Planet of Lana

Overall, Planet of Lana is a polished puzzle platformer that lacks combat but makes up for that with cool stealth and satisfying platforming. Atmospheric sound design and terrifying enemies mean that setting traps and using your intelligence is what will help you conquer the game. In terms of art, the game uses an attractive graphical style, and animation is smooth. However, it takes while to get used to the controls and to get used to using Lana’s cat companion Mui to solve puzzles. This results in a few difficulty spikes. If you enjoy puzzle platformers such as Teslegrad, or Rime, Planet of Lana is a great game to pick up. It’s one of the most atmospheric and epic puzzle platformers released of recent times.

Planet of Lana intelligently combines elements of classic cinematic platformers to make something distinctive and characterful. For a tight five hours or so, it keeps up the pace, with very few taxing puzzles or tricky action segments to slow progress. Leaning into easier gameplay in favour of visual and auditory spectacle, it looks the part and runs consistently well. It’s a treat for the long-suffering cinematic platforming fan – perhaps even destined to join that short list of classics.

Planet of Lana is a wonderful cinematic puzzle platformer with brilliant presentation, a heart-warming story and enjoyable gameplay. You'll be gripped from beginning to end.

Planet of Lana is a joy to behold, having been crafted with aplomb by a team of artistic and musical virtuosos. The gameplay itself is nothing you haven’t seen from other side-scrolling puzzlers, but it gives a wide berth to the stunning art and musical score that reach Disney levels of quality.

Planet Of Lana is a captivating narrative adventure, with a stunning visual design and cinematic focus that will leave you desperate for a photo mode, or hoping a new technology will appear that lets you jump right into the games world, and experience the wonderful vistas of Lana's home planet alongside her and Mui. The gameplay however doesn't include enough variety to keep things interesting all the way through to the credits, even with a short runtime. But if you're someone who leans more towards the narrative in a game anyways, then Planet Of Lana's touching story, charming characters and (once more for emphasis) beautiful and stunning art style, you absolutely must play Planet Of Lana.

Although Planet of Lana absolutely nails its audiovisual presentation, the gameplay drags down the game as a whole. The core experience plays things a bit too safe, and when Planet of Lana strays off the beaten path, things end up feeling clunky and unpolished. The result is a game that never fully reaches its potential. It’s almost as if Wishfully Studios was afraid to take off its training wheels. It’s a bit of a shame given how much of an audiovisual treat the game is, because we really feel like Lana and Mui deserved better. Hopefully, Wishfully Studios dares to take more risks when it comes to future releases.