On the surface, Lovely Planet appears to be a strange, simplistic game with not much to offer. However, at its core you will find an addictive first-person shooter that is worthy of your time.
Lovely Planet is all about speed and accuracy. Over the course of around 100 levels you will have to run, jump, and shoot all the enemies and obstacles in your way before reaching the goal post found in each level. Failing to do so will cause you to restart. Your weapon of choice is a strange… stick? Well anyway, this stick can fire an infinite supply of purple cubes that will assist you in reaching the goal found in each level. However, it is not as easy as it sounds. Even if you reach the goal, you will lose if you did not defeat all the enemies in the level. Some levels see apples being thrown at you, and letting any of them hit the ground will automatically force you to restart. Shooting an innocent block instead of an evil red one will also cause you to start over. What makes the red cubes evil I will never know.
In all honesty, that is the biggest flaw with Lovely Planet. A lack of dialogue or any story makes the game confusing. There really isn’t any direction or reasoning behind the madness of the game, and you never see much of the protagonist except for his legs and hands. Why he is traversing this “Lovely Planet” and shooting red cubes and apples is a question that will probably never be answered. Also, the game includes 5 different worlds filled with levels, but there is not much variety to the look of the worlds. They all feel and look the same which makes the game lack some personality. Still, the game largely focuses on gameplay, and that is where it succeeds.
Lovely Planet is successful in being an addictive shooter that brings fun along with frustration. As aforementioned, you will retry levels over and over again, but the game lets you restart a level before you can blink an eye. Seriously, I have never seen such a quick load time in a game before, and it is a great feature which makes retrying levels a million times better. Since there is no load time with every attempt, you will begin memorizing the layouts of levels and swiftly executing your plan to make it to the goal post. Trying to beat the target time and having 100% accuracy with your “bullets” will award you with one star for every level in which you manage to accomplish these tasks. This greatly adds to the replay value of the game. Achieving three stars in some levels is near-impossible, but trust me, it can be done.
Publisher: tinyBuild Games
Developer: QuickTequila
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Wii U
Release Date: 7th April 2016