A gameplay style that has proven to be enjoyable by many and easy to play through are the quiet puzzle platformers with a mysterious lore that’s never directly told to the player. Planet of Lana is no different than any other game fitting this genre showing that Thunderful and Wishfully Studios knew what they were doing when they designed this game. Before I even get into the details, I will say that this game delivers a positive experience.

Story

A peaceful day with your (maybe) sister turns into the day you make the choice to save everyone as invaders arrive while you are swimming, scooping up everybody in your small village into flying cages, and leaving for what looks like a mother base. This begins the adventure and gives you a reason for the game itself, but along the way, you will uncover shrines and oddities that seem to show a connection between your world and the invaders. There is no direct information provided, so any further details are based on speculation in which the player gets to fill in the blanks.

Gameplay

Your controls are pretty straightforward. You have your movement, which can be done with an analog stick or the D-pad arrow keys, and can move either left or right along this sidescroller-style plane. The platforming is done with jumping, which will auto-grab ledges and ropes that you can climb up. Once you meet your monkey-cat-looking friend, you will get more options such as telling them to stay, follow you, interact with certain items (such as buttons), point where you want them to go, and connect with various strange entities within the world.

As you make your way through the journey, you will be faced with various puzzles that are partially platforming and partially puzzle-solving. At first, they are small puzzles that require moving things in the right sequence or opening a pathway to let your little friend through, but eventually, they get more difficult. It will even get to the point that you can interact with control panel-like objects that let you take over the enemy robots and use them for your own needs. You will always need to get both you and your friend through the area, so be ready to handle aspects and challenges on both sides. Where the fault of your character is their lack of jumping height, your friend’s fault is their lack of being able to swim.

As for those enemy robots, you will come across a couple of different versions of them. You have the floating drones that have a range of view below them that you will have to stay out of or they will zap you. Then there is the crawling ground robot that moves like a spider and moves very swiftly. Your other enemies are various nature creatures, such as the boar and giant spider, which you will be able to have your friend connect with if the circumstances line up.

Your friend is a key component to being able to progress through the game, which is why they have to follow you through the whole journey. Their ability to connect with some mechanical-functioning creatures is what helps you get through the game. This also sometimes spills into the puzzle and stealth movement aspects of the game as well.

Audio and Visual

Most of the game is spent in just the ambiance of nature around you. This includes inside of the caves and up in the forest area and even out in the sand dunes. Music is a part of the game though and used to bring out moments when enemies are around, making them feel a bit more intense. The short cutscenes they include in the game also have good music behind them, bringing out the moments. However, there is one point in the game that just gave “skilled artistic choice” vibes, for lack of a better explanation. In mind of trying not to spoil the moment, when there is a big shift in the atmosphere for the game, you will be treated to a song to mark and elevate the moment, much like the famous ladder climb scene in Metal Gear Solid 3.

As for the art style, it is really well done. The atmosphere, the background, the entities, and everything within the game’s visuals just feel fitting and bring out the environment. I did think the main character had a strange amount of standing out over the environment, but overall, they did a great job making a game that plays fully as a 2D title look and feel like a massive world.

Replayability

I’m not sure there is much replayability to the game, but there are ten shrines to find throughout the game. I only found three on my initial playthrough and I am not sure if something happens when you find them all, but finding them could be a reason to play through the game again. There are also some achievements that add to the challenge aspect of the game, for the completionists out there.

What It Could Have Done Better

I would have liked to have seen more varieties of the robot enemies in the game. Especially in the final chapter of the game, that would have been a great moment to introduce unique robots that may only be located in that section of the game. The ones they had felt a bit repetitive by the time I was a little over halfway through the game. However, they did add a lot of unique entities to make up the strange world, so perhaps that is why they kept it a bit limited.

Verdict

Planet of Lana was a wonderfully wonderous adventure to experience! Most of these quiet plot games don’t really give a proper reason the player is going through the adventure, but I really liked how they managed to deliver a purpose right from the start of the game. It definitely helped the drive to complete the journey, even though the gameplay itself was enough reason for me to want to keep playing. I definitely recommend this game to anybody who enjoys puzzles, platformers, and generally titles such as Limbo and Inside.

Planet of Lana is available now on PC via Steam, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.