Lost Planet 3 (2013)

Played on Xbox Series X via Backwards Compatibility

A sci-fi, third-person, narrative-action-exploration frontier entry in the Lost Planet franchise.

I bought all three on sale on a whim to try something different from Capcom, considering I've heard about Lost Planet off and on for years mentioned in passing.

Played LP1 a few months ago on Hard for the first three missions, then got skill issued by that damn fly. Came back an hour later and restarted my playthrough on Normal, the difference between the two being night and day. Narrative was thin but the experience was unique.

Played LP2 on Normal a week ago. Pretty easy but fun, going to go for a second run on Hard to experience CBT as god intended. The narrative, again, pretty thin but holy hell did fighting big monsters with handheld multi-missile launchers feel so good. Plus, the addition of jungle and desert biomes for arenas was a surprisingly interesting change I would have liked to see expanded on.

Finished Lost Planet 3 today on Normal, it took almost two weeks. The game is roughly 10 hours and every time I picked up the controller, a milligram of sleep-aid hit me in waves with little breathing room. Story-wise, Lost Planet 3 is a B-movie sci-fi romp on the frontier of E.D.N III against the evil, spacefairing conglomerate: NEVUS. A prequel with a likable main character who is Midwest-dad-cool, with a proper personality unlike the first two entries. If you liked the VS mecha units you had to find in the snow of LP1 or those provided in the combat arenas of LP2, swapping different guns onto the arms when running out of ammo or picking a chaingun out from a brush, be sad, for you cannot do that here with the main REC suit. The narrative and amatuer achievement hunter in me BEGGED to see it through to the end. At the end, I WANTED to replay Dead Space 3 solo, to see if I was too harsh on it because here, in Lost Planet 3, nothing made me whole.

The third Lost Planet entry takes the series in a different direction, focusing less on over-the-top action and more on atmosphere and narrative. he MC is called Jim Peyton, a blue-collar worker contracted by the Neo-Venus Construction company to mine resources on the frozen, hostile planet E.D.N. III. This change was due to the Dead Space popularity at the time, similar to what Capcom did with Resident Evil and Call of Duty back in the day, making RE more action-focused to try and make it more popular since COD was becoming big.

The story leans heavily on Jim’s personal life and video messages exchanged with his family back home, giving the game a more grounded, human touch compared to the bombastic style of its predecessors. And although the previous games had very little focus on the story, it was still an enjoyable experience Capcom was never known by complex and unique game lore anyway, so nobody expected much out of them on this regard.

Gameplay mixes third-person shooting with exploration in Jim’s massive utility Rig, which feels weighty and practical rather than like a pure combat mech. It really felt like you were playing a spin-off of Dead Space at this point. The frigid environments and dangerous Akrid creatures create a tense survival atmosphere, though missions often boil down to repetitive shootouts and fetch quests. The combat system itself, now more cover-based (another trait of the time due to Gears of War), is serviceable but lacks the distinct flair of earlier entries.

Where Lost Planet 3 shines is in its world-building and narrative tone, which deliver a sense of isolation and corporate exploitation wrapped in a personal story. So I got to admit that, even for Capcom's standards, the characters are very good on this one. Unfortunately, uneven pacing and dated mechanics prevent it from fully realizing its potential. It’s an interesting but divisive entry, more of a sci-fi survival drama than the high-octane action fans might expect. I would skip this one if you are not a fan of the Lost Planet franchise, I enjoyed it but I don't consider it more than an average entry.

When I started Lost Planet 3, I was fairly impressed at the premise. You are part of an expedition to a new world, searching for an energy source that can possibly solve Earth's energy crisis. However, the actual gameplay does not reach up to these ambitions.

First, the good stuff. Our protagonist Jim Peyton is a likeable lead - he's a simple man who has set out to secure a future for his family. Then there are the enemies - the bug-like creatures called the Akrid. There's definitely some good variety here, with different types of Akrid requiring different strategies to defeat. The inclusion of the construction rig is another great idea. Taking on a monstrous creature in your own giant mechanical suit is a lot of fun, and it leads to some of the best moments during gameplay.

Now, the downsides. The overall pacing of the game is a problem. You are given a semi-linear environment to explore, but the act of exploration itself feels like a chore. There is a fast travel mechanism that unlocks a little later in the game, but it is severely restricted. The pacing of the story is also a problem, to the point that each of three acts feel disconnected from one another. The story also drives itself into a corner near the end of the second act, which results in the big bad being introduced in the third act.

To summarize, Lost Planet 3 is a moderately likeable game. It brings a lot of good ideas to the table, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. You can't really call it a bad game, but you can't describe it as good either. It sits squarely in the middle.