• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Freedom Planet |OT| Dogs and Cats, Fighting Together; Mass Hysteria

MrBadger

Member
I have a few choice words for the
final fight with Serpentine
in the last stage. The bosses certainly ramp up in difficulty. I really enjoyed the
Seven Force wannabe
in the previous stage, though.

Lack of invincibility frames is what makes these bosses so challenging, and I think that's a bad thing. They're really fun fights once you get their patterns down, but slipping up and seeing most of your health taken by a single attack is really annoying.

EDIT: fuck the final boss. Really highlights my invincibility frames criticism.
And is it really necessary for him to have an attack that's not only hard to dodge but also takes off half your health? That's just cheap.

EDIT 2: DID IT. And I only died 37 times. Since I do feel very strongly about this game I'll write up my full impression at some point.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Now for the not so good. There are cutscenes between levels that sometimes just feel like filler. For instance, a scene with the characters trying to decide what movie to watch. It really adds nothing to the story or characters and it isn't a short short scene. Also the characters say things to each other like "What? You two like the same thing? I never thought that would happen?" (Paraphrasing here, of course.) even though we have never been told they DON'T like the same things. It is like whomever wrote this game already had a lengthy story or idea of who these characters are that isn't really portrayed to use the player.

On top of that sometimes the dialogue, which is all voiced, seems to be of varying volumes. Perhaps the "auto ducking" used just doesn't work well, or perhaps some lines are just recorded pretty low. Otherwise the voice acting is mostly pretty good, surprising even for this type of game, since it would have never been in a Genesis game.

The story is hard to follow and I'm not sure who the intended audience is. A lot of the names / lore seems to be Asian based, which could be a bit confusing, as it was to me, but eventually I figured it out. Perhaps the game doesn't do a good enough job establishing characters before it expects you to know who they are.

The characters are furries (though so is Sonic), they are apparently children which isn't apparent till half way through the game when they talk about missing their parents or other things associated with kids. There are also some gay overtones, not that this is a bad thing, but it came off as two lesbians trying to seduce a child at one point because we were never told they are all children. While there isn't any actual gay content thus far, and not that there is ANYTHING wrong with gay content, it just felt kind of strange or out of place or forced. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

So thus far we have child female furries on an adventure with lots of Asian male adults as other characters, and it's pretty kid friendly. Then things happen... At one point a character says something about the panda / Asian named character in anger and says "Stupid panda." This is a racial remark, no matter how you look at it. But it doesn't stop there. A game seemingly fine for children to play suddenly has a SPOILER:
torture scene
and to make matters worse it is an adult
torturing
a child. It felt really out of place, and quite disturbing, listening to the screams during this scene made me highly uncomfortable as well as the people in my Twitch chat.

So really, who is this game for? What is the core audience? Furry lesbian children who don't mind seeing their favorite characters
tortured
?

From what I can tell, the story seems to be directly aimed at fans of the Sonic SatAM cartoon from back in the day and the Archie comic. It seems to have that exact same tone of a kids' show with complex plot development.
 

dlauv

Member
I have a few choice words for the
final fight with Serpentine
in the last stage. The bosses certainly ramp up in difficulty. I really enjoyed the
Seven Force wannabe
in the previous stage, though.

Lack of invincibility frames is what makes these bosses so challenging, and I think that's a bad thing. They're really fun fights once you get their patterns down, but slipping up and seeing most of your health taken by a single attack is really annoying.

EDIT: fuck the final boss. Really highlights my invincibility frames criticism.

Boss strat:

The mecha variant really gave me trouble. You kind of have to play it a lot like the final serpent fight. The final form is destroyed very easily with the ground spin attack.
 

MrBadger

Member
Question for anyone who finished the game with someone other than Lilac - is the game all that different as another character? Considering
one of the bosses is a hideously mutated Milla and there are parts when Lilac goes on her own.

Boss strat:

The mecha variant really gave me trouble. You kind of have to play it a lot like the final serpent fight. The final form is destroyed very easily with the ground spin attack.

Thanks for the tip, but I just beat him. And I only died on the final level 37 times. I'm good at videogames.
 

Tizoc

Member
They're long. Really long. Like 15-20 minutes long. IMO they could do with being a little shorter but I think I'm just impatient and constantly wanting to see what's next.

Better to have split them into 2 acts IMO, you can clearly see Sonic 3&K-like background changes/transitions once you've passed a stage's halfway point.
 

TimmiT

Member
Better to have split them into 2 acts IMO, you can clearly see Sonic 3&K-like background changes/transitions once you've passed a stage's halfway point.

IIRC the levels were originally split into acts back when it was a Sonic fangame, which is why certain stages have that.
 

