VideoGame An excellent action-platformer that shows, and surpasses, its roots as a Sonic fangame
With its furry characters, anime art, upbeat saturated music, and mechanics taken straight from the Genesis-era Sonic the Hedgehog games, Freedom Planet shows its fangame roots. All the Sonic game mechanics are there too: loop-de-loops, running up walls and upside-down on ceilings, and springboards.
But playing the game a bit further shows that it has its own unique identity, and what it does, it does extremely well.
Some of the nuisances of the old Sonic games have been dealt with - you no longer have to worry about running real fast and then crashing into an enemy you had no chance of spotting; enemies only harm you if they're performing an attack, and the game shows a warning symbol letting you know of off-screen attacks before they arrive. You also, in most cases, can't die by being crushed by, say, a moving floor and a fixed ceiling. You can even swim, and recovering air is really simple also. Even when you have to take it slow, your standard movement and jumping speed are faster than in the Sonic games.
You have a life meter, and combat involves directly attacking enemies. You can also use some speed-based attacks to charge into enemies.
There are character-based differences: Lilac, the most "Sonic-like" character, has a charged dash similar to Rocket Knight Adventures. Carol can climb walls and occasionally summon a motorcycle that can drive straight up walls. Milla is slower and weak, but can fly, summon and toss blocks, and use a shield.
The level design is amazingly creative, constantly throwing new ideas out there. Sometimes it feels just like Sonic, sometimes you have to fly through the air using repeated mid-air charges, sometimes it's all about fast-paced combat, and sometimes you have to slow down and avoid hazards.
The levels also have unique gimmicks and tricks as well. One level has a room where the oxygen is drained, and you have to hurry up and find an air shield before you die. If you get hit, you lose the air shield, and the countdown begins again.
Freedom Planet is simply an excellent game. It has very refined play mechanics, excellent level design, and is a complete blast to play. It takes the best of 90s action games, while tossing out the bad, and adding its own original ideas, which are done equally well. I'm impressed.
VideoGame What.
No, seriously. What.
Freedom Planet was released in July of 2014. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric was released in December of the same year. Now, hands up if you enjoyed Sonic Boom more than Freedom Planet.
... Anyone?
Oh wait, you didn't. Why? Because somehow a speedrunning/platforming game featuring cutesy cartoon animals made by a tiny indie company somehow managed to have more heart, energy and creative design than a speedrunning/platform game featuring cutesy cartoon animals that was made with a budget of twenty million fucking dollars. Somewhere deep inside the twisted, blackened husk of a soul, I hope that the lead developers of Sonic Boom saw Freedom Planet when it first came out and collectively realized just how immeasurably far their own efforts fell behind.
Freedom Planet is an awesome game. I won't say it perfectly captures the spirit of old 2D Genesis/GBA titles, because I barely played any. What I do know is that every aspect of this game has been polished until it shines like a proverbial mirror. Character animations are insanely nuanced, and you can practically hear the sprite artist sweating with effort to cram in as much detail as possible to every action. Voice acting is also stellar, and the writing is pretty-much exactly what I want from a game like this. The entire product radiates sincerity, showcasing exactly what can be accomplished by a team loaded with creative energy and a willingness to innovate on their source material.
If there are flaws with Freedom Planet, I'd say they lie in the usage of the archaic Lives System and a somewhat limited sense of perspective. I'd have liked a more zoomed-out view or a mini-map of some kind, but the superb level design means that you almost never find yourself blundering straight into traps or obstacles like in the Sonic games. A couple of the more maze-like maps also show up directional arrows when you start the stage, but so briefly that you could well miss them and get lost on your first play-through. That's really all I can criticize, however.
In conclusion, Freedom Planet sets the bar for 2D sprite-based platformers/running games. It radiates energy, creativity and polish like a miniature sun. I have traditionally loathed games like this for their over-emphasis on cliched stories, laughable characters and shameless nostalgia exploitation, but Freedom Planet is simply on another level altogether. I love it, and I'll defend it against all comers.