Freedom Planet

This article is about the video game. For the fictional planet named "Planet Freedom", see Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie.

Freedom Planet
Steam artwork. Carol is on the motorcycle; Lilac is posing on the right.
Developer(s)	GalaxyTrail
Publisher(s)	GalaxyTrail
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	July 21, 2014
Genre(s)	Platform, action
Mode(s)	Single-player

Freedom Planet (Japanese: フリーダム・プラネット, Hepburn: Furīdamu Puranetto) is a 2D platform/action video game created by indie developer GalaxyTrail (Stephen DiDuro). It features a cast of primarily anthropomorphic animals; the three playable characters are the dragon Lilac, the wildcat Carol, and the basset hound Milla. Along with their duck-like friend Torque, they embark on a quest to defeat the evil Lord Brevon, who wants to drain energy from the planet to rebuild his starship and conquer the galaxy. The gameplay is fast-paced and involves unique attacks for all three characters.

Freedom Planet began development as a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame, but when DiDuro became disillusioned with this task, he took to DeviantArt to recruit artist Ziyo Ling. She designed the characters and fans gave suggestions for more changes, thereby allowing the game to transform into its own intellectual property. It was released first as a Microsoft Windows demo in August 2012, then—after a few delays—as a full game for Windows on July 21, 2014. Both before and after the game's full release, critics have universally compared it to the Sega Genesis Sonic games, and these reviews have mostly been very positive. DiDuro is currently saving money to release the game for other platforms.

Gameplay

Milla explores the "Aqua Tunnel" level. HUD features on top of screen from left to right: special move gauge with health, available moves for Milla, lives, crystals collected, and time elapsed. Also note the explosive container, two enemies, and health-regenerating leaves.

Freedom Planet is a 2D platform/action game. The player controls any of the three playable characters—Lilac, Carol, or Milla—while running and jumping through levels and destroying robotic enemies. These levels involve environmental features such as corkscrews, loop-the-loops, hills, ramps, and rock walls. The player fights a miniboss in the middle of each level and a main boss at the end, followed by cutscenes that advance the story. As a result of pervasive similarities in the fast-paced gameplay, aesthetics, and level design, including Freedom Planet has been frequently compared to the Sonic the Hedgehog games released for the Sega Genesis in the early 1990s.

One significant difference from Sonic is that the player has a standard health meter instead of Sonic's ring-based health system. The player collects red, crystalline leaves scattered throughout the levels and occasionally dropped by enemies to regain health. Lilac's maximum health is seven leaves, Carol's six, and Milla's four. Being hit by common enemies and bosses' attacks chips away at the player's health; when the player is attacked with no remaining health, they lose a life. Losing all lives gets the player a game over; however, they can restart from the last checkpoint with little consequence. Extra lives can be found occasionally within levels, as can shield- and invincibility-type power-ups.

Lilac fights one of the game's bosses, Serpentine, while Carol assists her with attacks and Milla with extra health.

Each of the playable characters has a basic attack and a special attack. The basic attack can be used repeatedly with no penalty, but the more powerful special attack depletes an energy gauge shown on the game's heads-up display and cannot be performed before the gauge has sufficiently recharged. The basic attacks are similar, but Lilac's special attack is a rapid air dash, Carol's is a series of rapid kicks, and Milla's involves launching a gelatinous energy cube to deal damage. Carol can also wall jump, and she periodically finds motorcycles throughout her levels that allow her to scale walls smoothly. Lilac can also perform a twirling, tornado-like double jump. Milla can fly for a short time by vigorously flapping her ears like wings.

The player can complete the game in either the "Adventure" or "Classic" mode. Classic Mode omits the game's cutscenes, but allows the player to choose Milla, who is not playable in Adventure. In Adventure Mode, the player does not select a character from the beginning, but instead chooses either Lilac or Carol when they temporarily split up. After a stage has been cleared, it is unlocked for time attack mode, where the player competes to finish the level in the fastest possible time. The game features numerous achievements such as defeating an end-of-level boss with a certain move, clearing all of a certain character's stages, or collecting all of a set of tablets dispersed throughout each level.

Plot

The game starts with Sash Lilac and Carol Tea—an anthropomorphic dragon and wildcat respectively—rescuing a duck-billed creature named Torque (Patrick M. Seymour), after he crash-lands from outer space. He asks for their help in rescuing the Kingdom Stone, a valuable relic that contains untold amounts of energy. In doing so, they become embroiled in a brewing conflict between three nations of their planet Avalice: Shuigang, which has become aggressive and warmongering following the death of its king and the rise of his son, the mentally unstable Prince Dail; the city-state Shang Mu, whose wealth-obsessed leader Mayor Zao is desperate to solve a recent energy crisis; and Shang Tu, an airborne city whose Royal Magister is not well-versed in war.