Lijik

Member
So I just started playing this, and I turned the story on because I figured hey whats the harm... and man that was a mistake. The cutscene between stages 2 and 3 is so long and packed with filler. It turned me off from playing the rest of the game for the time being. I dont mind a little bit of story, but the pacing for the cutscenes so far just feels atrocious for a game like this. I mean say what you will about the cutscenes in Ducktales Remastered, but it never put me through a slumber party where nothing fucking happens.

The game part is a lot of fun, but im going to have to start skipping cutscenes or restart in classic mode or something. I mean its cool they put a lot of love into the world building, but Im not gonna sit through a kinda bad cartoon episode between every level.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
Even in Story Mode you can skip straight to the next level in the pause menu during cutscenes instead of skipping them one after another.
 

Spinluck

Member
Played the demo, it was interesting, I might pick it up.

A lot more different from Sonic than I though. The jumping feels kind of off though.
 

Tizoc

Member
Even in Story Mode you can skip straight to the next level in the pause menu during cutscenes instead of skipping them one after another.

I didn't care for the pacing so much as what's going on in the cutscenes itself, really like the light moments when the gang are together and just chillaxing and such.
 
I'm currently on level 4 and gameplay is really good, fast paced and even creative. It's a heir of Yasuhara's level design, that allows high speed but vertically enough to sustain exploration.

Controls are fine, allow creativity in combat and final bosses are really challenging.

The main characters are fine but the story is unnecessary convoluted. I prefer the simplicity of Shovel Knight in this regard.

I completly understand why someone might hate the character design though. Same history with Dust: AET
 
The later stages of the game give me a huge sonic cd vibe from the music style down to some interesting ways to travel around the environment, it's the perfect blend.
 

Tizoc

Member
Eh story made sense to me by Stage 4/5
Invader comes, causes chaos, seeks the macguffin, loss of macguffin causes world to go kabloey, gotta stop evil invader and recover macguffin.
 

MrBadger

Member
Started a Milla playthrough. I'm a fan of how she goes through different areas and fights different bosses occasionally. It reminds me of being Knuckles in S3&K. But occasionally, it feels like I'm pitted against bosses that aren't designed around her slower way of fighting. I'm wondering where her game will end
considering the events of Final Dreadnaught 3.

Eh story made sense to me by Stage 4/5
Invader comes, causes chaos, seeks the macguffin, loss of macguffin causes world to go kabloey, gotta stop evil invader and recover macguffin.

Them's the basics, but there's also the case of
the different areas on the planet that are at war and who's working for who. Maybe someone could explain to me what Spade's role was in it all? Was he the brother of the prince who's father we see decapitated in the opening?
But yeah. the story's not too hard to get a grip on. It's just the loooooong exposition that we get early on.
 
Started a Milla playthrough. I'm a fan of how she goes through different areas and fights different bosses occasionally. It reminds me of being Knuckles in S3&K. But occasionally, it feels like I'm pitted against bosses that aren't designed around her slower way of fighting. I'm wondering where her game will end
considering the events of Final Dreadnaught 3.
Answer:
She doesn't fight anyone in FD3, and goes on to FD4 like nothing was ever supposed to happen there. However, Brevon's third-and-final form proved to be too difficult for Strife, so he cut her FD4 off after Brevon's second form instead. (There's a video of a guy who managed to glitch Milla into FD4 in an earlier version beating the last Brevon fight with her, so it is possible, but it's presumably frustration incarnate.)

Them's the basics, but there's also the case of
the different areas on the planet that are at war and who's working for who. Maybe someone could explain to me what Spade's role was in it all? Was he the brother of the prince who's father we see decapitated in the opening?
Yes. Lilac mentions Spade is Dail's brother just before Fortune Night starts.
 

MrBadger

Member
EDIT2: AW YEAH I BEAT THE SUCKER!
FINAL STAGE(S) HERE I COME!

This boss fight theme is too catchy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD7yxUdCyxY&feature=youtu.be

Sorry dunno how to use the current Movie Maker on Windows 8 >_>;

Tragic Boss is my favourite boss theme in the game, but god damn does this game have good music. Really reminds me of Sonic CD, NiGHTS and 3D Blast.

For anyone that hasn't noticed, the music's on Bandcamp (I don't know if this was posted already in this thread)

http://galaxytrail.bandcamp.com/album/freedom-planet-official-soundtrack
 

Tizoc

Member
The final boss is whoopin' my ass...AND I'M OK WITH THAT!
BREVEN, YOU SICK FREAK, YOU ARE GOING DOWN!
 

Tizoc

Member
OK some help please?
How do I defeat Breven in the 3rd boss round? Dude wipes out half my health with 1 attack!
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
OK some help please?
How do I defeat Breven in the 3rd boss round? Dude wipes out half my health with 1 attack!

