Freedom Planet 2 (2022)

"F" Game Completed!
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To start this long weekend, I was under a lot of stress and anxiety, and I just kinda scanned my shelf for a game that was bright, colourful, and happy.

So, of course, I chose a game where genocide is a central plot point. 🤦

Jokes aside, Freedom Planet 2 is really, really good. But it also suffers a problem of "too much" kinda consistently. Too much story, too many enemies and mechanics, completely superfluous elements like towns, NPCs and a battle arena side activity... It feels like a game that felt it needed all kinds of bells and whistles to surpass the original, and I think that's specifically why it's not as good as the first one.

At its core though, Freedom Planet 2 is stupid-fun. Like. Lilac (the purple dragon) in particular is an absolute joy to use, with really great attack and mobility moves that have you flying all over the stage and pinging off enemies in a way that quickly feels speedy and organic. For shits and giggles, I replayed the first level with the other 3 characters, and that was more of a mixed bag. In a lot of ways, much like the Genesis Sonic games, this feels like a game designed for Lilac that the others just kinda-sorta work in. Carol (the cat) is more of a, "get in the boss's hit box and wreck shit up" character with a bit less mobility. Milla (the dog) is more of a slower-paced, defensive character. Distance and planning are your friends. The fourth one though, Neera (the... rat?) really just kinda sucks. I could not figure out how she is meant to work, so I presume this is a more technical character. She is incredibly slow to use and has terrible mobility.

The story is kinda all over the place. I was genuinely shocked how good the writing was at certain points, with some moments having real emotional gravitas, and other moments actually being laugh-out-loud funny. But sometimes the writing was just... Kinda like the absolute worst of 3D Sonic, where the goofy cartoon characters clash with themes of genocide and indigeneity. It felt very Newgrounds or fan-fiction, like where it can't help itself from being a bit too "extra". Nevertheless, I found myself actually enjoying the story, and it's elevated by the mostly-good voicework. It's very "Cartoon Network" in a lot of ways, definitely full of cartoon tropes and that same "species" of writing. But for what it is, it was good.

Some levels go on a bit too long, but generally speaking, I found they were consistently creative, often having level gimmicks that are used just enough to be exciting without overstaying their welcome. There's A LOT going on in these stages. The difficulty is generally quite reasonable; on normal, it felt like a good balance between too hard and too easy. Some levels get a bit ridiculous with the enemy spam, but really only 2 or 3 out of the 24 levels.

Play time overall was just over 5 hours, and I never felt like it went on too long. When I got the sense like, "Surely the end is soon," it jumped right into the final world. So I was really happy with that.

Something else I want to commend with this game... Despite being VERY MUCH created largely by furries, I think they've mostly done a great job here of striking a good balance. Like the furry stuff is THERE, but it doesn't feel alienating or too "in-jokey" like furry media often can. I personally don't have any real interest for the subculture, and it still felt approachable as an "outsider". So that's a plus.

The graphics here are INCREDIBLE too, with really great use (but not overuse) of 3D elements that produced some genuine "woah" moments visually, in both levels and story scenes. It felt like a well-produced PS1 platformer, and I was often smiling ear-to-ear with some of the creative shit this game threw at me in combat, level design, and visuals. It's clearly a game made by some tremendously talented people.

Soundtrack is... Very good. Like, nothing is a "I need to send a link of this to my friends" good, but it was consistently bouncy, and with a really distinct sound font. The voice acting is a bit less consistent. Some of the actors absolutely CRUSH IT, with Lilac, Captain Kalaw and Merga being standouts. Thing is though, the audio mixing is really weird? Like it sounds like each actor recorded from home on different streaming mics. This apparently isn't the case, as two voice recording studios are in the credits... But even things like volume levels are frustratingly inconsistent.

I also want to note that it's really shitty that it took 3 years to release physically on console versus on PC. The devs partnered with XSEED, a major publisher, specifically to get retail presence. And I'm not sure if it was low sales or what, but XSEED seems to have renegged at that point and they had to settle for a Limited Run release. I'm happy it eventually happened... But I almost bought it twice as a result. I'm glad I waited.

Overall: Really, really fun game. Great platformer. Absolutely worth your time.

My favourite parts of Freedom Planet 2 were some of the nods to other games. The Sonic comparisons are obvious, but there's various things from Gunstar Heroes in here too that made me smile, as it's one of my favourite games, like hurtling alone a railway shaft battling a boss, or watching the baddies watch you fight another badly from the big monitor in their lair. Bosses in general are large and creative.

Love the sprite work, beautifully crafted levels and the character modeling has a lot of charm that brings them to life.

Gameplay is a little basic with mostly just trying to keep moving, dodge and attack. Hit and run. But the speed is exhilarating and executed better than a lot of Sonic games manage. You're moving at pace but the level design and physics has been carefully thought out to avoid blindly crashing into stuff.

The voice acting is fine though i can imagine some might find the delivery a bit forced. The plot is full of references to the first game that I don't remember as it was a while ago.

Music ranges from average to great. There were none I disliked.

Overall, I think the average score on here is a little harsh. There's a lot of fun in FP2, even if it's a little simplistic for some.

Checked out the demo for this and I didn't think it was very good! It's neat that there's four separate playable characters, but their special abilities are all effectively just different ways to skip platforming segments. All these abilities have cooldowns since they're overpowered, and the basic platforming without them is bog-standard Sonic movement, so there's quite a lot of time spent waiting for a little gauge to refill and give you access to your fun moves. The demo level is meandering and formless, and there's a much greater focus on combat than I care for in a platformer.

Also, the main character has maybe the flimsiest, least satisfying divekick I've ever seen in a videogame.