Freedom Planet

About

Freedom Planet ^[1] is a two-dimensional platform video game created by independent developer GalaxyTrail ^[2], a studio set up for the project by designer Stephen DiDuro. The player controls one of three anthropomorphic animal protagonists: the dragon Lilac, the wildcat Carol, or the basset hound Milla. Aided by the duck-like Torque, the player attempts to defeat the evil Lord Brevon, who plans to conquer the galaxy. While the game focuses on fast-paced platforming, its levels are interspersed with slower action scenes.

History

Freedom Planet was made by American game designer and programmer Stephen DiDuro, who founded GalaxyTrail to create the project. The soundtrack was composed by DiDuro in collaboration with user Blue Warrior of VGMusic.com and user Woofle from Fur Affinity. Although it is an original intellectual property, Freedom Planet was first developed as a Sonic fangame. DiDuro then decided that the Sonic affiliation would hold back the game. He received permission from the Chinese artist Ziyo Ling^[12]--whom he had found on the art website DeviantArt--to use her characters Lilac, Carol, and Milla in his game.

The gameplay shares similarities to Sonic, Ristar ^[3], Gunstar Heroes ^[4] and Rocket Knight ^[5]. Viewers of early footage from the developing product encouraged DiDuro to separate it further from Sonic, so he replaced rings with red leaves and altered the characters' abilities. Ziyo had drawn Lilac as a hedgehog, but DiDuro redesigned the character to be a dragon.

Reception

Overall reception was positive ^[6]. Most critics compared it favorably to the original Sonic games of the Genesis era in terms of speed and gameplay, although they also pointed out the differences between them, with its metroidvania style levels and combat. The story gathered more of a mixed reception, some praising it for its cheesiness and outright dark moments in the story (for E10 game), while other condemned it for its pacing issues.

Fandom

Contrary to Shovel Knight ^[8], which is a spiritual successor of several NES games, Freedom Planet is a spiritual successor of Sega Genesis games; as such, it has gathered a following of oldschool gamers who grew up with the system. The most noticeable influence, besides Sonic, is anime. It has an article on TV Tropes ^[11] as well as official forums.^[7]

Related Memes

The Best Modern Sonic Game

Due to its visuals, gameplay and original idea of the game, it is commonly known (either as a form of respect for the old games, or an insult to a few of the new ones ^[9][10] and Sega as a whole) as the best modern Sonic game, if not an actual sequel to the originals. ^[13]

Search Interest

External References