His sword swipe will do that, but that's the only attack that does that much damage and your number one priority to avoid. It's kind of hard for me to explain, but there's an evasive maneuver I used to dodge it, you can avoid it by jumping backwards when you sense he's about to do it as he only hits the ground and goes to where you were standing.

Also to help is to know his attacks have a pattern to them, you can figure out when he's about to use it if you pay close attention to him, but he works different in that his pattern he can switch up depending on how you're fighting him (up-close, far away), but he will always do one of two or three possible patterns of moves.
 

MrBadger

Member
His sword swipe will do that, but that's the only attack that does that much damage and your number one priority to avoid. It's kind of hard for me to explain, but there's an evasive maneuver I used to dodge it, you can avoid it by jumping backwards when you sense he's about to do it as he only hits the ground and goes to where you were standing.

Also to help is to know his attacks have a pattern to them, you can figure out when he's about to use it if you pay close attention to him, but he works different in that his pattern he can switch up depending on how you're fighting him (up-close, far away), but he will always do one of two or three possible patterns of moves.

An easier way to counter his sword attack that wipes out half your health is to use the ground spin to counter it, providing you're Lilac. It does a lot of damage on Brevon and you avoid taking damage from his sword if you get the timing right. It makes the boss fight a hell of a lot easier.

I legitimately didn't know Lilac had a ground spin attack until my second play through.
 

Conan-san

Member
An easier way to counter his sword attack that wipes out half your health is to use the ground spin to counter it, providing you're Lilac. It does a lot of damage on Brevon and you avoid taking damage from his sword if you get the timing right. It makes the boss fight a hell of a lot easier.

I legitimately didn't know Lilac had a ground spin attack until my second play through.

How is that done btb? I keep doing it by accident.
 

Lijik

Member
Dont want to make every single time i post in this thread a complaint because I do love the game, but the SHMUP stage right before the ice level is really bland and boring and having to do it all over again just because I decided to make that stage a stopping point for the night is bogus
 

Tizoc

Member
Thanks for the tips guys, I actually hadn't battled the final boss in days cuz I decided to try Carol and...man playing as her is so different from Lilac but I prefer Lilac more cuz of her fast paced feel.
Carol plays more like a slower take-your-time short range brawler, but I wish her attack power was higher on Normal, that or regular enemies had little less health on Normal too.

Dont want to make every single time i post in this thread a complaint because I do love the game, but the SHMUP stage right before the ice level is really bland and boring and having to do it all over again just because I decided to make that stage a stopping point for the night is bogus

Yeah it should've offered more bonuses like getting blue crystals or lives. Hence why I feel the game could really benefit from a score system.
For that matter, the game can get over the issue you mention by splitting it into Acts.

I feel like I can safely say that the game is slightly 'incomplete', like as is it is in Ver. 0.9, there are many aspects that could be added to make it more polished I feel.
Non the less this is a heavy candidate for my GotY, just wish more people could get over the shallow prejudice they'd have at the game's character designs and just appreciate it as a platformer.
...but bah gawd I'd like a Milla plushie, she's so cute XP
"SUSHI!"
 

Conan-san

Member
Breven is prob. the best villain I've seen in a game in a long time.

THat said, Dr. Eggman probably wants his Mustache back.

On that topic, just finished the Base Level with Lilac. That torture scene is being way oversold by people pointing it out. To be fair, having her have like three scream voice bits is the devs trying too hard to oversell it too but...

Also all the bosses in level 5 can get screwed.
 

Tizoc

Member
Stage 4's boss is a pain to defeat as Carol, namely
the peacock boss

Which reminds me...they need to rework the game's loading system, so that if you've arrived at the boss checkpoint, and you quit the game and load it up later on, you start from the boss checkpoint instead of the start of the level.
 

shaowebb

Member
Cutscenes were great. It established a relationship between the characters, motivations and their personalities when dealing with various situations. Voice acting felt spot on and I loved it every moment.

Game is a blast to play. Surpasses old school Sonic titles IMO. Folks just seem to be trying to come across as " too sophisticated for these furs" by trying to downplay this title because they by God don't wanna be the guy that says they enjoyed a title with Furries IMO. Haters gonna hate. Get over it. Game is fantastic. From the Music to the controls to the awesome level designs, achievements, and easter eggs. Its just spot on.

If a sequel gets pushed I will back it.
 

bon

Member
I saw DarkspinesSonic streaming this today and I was surprised. This game seems to be really well made! Can't believe there aren't more people talking about this game. I don't really like the character designs and the story seems dumb, but the gameplay, graphics and music all seemed high quality.
 

