Freedom Planet

"But this game looks like a Sonic ripoff!!!111111" Yes. And that's good! Freedom Planet started as a Kickstarter campaign in 2013. It started as an hommage to games like Sonic & Knuckles and other, most Mega Drive/Genesis era games. A lot of people wil first think, it's a mindless Sonic ripoff. But that's no the truth. Freedom Planet is a wonderful designed 16-Bit-hommage, with a decent gameplay, wonderful soundtrack and gorgeous art style. Yes, it has some glitches (some boses are frustrating hard) and the voice acting is ridiculous bad - but the hole package is a charming love letter to all fans of old days. For me, this is the Shovel Knight for Mega Drive/Genesis fans. Is it fun? Oh yeah! Is it worth the money? In my opinion: Absolutely! If you have no confidence in reviews, go to the developer homepage, grab the demo (~65MB) and see, if the game fits you. But don't make a 5 vs. 1 star battle over a game, that can be considered as a little gem in the GOG library.

this game is an excellent nod to all the genesis games of old with great controls and a killer soundtrack this is a must have for any own who loves platformers or grew up with a sega genesis/mega drive if you can get used to the lack of invisibility frames this game is amazing

This is game is just a blast to play. It's one of the most fun games I've played in years. The controls are good, the character abilities are great, the bosses are a challenge and the levels and music are both varied and a pleasure. The complaint I have is that while I think a lot of love went into the story and characters they seem like rather played out tropes. The three main characters are basically Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup archetypes and the villain plays a very generic, if entertaining, bad guy. You can turn the story off though and just play in "Classic Mode". In terms of what to expect: I guess think of it as something like Sonic the Hedgehog but with more combat focus and much tougher bosses and with three playable characters with very different playstyles.

I don't know how other people rated this game so highly when the boss difficulty progression is purely lazy where they simply add gimmicks and attacks that either track you, cover a massive part of the screen, or come from completely off screen with just a split second little warning symbol that where the only thing it will help you do is recognize what you should do AFTER you've died a couple of times, because there is absolutely NO way you're going to understand what you're supposed to be doing the first try. It is not intuitive nor is it recognizeable. Not only that but some bosses have attacks that can borderline kill you just by being hit. Why you ask? Because you have no invincibility frames, so an attack that has multi-hit boxes will likely just keep chunking your life down to nothing by being hit only once by it. Even some common enemies have such attacks later on in the game. It's purely disgusting. It starts out feeling like a classy platformer, but it turns into a giant smoldering mess trying to disguise absurdity as being skillful or good. I strongly don't recommend buying this at all.

Have had this game on Steam for a while, dope to see a DRM-free version finally. First heard of this game from watching a guy with no arms or legs playing it on Twitch with his mouth. Gameplay is like Sonic CD but with melee attacks. This game and Shovel Knight are so far the only two retro style games (aside from megaman 8+9) that have really hit home on getting the feel of the older-era graphics correct. The only complaint I have with this game is it is a hair creepy in the furry department, but just try to ignore it.