A planet of beauty with a perfect balance between humans, nature, and animals is under threat from a faceless autonomous army. Embark on a rescue mission with your trusted companion. Sneak and solve puzzles as you explore a beautifully hand-painted world.
Planet of Lana is a stunning adventure with some lovely casual puzzle-solving.
Platforms: PC Steam, GOG, Epic Store, Xbox One Series X&S,
Players: 1
Genres: Indie, Adventure, Platformer, Puzzle, Sci-fi
Developer: Wishfully
Price: £16.99
Steam Deck: Verified
Planet of Lana Review
The planet Lana calls home is a lush and vibrant world. Vast blue seas, beautiful grassy plains, and dense luscious forests. Everything is in balance and at peace. Everything seems perfect. However, disharmony has been growing. Now it has arrived and has sent everything into chaos.
Lana must fight to save the ones they love with the help of their animal companion. Together they must overcome deadly odds and solve tricky challenges with wit and courage.
As you venture deeper into dangerous territory your skills will be tested in many ways. In order to progress you will have to work with your companion making use of their skills and size to help you solve puzzles. Furthermore, you will need them to distract enemies creating the perfect moment to pass undetected.
All the while you will be traversing beautiful sceneries and landscapes.
Streamlined Puzzle Solving
Most of the game revolves around either sneaking past enemies or solving puzzles. Sometimes those two things are combined to create some tense moments where you have to act quickly in overcoming a challenge to allow you a safe passage. Although, for the most part, you are free to solve puzzles in your own time.
Puzzling solving ranges from moving objects around to either creating access to different areas or revealing new interactable ‘things’. Most of the time you will see the answer almost immediately. There are only a couple of puzzles that require a little more time to work out.
This makes for a pretty casual experience and one that will rarely hold you up in reaching your destination. Which is something that I actually prefer a lot of the time. There are a few larger ‘set piece’ puzzles that take a little more time to solve. That being said, you will probably work it out fairly quickly. The time is then spent on actually performing the solution. For me, it was a good level of difficulty. The puzzles were interesting enough to not have me feeling bored by them. It allowed me to consistently make good progress through the 4-ish hour story.
This makes for a pretty casual experience and one that will rarely hold you up in reaching your destination. Which is something that I actually prefer a lot of the time. There are a few larger ‘set piece’ puzzles that take a little more time to solve. That being said, you will probably work it out fairly quickly. The time is then spent on actually performing the solution. For me, it was a good level of difficulty. The puzzles were interesting enough to not have me feeling bored by them. It allowed me to consistently make good progress through the 4-ish hour story.
The Friends We Make On The Way
The story for Planet of Lana is subtly sprinkled throughout your adventure. Painting a picture of who you came to be in this place and what has happened. I enjoyed how it was told through what you encounter in the world. That being said, the main draw for me was the relationship between you and your companion. Obviously, there is a practical element to them coming with you. After all, you wouldn’t get through most of the platforming bits without them helping. However, the emotional side of it really gripped hold of me. It helps that – I’m not really sure what kind of animal it is, kind of cat I suppose… Either way, it is extremely cute and as you communicate with it they will chirp and chirrup back to you.
It kind of had my heart melting.
A Perfect Adventure
I beat the game in just over 4 hours and it was a perfect length, nothing felt overly dragged out or repetitive. Additionally, Planet of Lana is a beautiful game. The environments and backdrops are stunning at times.
If you’re looking for something that will challenge you with its puzzles and platforming then you may be left wanting. However, if you want an engaging adventure that’s beautiful and fun. With a variety of locations and places to see. That can be finished in a handful of hours, then I would absolutely recommend Planet of Lana.
-Will