Tizoc

Member
Story is as simple as it gets
Evil overlord/general steals macguffin that is vital to a planet or civilization's existence/prosperity to further his own goals.

Any word on what the devs are working on atm in terms of updates/ports, etc.?
 

Syril

Member
Story is as simple as it gets
Evil overlord/general steals macguffin that is vital to a planet or civilization's existence/prosperity to further his own goals.

Any word on what the devs are working on atm in terms of updates/ports, etc.?
There haven't been any updates through the kickstarter lately. I'd expect they're working on either Milla's story mode or playable Torque though.
 
Last I saw, it was A) figuring out how Torque works, and B) tweaks and bugfixes which are actually available to anyone who opts into the "beta" channel on Steam.

As far as Torque goes, the Gunstar Heroes-esque mix-and-match weapons system promised in the Kickstarter page got reigned in a bit. Instead of you having one gun that you change the properties of by collecting those orbs, you now get four kinds of guns: one basic weak one with infinite ammo, and three more-powerful/niche ones with 100 ammo max. The latter three you get to alter, somewhat; you can assign what kind of gun it is (Buster, Bomb and Fly - no idea what the distinctions are), and then can assign one of the five Wu Xing elements to it. Some enemies are weaker to certain elements than the others, adding a little bit more Mega Man to the mix. In addition, the orbs enemies also are element-themed (if you hadn't noticed); any orb can serve as 10 ammo each, but if the orb's element matches one of your guns, that gun gets 30 ammo from the orb. That means timing when you break a chest open (which drops three orbs of the same element) can give you up to 90 ammo, nearly the entire clip!

This is all moot, though, since even alpha-testers don't have access to him right now, and while people have figured out ways to hack characters into stages they don't belong, including a fairly-complete Spade, the version of Torque you get through that is woefully nonfunctional.

For the bugfix update, right now they're being tested before being rolled out to everyone; you have to right-click the game in your Library and go to Properties -> BETAS to opt in. Doing so gets you this, and potentially a few more caught by testers that'd since been fixed:

Bugfix log said:
Changes

- You can now drop straight down from a ladder by holding Down while pressing Jump.
- When starting a new game, short descriptions of each gameplay mode (Adventure and Classic) now appear in the file box.
- The Difficulty setting has been moved from the Options menu to the file select screen.
- Removed the rightmost Slime enemy in the final blue hallway of Final Dreadnought 2's first map.
- The DNA Cannon near the first keycard of Final Dreadnought 3 has been replaced with a second Bubblorbiter, primarily because it was unintentionally firing at the player through the loop to the left.
- A few enemy formations in Final Dreadnought 4 have been thinned out, particularly in the giant laser room.
- If you have the soundtrack DLC, this adds the missing Invincibility track.


Fixes

- Changing the music volume in the Options menu will now immediately update the volume of the menu music
- Music volume now properly saves on exit
- The Achievements in the gallery weren't lining up properly when B was pressed to return to the top of the page
- Highlighting Return in the Gallery if you pressed A on the category selection would automatically return you to the title screen
- Milla's "get back up" animation on the Game Over screen has been properly shaded
- In the rainy section of Jade Creek, the hovercraft's ice missile could be reflect by Milla before it hits Neera, preventing the cutscene from completing and forcing players to restart
- The camera would go outside the stage boundaries in the first map of Trap Hideout when pausing and resuming the game
- Thermal Base's header was displaying "Stage 6" for Carol and Milla even though this is their 7th stage
- In Battle Glacier, Milla can no longer fly beyond the top of the screen while riding the Sparky mount
- The second sliding platform in Final Dreadnought 1 will now have its positions reset when the player uses a teleporter to prevent zipping abuse
- During Final Dreadnought 2's boss cutscene, the camera will now move downwards if it's too high
- The requirements for the No Death, Speedrunner and Gem Hoarder achievements were being checked in the red hallway of Final Dreadnought 4 rather than when Brevon is defeated
- Filled in a gap in the wall in Final Dreadnought 2's lift section (right before the boss hallway) where the player could get stuck
 
B_nMQS6UsAE8-9J.jpg

https://twitter.com/galaxytrail/status/574715009755910144

The developer just announced a WiiU version!
 

repeater

Member
Has there been any word whatsoever about the possibility of a Vita or 3DS version down the line? I really liked the Wii U demo but this seems like such a great fit for a handheld..
 

Tizoc

Member
Has there been any word whatsoever about the possibility of a Vita or 3DS version down the line? I really liked the Wii U demo but this seems like such a great fit for a handheld..

Well it took them near a year to release it on the Wii U and they are still working on adding more stuff to the game. So even if we get a Sony systems version, it'll be a while :p
 
Top Bottom