In this cutscene, Gong and Neera are initially unimpressed with Carol's and Lilac's claims that the Kingdom Stone was stolen.

Lilac and Carol rush over to the Kingdom Stone's shrine in an effort to protect it, briefly being stymied by Shang Tu's officers, General Gong and the priestess Neera Li, who refuse to believe their claims of a theft plot. However, they arrive just in time to watch the Kingdom Stone be stolen by the thief and assassin Spade, Dail's half-brother who is stealing the stone for Zao as part of his own plan to discover the truth of his father's murder. The theft of the stone causes a cave-in, which briefly separates Lilac and Carol, Carol being trapped inside and pinned by rubble. However, she is saved by Milla Basset, a timid and feral basset hound who had been tailing the pair with the intent of meeting a dragon.

That night, the three girls discover that Torque is an alien sent to Avalice to apprehend an intergalactic warlord, Lord Arktivus Brevon, who is working on fixing his dreadnought after it crashed. Brevon invaded Shuigang, murdered its king, and brainwashed Dail to do his bidding, convincing him that Zao was the murderer and getting him to declare war on Shang Mu. Brevon intends to steal the Stone from the distracted populace and use its energy to power his dreadnought and conquer the galaxy. Receptive, the three agree to help Torque reclaim the Stone. They set off to recover it from Zao but are accosted by both Spade and Brevon's snake assistant Serpentine and arrive too late; Dail's and Brevon's forces steal it and fly off. The gang meets with Zao and convinces him to work with Shang Tu and the Magister in recovering the Stone; he sends them off in an airship to Shang Tu. There, the group shows Neera and the Magister a piece of one of Serpentine's machines made of unusual metals as evidence of an alien plot. Neera, already suspicious of Lilac and Carol, accuses the pair of being behind the Stone's theft, so the Magister detains them. Lilac convinces him to let Torque leave by falsely pleading guilty to Neera's claims, but she, Carol, and Milla break out of jail to catch up. They are too late again, though: Brevon and Serpentine capture him.

Later, with the Stone and her friend in enemy hands and unwilling to keep risking her life, Carol storms off. Feeling guilty, Lilac sends Milla off with Carol and heads off to save Torque herself from Brevon's nearby base. However, she is ambushed by Serpentine and Brevon and ends up captured and tortured. Meanwhile, Carol and Milla find Spade; the three storm the base and rescue Torque and Lilac. Brevon manages to capture them all again, but they escape, though they are separated once again in the ensuing chaos. Neera finds Lilac, arrests her, and brings her back to Shang Tu, where the Magister reveals he had the mech's metal composition investigated, proving Lilac's initial claims of innocence correct. However, he asks her to investigate a nearby lagoon, where similar metal has been found. She traces the metal to a robot similar to Syntax, Brevon's faithful AI assistant. It reveals that the Stone was a gift to the three kingdoms from an ancient race of alien dragons and will self-destruct if not returned to its resting place. Lilac reports to the Magister, who reveals that Zao, hellbent on recovering the Stone, is leading his army against Shuigang's. Lilac and the robot quickly rush to the site, reuniting with the rest of the team and convincing the armies of Shang Mu and Shang Tu to unite against Dail's and Brevon's army, which has begun its advance as Brevon prepares his fortress for takeoff. While the rest fight on the ground, Lilac battles and destroys Syntax, then the team confronts Dail and destroys his last mech. The mad prince attempts a final attack, but Spade stops him until Brevon announces that his fortress is ready for takeoff.

Inside the fortress, the team faces off against Brevon's army, including a rebuilt Syntax and a mutated Serpentine. Brevon captures Milla and turns her into a grotesque monster that attacks the team, so Lilac and Milla are forced to attack her until she is comatose. Enraged, they viciously fight Brevon. He is defeated, but the Kingdom Stone is destroyed in the process, and the team quickly escapes Brevon's fortress just before it crashes. Back at the base camp, Milla awakens from her coma. The sky is lit up by swirling, crystalline energy, which is the Kingdom Stone's new form. The three kingdoms resolve to share the Stone's energy equally, bringing an end to the war. Torque says his goodbyes to Lilac, Carol, and Milla and retreats to space. The story ends with the Royal Magister musing that, while peace has mostly been restored, Brevon's and Dail's mutants and robots still roam the land and Brevon's body has yet to be found.

Development and release

"Freedom Planet originally began as a direct homage to Sonic. ... As work on the game continued, I felt more and more like it was becoming a waste of time because I was ultimately creaing [sic] something in the shadow of an established franchise and that it would never truly be my own work. So, I set out to try and design a main character that would pay homage to my main source of inspiration while still being unique enough to stand out on her own."

