Welcome to ARY-26! It’s a barren planet, a lifeless planet. Wait, no it’s not. It’s covered with weird animals, plants, plantimals, and a whole bunch of alien tech! That’s not how things are supposed to be when you’re exploring for the 4th best exploration company in the galaxy!
Journey to the Savage Planet from 505 Games and Typhoon Studios is a fascinating, vibrant first person exploration game where you play a nameless explorer sent to an obscure planet in the hopes of finding a new home for humanity. However, your crappy corporation had no idea that this planet was teeming with life and tech and that the future of humanity might be right at your fingertips…if you can survive.
You see, ARY-26 is absolutely teeming with weird aliens, plants, and strange stuff. And most of it can kill you, or at least give you body-strengthening tumors. The great thing about Journey to the Savage Planet is that it’s not only fun and creative, but it’s hilarious too! This is a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but also doesn’t forget skimp on the mechanics of that game. Everything about your company is half-assed, but it’s that way on purpose to provide more than its fair share of comic relief. From the Grob that you eat to the disturbing error rate in reprinted bodies if you die, everything has a subtle or not-so-subtle comic bent to it. That’s not to say there isn’t a serious game underneath, but it’s sheathed in a slick, fun wrapper that’s almost impossible not to love.
In Journey to the Savage Planet, you’ll find yourself in the midst of a massive first person open world, one that’s more than a bit reminiscent of Metroid Prime mixed with a fair hint No Man’s Sky (minus the space travel). There’s no procedural generation here though, and where Metroid is a much more intense experience, Journey to the Savage Planet takes a noticeably lighter and more colorful approach. This is a vibrant 1960s psychedelic version of what a Metroid Prime game could be. Don’t be mistaken however, as things are much tougher that they might appear. Whole sections of the game are simply floating in the air, leaving you to hurtle yourself over bottomless chasms haplessly, hoping for the best while your stomach is in knots. It’s honestly stressful to find some of the hidden areas in Journey to the Savage Planet and completionists will have to be incredibly daring and creative to find everything there is to find in this wild wonderland of weird.
Mechanically, Journey to the Savage Planet is fairly straightforward. Shoot things, collect items, jump around, try not to die. The game warns you that you can only die 50 times before you’re unable to be resurrected, so maybe avoid that. There are noticeable Metroid Prime nods all over, especially with the shrines that you collect upgrades from which very much resemble Chozo technology and some of the enemies and fight styles, but this is a less technical exploration game than that. You’ll get a variety of comically squishy alien items that you can adapt for use to progress, and you can use them in some bizarre ways. As you play through, you’ll unlock alien teleporters too, allowing you to jump back and forth to your ship to deposit items and obtain messages. Ultimately, there’s a lot of running about and blasting things and every bit of it is incredibly fun!
Gameplay is mission based, much like most open world games, and you have primary, secondary, and science missions, as well as some world exploration goals. There’s no set way to complete things but the natural progression of the game will be driven by the upgrades you manage to obtain which organically allow you to reach new areas bit by bit and revisit old ones to find new areas. Hunting down hidden items like alien alloys and fuel canisters will allow you to craft new and improved weapons and gear with the fairly simplistic crafting system and in theory, eventually get you back to Earth safely. Yeah, that’ll happen.
There are a variety of enemy types and weird, challenging bosses in the game, and chances are some of them will slaughter you. If you manage to get back to your corpse, you can even raid it for a few extra resources, a bizarre little nugget tossed in just for fun. Bosses and enemies both require a wide variety of strategies and exploits to their weaknesses, some taking pinpoint accuracy to defeat, challenging with your limited weaponry. Fortunately there are health plants and other helpful things all over the place or you’d be dead pretty darn fast most of the time.
On the Switch specifically, there are some noticeable graphics issues that are likely not present in other versions of the game. At extreme distances, enemies move jerkily, stuttering like they are buffering. As you close in, movement becomes organic and clean, but anything in the far draw distance looks rougher than perhaps it should. There’s a noticeable load time between areas and when the game starts up as well. Fortunately, main areas are pre-loaded into the system’s memory, allowing for fast transitions between sub-sections of a given level and back to your ship. But transferring between major areas can take quite some time, up to a minute or more of loading to get things moving along. It’s not game-breaking, but it’s just enough to really notice that you’re loading. Then there’s undocked mode.
Undocked mode works quite well, especially considering how complex Journey to the Savage Planet is. However, the small screen and limited speakers of the Switch really shrink down the experience of the game. This is an exploration game, and one that’s meant to be incredibly immersive. That immersion level is simply lost when playing in handheld mode and it really detracts from the experience. The lush environments, constantly chirping and squishing creatures, and bouncy, thematic music all pale when forced down into undocked mode. It’s simply not the same experience and if at all possible, it’s vastly better to play Journey to the Savage Planet on a large HDTV, ideally with a solid surround sound system.
This is a well-crafted sci-fi experience that takes itself just seriously enough to be compelling and is more than a little deceptive. Everything looks happy and fun and silly, but the gameplay is complex and will present challenges for even veteran gamers. Throw in some wild science experiments, such as hurtling yourself off a massive cliff and using thrusters to save yourself at the last second, as well as some truly bizarre advertising playing on your ships vidscreens and you’ve got yourself a game that really manages to stand on its own and find a unique identity.
In addition to all of the craziness thrown at you in Journey to the Savage Planet, there are even alternate modes. Instead of a New Game Plus, the devs have tossed in what they call “Old Game Minus”, a version of the game that gives you three lives and a timer with no continues for the truly hardcore. There is also a DLC release for the game called Hot Garbage, but as of this article, it hasn’t been made available for the Switch yet. The sheer amount of things to explore is staggering, but the game itself isn’t all that long. A dedicated player could likely blow through the whole thing in about 10-12 hours, and if you’re wandering about gawking at the sights and trying to find everything, maybe 20 or 25 hours. That’s not too shabby, all things considered, especially when you’re looking at only $30 for an absolutely AAA gaming experience that will scratch that Metroid itch that’s been brewing since Nintendo announced that Metroid Prime 4 was coming years ago and then never followed through. A hearty thank you is owed to Typhoon and 505 Games for bringing us Journey to the Savage Planet (and porting it to the Switch), and while it isn’t Metroid, it’s a damn sight better than anything else out there and truly fun and entertaining to boot!
This review was based on a digital copy of Journey to the Savage Planet provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and ran equally well in both. Journey to the Savage Planet is also available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC via the Epic Store. All screenshots are from actual gameplay. Just try to stay out of the alien hallucinogens. Or don’t. We won’t judge. Well, at least not to your face.
