I've had this game sitting in my library for years, but only recently I decided to play through it to tide me over until the release of Sonic Mania Plus. Expecting an experience similar to Sonic was probably my first mistake; then again, Freedom Planet deliberately inspires feelings of 16 bit nostalgia with its artstyle and promises of high speed abilities, so it didn't help itself in that regard. My first issue would be the emphasis on combat. Granted, it says right there in the description that its a "combat-based platform[er]" but I don't think even that pretense gives enough warning as to how much fighting there is. The levels are densely populated with enemies, all with their own attacks and health. Some go down in one hit, others take multiple; usually correlated by size. This first issue is also exacerbated by the second one I have, and that is the size of the levels. Any hopes for clearing a level in under a minute will be dashed, as the in-game achievements have criteria for speedrunning each level - the average being about 7 minutes. A more average clear time for a level ranges between 10 and 15 minutes. Combine that with the scores of enemies you'll be facing and each level feels like a slog, particularly towards the end of the game where the difficulty ramps up. When you do get to the end of the level, you'll naturally be greeted by a boss. Now I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but the (spoilers ahead) final level really did my head in. Essentially it got split into four parts, with each one culiminating in a boss; then the final boss of that set has 3 separate phases that might as well be their own individual boss fights! What's worse is how zoomed in the camera is, which often results in you getting blindsided by boss attacks. To summarise, the game is exhausting. When the platforming takes precedence, there's a really fun game to be had here; but it grinds to a halt in every sense when the game starts throwing enemies at you.