—Stephen DiDuro (GalaxyTrail)

The game was the brainchild of Stephen DiDuro—known as GalaxyTrail for this project—who also served as lead programmer. The music was the result of a collaboration between DiDuro, user Blue Warrior of VGMusic.com, and user Woofle from Fur Affinity. Before becoming its own intellectual property, it was originally developed as a Sonic fangame: it originally contained rings and Doctor Eggman was the villain. However, DiDuro felt that the Sonic affiliation would hold the game back, so he tried creating his own protagonist, but he did not like any of his creations.

Concept art of Torque

Eventually, DiDuro found a Chinese artist named Ziyo Ling on the art website DeviantArt. Ling had already created Lilac, Carol, and Milla, and DiDuro asked to use them in his game, to which she gladly acquiesced. Viewers of early videos of the developing product encouraged DiDuro to further separate it from Sonic, so he scrapped rings for leaves as health and altered the characters' abilities. Lilac was originally a hedgehog, but DiDuro redesigned her into a dragon. Her wall-bounce move was based on a similar ability in Ristar. Originally, her level of energy was to be dependent on her speed; however, this proved to be too difficult to control.

Concept art of Brevon

Freedom Planet was first released as a Microsoft Windows demo in August 2012. The game was funded by Kickstarter and reached its goal with aplomb; it was then taken to Steam Greenlight and approved for release on Steam. Its release was first estimated for early 2014, then delayed to June 30. Shortly before that date, it was delayed again to July 19 to escape competition from heavily discounted games at Steam's Summer Sale and to be promoted at a convention in Miami, Florida. On the night of July 18, it was again delayed to Monday, July 21, because the team learned at the last minute that Steam does not allow weekend releases. It was released for personal computers running Windows. It has been merchandised into T-shirts. Lilac appeared briefly in the 2013 game Sonic: After the Sequel as an easter egg. An Android release was considered but ultimately scrapped. However, DiDuro is currently saving up money to release the game for the PlayStation Vita or Wii U.

Reception

Prerelease

The initial playable demo of Freedom Planet received positive coverage in gaming publications. Tony Ponce of Destructoid appreciated the game's strong similarities to the Sonic series, stating that it is "nice to see a well-established style or formula applied to a new world with original characters from time to time." Ponce further lauded the visuals and controls, criticizing only the bland foreground design. John Polson of IndieGames.com was more reserved in his praise: he felt that "the spectacles like loops and wall runs weren't as magical to do or watch" as in Sonic games and noted minor sound and visual flaws, but overall lauded its music and thought that "every platformer fan" ought to download the demo. Jeffrey Matulef from Eurogamer described Freedom Planet as "an indie Sonic-esque platformer done right" and enjoyed the presence of a traditional health meter rather than the Sonic series' atypical health system involving rings. Dominic Tarison of IndieStatik, whom GalaxyTrail gave an exclusive demo build featuring Milla as a third playable character (the widely released demo featured only Carol and Lilac), complimented the game's "new and unfamiliar configuration" of elements from familiar 16-bit games. Tarison also praised the differences in the playable characters and environments, as well as the music and visuals, though he conceded that it "maybe adheres a little too closely to 16-bit limits, especially in the amount of viewable gameplay area."

Post-release

Paul Camacho of Gamerscape scored Freedom Planet 5 out of 5, commending its boss design, story, voices, and aesthetics. Camacho did express reservations for the game's confusing level design and "saturated" music, but found these excusable because the old Sonic games also had these features. Pablo Taboada of the Spanish-language website MeriStation rated the game an 8.5/10, praising the game's sprite art, enemy variety, likable characters, and emotive animations. Taboada expressed sadness at the title's obscurity, and he suggested that it would have been quite successful if Treasure had obtained the rights to Sonic and released it as a Sonic game. Fellow Spanish-language reviewer Ramón Nafria of Vandal Online scored it 8 out of 10, also giving subscores of 8 to its graphics, gameplay, and overall fun and a 7.5 to its sound. Polygon's Griffin McElroy also compared it to Treasure's work, and summarized the game thus: "It manages to pull off a difficult balancing act, borrowing and transforming elements from games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Rocket Knight Adventures without coming off as derivative." Aaron Carter from Nerd Reactor gave the game four and a half out of five stars; he enjoyed the gameplay and sound design but singled out the story: "You don’t see to [sic] many story driven side-scrollers, but Freedom Planet went for it, giving you very well acted cut scenes that will [each] have you anticipating [the] next one." Nathan Grayson of Kotaku felt positive overall while playing the demo after the full version's release, but he exclaimed "Yikes" at the voice acting.

External links

• Official website
• Official forums
• Freedom Planet at Kickstarter
• Freedom Planet at IndieDB
• Freedom Planet at Metacritic