Revenge of the Savage Planet

I came at Revenge of the Savage Planet sideways, expecting a competent third-person shooter with a coat of cartoon paint. What I got instead was something closer to a Metroidvania crossed with a creature-cataloguing sim, dressed in a satirical sci-fi suit that keeps jabbing at corporate greed with all the subtlety of a magnetic fork to the face. That fork, by the way, is a real tool here, and it lets you turn stray metal objects into impromptu projectiles. That detail tells you everything about what Raccoon Logic is going for. The shift from first-person (Journey to the Savage Planet, 2020) to third-person is the headline change, and it mostly lands. Platforming across four distinct planets feels more readable, the goofy run animation adds genuine personality, and you can actually see your character get splattered with conductive goo mid-fight. The gear set is wider than it might first appear: you have the Pacifier Pistol as your primary, upgradeable with heat sink tiers, an active-reload Heat Dumper mechanic, charged Supernova shots, and a Bounce Shot that ricochets between targets, plus a goo launcher that cycles between lava, water, and ferro extract, a lasso-whip hybrid for traversal and stuns, a jetpack with upgradeable glide capacity, and grenades on a trajectory arc. Rail grinds and rocket-assisted stomp attacks add movement texture that slowly opens up each planet's vertical layout in classic Metroid-style fashion. The planet design itself is the strength here: returning to an early jungle biome after unlocking a grapple beam and suddenly accessing five previously mocked areas is exactly the kind of drip-feed that keeps completionists locked in. Here is where the shooter in me has to file a complaint, though. The Pacifier Pistol overheats faster than it should out of the box, and the active reload window to vent heat is stingy early on. Shooting feels a bit loose, targeting flying enemies in particular is frustrating, and some of the melee options (whip strikes, kicks) respond slowly enough that they feel bolted on as an afterthought. Enemy variety is decent, flaming birds that spit lava, exploding sprinters, tongue-lassoing beasts, but some smaller enemy types (teleporting bees, we see you) tip from challenging into annoying. The story lands its corporate-satire jabs with real conviction, which makes sense given Raccoon Logic's own layoff-to-resurrection backstory, but the narrative runs thin in the final act. Co-op, online or local splitscreen, is where the game finds its best mode. Having a second player turn goo-sloped terrain into a trap for each other elevates the whole thing. Be aware that you cannot be on separate planets simultaneously, and dropping out ends the session for both players, but those are manageable friction points. Runtime sits around 10 to 12 hours for the main run, more if you chase the Kindex to completion and scan every last raccoon-ball creature into your habitat zoo. The upgrade economy, built on Aluminium, Carbon, Silicon, and Printer Slurry, is gated tightly enough that early hours feel a little lean on power, but once the grapple beam and double-jump upgrades land, traversal opens up in satisfying ways. Steam user reception is sitting at 88 percent positive across nearly 1,500 reviews at time of writing, which honestly tracks. It is not a tight shooter, but it was never trying to be one. If you want your next 12 hours spent with a co-op partner in a genuinely funny alien sandbox that respects your time and doesn't chase a live-service drip, this delivers.

Fred · Scout Team

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