Welcome to our review of Planet Alpha, a gorgeous puzzle game out now!
Planet Alpha is the game you never knew you needed if you like puzzle games! Based in an alien world, filled with the most intensely surreal backgrounds, you are off on a quest to reach the final goal! All you need to do, stay alive. The longer you are on the planet, the more intense your journey will become.
At first, your mechanics are basically just walking left and right. You slowly get more abilities as things go, the first is jumping. So as you are strolling around, clearly hurt, you fall down another cliff. To wake up in a new place, even more hurt. You are now almost limping to escape from the sun. Quick! Go hide! But alas, you do not make it. In the background, you can see a humanoid shape looking down from the mountains.
Suddenly you wake up again. You can run normally again and jump too! There is only the right way to go and you are off on your quest. As you go, it becomes clear this game is a trip into a mesmerizing world and its beauty will be the one thing you keep looking at. For the record, all my screenshots in this article have been taken in the first act, I actually think I took ’em in the first 15 minutes of playing after which I stopped taking them to properly enjoy the game.
Slowly but surely, more and more puzzle mechanics are being introduced at just the right pace. Jump onto ledges, grab hold of plants on walls so you do not fall to death, crawl underneath places and so much more. Planet Alpha is very varied straight from the start, yet it is not overwhelming. Though some might say the graphics are, but in a positive sense.
Once the planet is invaded by the aliens, the difficulty level goes up a notch, but again in a good way. Sneak around to avoid detection. Those darned aliens do like to shoot you and just a few basic hits will take you down. Luckily there are save points aplenty so you never really need to go out of your way to succeed certain areas. Planet Alpha is both chill and challenging at the same time, no small feat to achieve.
The fun in Planet Alpha is that it is not just platforming or puzzle game solving but a blend of both and more. Whether you are sneaking around or running for your life or jump down a cliff and hopefully survive, Planet Alpha is the whole package. Visually impressive down the entire line. great puzzles and just a feeling of wanting to keep playing even if it is past midnight on a working day.
In conclusion, lately I have been spoiled with a lot of great games, first Dragon Quest, then Nefarious and now Planet Alpha. Games like these make me fall in love with gaming over and over again.
