Good evening everybody! This is Aifos coming to you alive from Avalice! This sure is a nice, peaceful planet, it’s a good thing there’s no evil alien warlord trying to send it plummeting into civil war! Whether you love or hate the modern Sonic games, most people agree that the classic Sonic games—especially Sonic 3 & Knuckles—are some of the best platformers out there. There’s just something fun about Sonic’s slippery momentum based platforming that’s just super fun to pull off. And if you’ve been missing some momentum based platforming in your life, have I got a game for you! Enter Freedom Planet! The Sonic inspirations in Freedom Planet are clear, right down to the art style, but don’t take this to mean it’s just some mindless Sonic clone. While the very basic physics driving the game feel really similar to classic Sonic games, it does a lot to set itself apart, and make for something truly unique! So let’s start with the most obvious difference; in Freedom Planet you don’t attack by jumping. Instead, you have a dedicated attack button. This might seem like a small difference, but trust me when I say it’s actually pretty huge. This goes a long way to fixing what is probably Sonic’s biggest flaw; Sonic games are fun when you’re going fast, not so much when you’re going slow. Freedom Planet on the other hand is fun either way; blazing through at top speed is a blast, but so is taking your time fighting enemies along the way. The game also has three different characters to play as, each one feeling wildly different. Lilac’s attacks all help reposition herself—with uppercuts, dive kicks, speed boosts, and double jumps—making her the best for charging through levels at top speed! Carol, on the other hand, has a fast combo, and a super kick, letting her dish out damage faster, at the cost of not going quite as fast (though she can get a motorcycle power up to make up for that). Then you have Milla, who has a shield, and short range laser, making for a more precise defensive playstyle. Casually, she’s probably the slowest of the three, but apparently in speedrunning communities she’s the fastest. All three characters feel wildly unique, and it’s really fun learning how to move & fight with each of them. I should give a brief mention to the story. It’s alright, but nothing spectacular. Voice acting can be a little over the top at times, but I enjoy it. If you want, though, the games gives you the option to play in “Classic Mode” which forgoes the story altogether, which is nice if you just want some fun platforming action. Finally, I just want to point out how crazy the speedruns of this game are. I’ve watched a lot of speedruns in my day, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite as impressive as this. Even if you have no interest in playing the game, I’d still highly recommend checking this out; https://youtu.be/p0DdqCjXUzc And on the topic of speedruns, there’s nothing quite so satisfying as beating these levels in 20-30 minutes the first time around, then knocking those times down to the 5-9 minute time limits for the speedrun achievements. [b][u]Tl;dr? Here’s my point![/b][/u] You should play Freedom Planet! Final verdict; a glass cannon made of cute out of 10! But that’s all for now, folks! Jambuhbye!