, you should.
The game is all about exploration, and in many ways, it does feel like you’re discovering a new planet, pretty much because you must start from scratch with everything. You need to look for atomic particles that you can then use to craft certain tools or develop new capabilities. Funnily, some of these materials are hiding inside the creatures that you come across, so you need to slap the heck out of them to extract the minerals.
Once you collect the necessary materials, you can return to the ship and use the 3D printer to build various tools that can then help with your exploration. You can also build weapons and develop new capabilities, all with the purpose of completing missions faster, easier, and in a more rewarding way.
The story, however, is pretty linear, and in many ways, you’ll still end up doing what you are required to do, no matter if you live it or not. However, the upgrade system and the exploration component make everything pretty challenging in a way that feels unique. I know that many people think Journey To The Savage Planet is painfully similar to The Outer Worlds, but the game still adds its own touches that you can’t find elsewhere.
Exploring the world can be both fun and ridiculously annoying. But it certainly gets more exciting as you develop new abilities, especially because you can reach new places much easier. You just need to focus on removing restrictions from your tools, and you’ll end up having a lot of fun playing this game.
The puzzles should have been more challenging. They feel somewhat fun at first, but as you advance in the story, you’ll get a sense of how everything is working and end up doing them much easier.
The combat system could be disappointing for some, but on the other hand, it has a very clear goal. First and foremost, just like everything else in Journey To The Savage Planet, you need to craft your own weapons. Once again, you need to explore the world, collect the necessary materials, and then go back to the ship to build the weapons. The enemies that you come across on the map won’t even bother you unless you bother them first.
Sure enough, killing all the weirdly intriguing creatures isn’t by any means a difficult thing to do. You should be able to do this with even the most basic weapon, so the more tools you develop, the easier should be to get past them.
I didn’t necessarily find the bosses too challenging either. They do have a weak spot, but on more than one occasion, I noticed that simply firing regular shots at them causes just enough damage to kill them without too much effort. This should have been more challenging, there’s no doubt about it, especially because they are first and foremost bosses.
This reduced focus on combat has a very clear objective. Journey To The Savage Planet is all about planet exploration, and given you can get past enemies in a matter of seconds, you can get back to discovering the world pretty quickly.
Truth be told, there’s a lot to discover on every planet, and the developer has tried to make sure that you’ll be impressed. The graphics are stunning, and the plethora of colors that are part of the world contribute to world exploration that feels unusual at first but eventually proves to be very rewarding.
Again, Journey To The Savage Planet seems to be the kind of game that could make some people give up on it after just a few minutes of playing. This is because you just need to give it more time, especially because the exploration part is much more convenient when you manage to develop more abilities.
Probably the biggest shortcoming is the short story. I’m seeing people who managed to beat the game in just 6 hours, and some of those who tried to get all collectibles ended up doing the same thing in about 8 hours. I’m currently at 10 hours and counting, but I tried to enjoy every minute with the game, watch every cutscene, and so on.
The Good
- Great world design
- Good sense of humor
- World exploration is awesome
The Bad
- Basic combat system
- Short story
CONCLUSION
But at the end of the day, Journey To The Savage Planet is all about world exploration. The stunning graphics, the impressive world design, the tool crafting that can enhance the planet discovery, and the weirdly awesome creatures that can hardly be considered enemies contribute to otherwise pretty relaxing gameplay.
Journey To The Savage Planet would definitely use a longer story, but even so, it’s one of the few titles that make a single thing like world exploration surprisingly rewarding.
A review key was provided by the publisher.
