Primal Planet

I took a leap on Primal Planet. Once again it was a Besties recommendation, but I usually pair that with OpenCritic for the wisdom of the crowd. In this case that was 5 critic reviews at the time, that didn’t add up to enough consensus for them to score it yet. Regardless, the leap paid off.

Primal Planet released in late July from SeethingSwarm, a solo developer from Finland. The whole thing clocked in at 6-8 hours, played over the course of a weekend. That wasn’t a complete run, but did see me through the main plot. At it’s root it is a metroidvania lite, but without many of the gear/ability progression gates inherent to the genre.

Dinosaurs + Aliens as a theme is already a cheat code, but paired with strong platforming and semi-challenging combat is a great start. The pixel art and animation is peak SNES/Genesis and the sound track compliments it well. The upgrades via expanding your village and it’s inhabitants is a little under developed, but didn’t get in the way of progress. All in it was well crafted short game that well exceeds the $20 price tag. A nice high note to the recent wilderness.