Gotta Go Fast: Lovely Planet

Sometimes I wonder if I hate myself when I play certain games. After watching myself die for the umpteenth time, I go back again and try my luck. Most likely I will fail and then fail again, yet I convince myself that I’m having fun. Then again, when I finally do succeed, oh it feels so damn good. I’m looking at you Rogue Legacy, Super Meat Boy, Dark Souls and Hotline Miami.

Newest game I’m adding to the bunch? Lovely Planet.

Lovely Planet is an FPS. Well, you’re in first person and you shoot things. If your mind wanders towards Call of Duty, you are terribly wrong. Lovely Planet has more in common with Quake rather than the yearly Michael Baysplosion of a video game. Boasting close to a hundred levels, each level can take 5 tries before you beat it. Maybe 50. Or 500.

You have to beat each level in under a minute. Fail and you back to the start. Get hit and you back to the start. Let one of those giant fruit hit the ground and you back to the start. You get the gist. It all starts fairly simple. Shoot a few enemies, jump over a few platforms and reach the goal. Then the game starts to ask things of you that you think are astronomically impossible. If you’re like me, you’ll scream, “Are you kidding me?!” when you realize what you need to do. Then again, if you’re like me, you’ll use a much more vulgar word.

Shoot. Jump. Jump. Sidestep. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Fail. Curse.

What kept me going was the game overly cheery tone and outright happy graphics. The art style looks like Jumping Flash squeezed together with Katamari Damacy (Or Damashii for you weebs out there) with Proteus sprinkled here and there. The music was addictive and sugary sweet, which is pretty much the kind of food I like. The art might throw some people off, but it’s bright colors contrasts well with its crushing difficulty. It doesn’t depress you and kill you like Dark Souls.

Like Super Meat Boy and Hotline Miami, restarting after a failed run is almost instantaneous. This keeps the pace of the game going. If you screw up, you can always hit R on the keyboard. I don’t know what it is on a gamepad because if you use a gamepad on this game, you will not succeed. Precise movements and aiming requires a mouse and keyboard.

Should you play Lovely Planet? Yes. Is it better than Hotline Miami or Super Meat Boy? Not really. Those games defined the genre. While Lovely Planet is a worthy contender, I don’t think it will dethrone those guys. It very much deserves your time and for a measly $6 on Steam, you’re getting a lot of game for the price.

If you REALLY want to suffer for your game, then go play Gods Will Be Watching. I’ll pity you.