 Hello and welcome to my Planet of Lana review. Long time viewers will know that I played this game's demo during one of the three monthly Steam Next Fests at the beginning of the year. The demo promised an atmospheric world rendered with beautiful hand-drawn art. This 2D puzzle-platformer, with its enjoyable if simplistic puzzles, with its likable protagonist and little back-ball of cuddly alien goo, with its frightening zappy robots and variety of biomes. This in the game was a pleasant palette cleanser. Planet of Lana is not what I hoped it would be. My expectations played a joke on me, as sometimes happens. I fell in love with the world and the music and the promise of environmental storytelling while playing the demo, but I also glimpsed the more ambitious conflict in the game portrays. Planet of Lana's story is an intimate one, and I enjoyed it, but I wanted more from the world. What there is is told beautifully. The lack of dialogue doesn't hurt the narrative. It's an intimate story, forecasted by those first scenes of Lana and her sister Ilo. That opening tells the player plenty. That Ilo is the more adventurous of the two, the leader, the one that always goes first, and that Lana's journey to free Ilo wants the robots to take her away. That journey will be one of growth and maturation. And so it is. With the help of the blobby little creature Lana comes to count on, Mui is a loyal companion and a great friend. It was easier than sinning to grow to care for him, much as Lana did. The two go on a journey to free Lana's friends, family, tribe. They face monsters in the dark, uncover the secret origins of their community and their enemy. They are separated before they find each other again. The beats you might expect you will find here, what you won't find are surprises or risks or original ideas that might expand the 2D narrative puzzle platform experience. Not in its world and not in its narrative and not in its puzzles. Certainly not in the puzzles, which are often this kind of game's weakest link. One was interesting in its use of musical motifs. Certainly the others had very little to keep me engaged, outside of simply wishing to move the narrative along. One element kept delivering end over delivering the music. Takashi Furukawa's track moves from the subtly emotional to the threatening to the adventurous and the triumphant. This is a soundtrack that absorbs and moves and delicits powerful responses in the listener. It's that rare soundtrack that is at once crafted to perfectly accompany what's on the screen, while it has the capacity to live far beyond it. Into the nettle, playlists of D&D, DMs and YouTube video essays and the like. Of the myriad biomes in this game, two have left a mark in my mind. One the exploration of a ship crashed in the crust of the planet. And then the second, the game's largest and most ambitious set piece, the Desert Chase. The first adopts and sustains an air of mystery, hints at a large history defining event. The second is an artistic triumph, even amid the gorgeous backdrops the developers deliver. I'll let it speak for itself in the video review, but it showcase the busiest scene across all planet of Lana. It's a desperate last ditch attempt at a rescue mission and it succeeds in creating a sense of urgency to the pacing as Planet of Lana builds up to its culmination. This section produces such powerful momentum towards the game's final act. Going into the belly of the beast and unraveling that final mystery is enjoyable. But the return to the kind of puzzles you've already faced, following that chase sequence, it puts something of a halt to the massive burst of momentum. The game recovers to deliver a strong ending and finally a sort of epilogue that closes the circle, opened by its initial scene, with Lana braver and more grown up, shown in a few clever ways. And a new equilibrium is reached by all. It's a good ending, one that is thematically strong and plays to the intimate narrative, that is the heart and soul of Planet of Lana. Back when I played it, I described my experience with this game's demo as unforgettable. So it was. The game itself isn't unforgettable from start to finish, it isn't the be-all end-all of 2D puzzle-platform sci-fi narratives, but hey, it doesn't have to be. I write this, my memories of the game already peeling away down the recesses of my mind. They are likely to stay there. Next to many other games I enjoyed and appreciate this day, but ultimately do not love the way I wish I could, yet I do not regret playing it, far from it, and with the game on Xbox Game Pass and already having gone on sale twice since release. You might well try it for yourself, and see if it won't be an experience to remember. I do not mean to take away from the achievement of developer Wishfully Studios. This game is a labour of love and it shows. It's merely that I hoped it would advance the genre somewhat. As it stands, Planet of Lana does rather a different thing. It serves as excellent execution and a spin on a familiar formula. It is a triumphant debut by an excellent indie studio from Sweden. I hope it has been nothing short of a success for them, and that they will bring to their next project the same approach to world-building, environmental storytelling and musical talent, as well as that they will manage to create more compelling, engaging puzzles. Until then, I'll be keeping an eye out on them for you, and mostly for myself. If you enjoyed this video, please share it with your friends, press or smash that like button, and leave me a comment down below what is your favourite 2D platformer, as Planet of Lana, lands in that honourable list of excellent puzzle platformers like Limbo? Let me know. I'm Philip Magnus, you're not, and I'll see you again next time. Bye!