The unique Planet of Lana proposed a science fiction fable that appealed on two ranges: one, having the ability to journey thru a wondrously lush exoworld, and two, having a cat who if truth be told listens to you. Planet of Lana 2 is extra of the similar, on each counts, whilst including simply sufficient athleticism to its platforming and intensity to its puzzling to really feel like a profitable sequel.
No longer that it avoids a fairly ordinary get started. For all of the leafy forests, snow-carpeted mountains and tropical undersea trenches that you simply’ll in the end see Lana – and feline-ish alien better half Mui – thru, recreation quantity two starts in a community of gray corridors. It’s right here, thoughts, the place Lana unearths she’s been maintaining platforming follow within the intervening years, and is in a position to dash, slide, and wall-jump from the off. All easy tips, however ones that give the bodily demanding situations extra of a flowing, dynamic high quality than the every so often gradual clambering of the unique.
Mui, too, is a extra useful blob-buddy. Whilst nonetheless wanting cursor-pointed course, they’re not restricted to waypoints that hardly prolong past Lana’s personal fingers, allowing them to boing round puzzles, gnawing cables and shedding ropes on the very extremes of the display screen. Their hypnotic energy over the planet’s fauna now extends past easy actions and into complete participant keep an eye on, including ink-blasting fish and colonies of sticky, rolling cloud creatures on your fixing toolbox.
To house the empowered duo, the puzzles themselves have in flip expanded. Regularly actually: Planet of Lana steadfastly stored each and every of its brainteasers to a unmarried display screen, however enabled via Mui’s unleashed vary and the freely controllable natural world, most of the sequel’s maximum memorable puzzles really feel huge via comparability. Flying and swimming creatures, particularly, lend themselves to sprawling, multi-stage conundrums that experience you flicking consideration between Lana, Mui, and your captive thrall like the nature choose display screen of an indecisive Steet Fighter participant.
This isn’t a criticism. The back-and-forth dance between Lana and Mui was once central to the primary recreation’s effectiveness in staving off crate-pushing fatigue, an affliction that may end up deadly to lesser puzzle-platformers. Larger, extra intricate puzzles would possibly have raised the chance of having caught and burning out, however the considerate, incessantly tactily satisfying suite of expanded powers and actions turns the ones scaled-up demanding situations into a few of 2’s maximum enjoyable highlights. You might have already performed any such within the demo: an elaborate infiltration of a submerged cave community, superbly sewing in combination well-timed swims (each Lana’s and the ones of mesmerised fish) with underwater stealth (the coral is patrolled via crackling electrical sharks) and control of the aquaphobic Mui.
Like Lana’s personal squeaking BFF, those helper critters also are invariably cutesy and boopable, in some way that each one however promises somebody on Etsy will probably be promoting stickers of them via the top of the week. This does make it bizarre, alternatively, while you get started marching them to their terrible deaths. Sure, thralls will straight-up perish if instructed into hazards, and whilst this doesn’t reload a checkpoint – as is the case if, say, you ship Lana ragolling off a cliff – the endless resupply of replacements rarely discourages carelessness. In truth, infrequently it’s vital to overcome a puzzle, like hurling the ones rolling cloud bois into a fireplace pit to ignite the flammable path they depart at the back of. Or the use of fish as shark bait. Or locking a large worm in a cage, the place it possibly starves to dying offscreen. In my playthrough, Lana and Mui slaughtered their buddies in some of these techniques and extra. They is also essentially the most prolific serial killer duo because the Wests, and but the sport by no means addresses, even sarcastically, their marketing campaign of bloodletting.
In equity, it’s concerned with a excellent reason. Having up to now rescued her sister from robots, Lana should now rescue her niece from air pollution, the blameless younger’un having been poisoned via a mysterious boulder dumped via passing cultists like a radioactive Twix wrapper. This implies the majority of Planet of Lana 2 is body round an epic fetch quest for remedy components, which most definitely doesn’t sound like essentially the most thrilling construction; I do know my shoulders sagged when the buying groceries record first seemed onscreen.
However no – one way or the other, it really works. Mainly, the unguent hunt serves as an excuse to seek advice from an excellent broader vary of magnificently realised sci-fi biomes and amenities, all gorgeously introduced in Planet of Lana’s handpainted genre and adroitly scored with a soundtrack of pensive keys, swelling strings, and worrying synth. The sequel could also be extra formidable in the way it makes use of those backdrops for dramatic setpieces, whether or not that’s a panicked sprint thru a burning jungle or the primary quiet, suspenseful descent in a stolen submersible, even though it in the long run values the unique’s adventurous and hopeful setting over motion thrills. For each and every sprint from killer bots, there’s no less than one serene stroll thru sunkissed timber or previous but any other gawkable vista.
The extra segmented means additionally opens up the risk for some flashback interludes to inject some candy, candy Mui lore, illustrating a backstory and relationships that in any case begin to flesh out the little goober past Lovely Sidekick standing. This, too, is a shrewd transfer. Lana and Mui’s friendship is the emotional middle of each video games, and as a substitute of simply rerunning their authentic bonding, or wedging in some not going battle betwixt lady and cat alien, those flashbacks subtly tinge it with tragedy: a pained previous and conflicting loyalties that Mui, even with the next level of sapience than up to now idea, can’t be in contact to Lana till it’s too past due. And now not simply because each events discuss in gibberish.
Sadly, whilst Planet of Lana 2 is a skilled emotion-tweaker on the non-public degree, I want it dove deeper into exploring its broader issues. The opposed cult, for example, first of all seem like the unthinking bearers of a few environmental message: they pillage the earth for sources, harmfully unload the waste, and slaughter animals, and now not even for positive causes like fixing a physics puzzle. This first of all seems to be teeing up a Hayao Miyazaki-style polemic towards our personal planet’s ruination (suitable, given the Spirited Away aesthetic, even though much less so at the recreation’s loss of shit-talking your son’s filmmaking skills). As a substitute, those portrayals are basically simply shorthand for bastardry, their affect measured nearly completely on how they reason bother for Lana’s rapid circle of relatives.
This isn’t the one undercooked thought, both. The shining town, glimpsed in the important thing artwork and teased more than one occasions right through the sport itself? That’s explored correctly for approximately 3 mins, maximum of your time there spent navigating the sewage device and underground warehouses underneath it. Your seek advice from happens at some degree within the tale the place there isn’t a lot time for sightseeing, nevertheless it’s this kind of stark departure from the untamed wilds you’re in most cases exploring – whilst keeping up the sequence’ crowd pleasing presentation requirements – that it’s only a disgrace to depart so temporarily.
It’s now not reasonably Bestest Absolute best subject material, then. However Planet of Lana 2 displays succeeds some distance, way more incessantly than it dawdles. Its core puzzle-platforming advantages from some in particular well-considered mechanical enhancements, scoring the not going fulfillment of turning into extra advanced with out stumbling into head-stumping, teeth-grinding issue. And, whenever you get away the ones chilly corridors, it’s much more of an audio-visual deal with than the unique. With, fortunately, a cat who nonetheless listens to you.
