- Lovely Planet Arcade is basically the arcade counterpart of it’s predecessor, “Lovely Planet.” It’s colourful, it has a gun, it has rounded green enemies, and it’s bound to send you on a trippy, FPS experience.
Lovely Planet came out in 2014, Quicktequilla’s deal with tinyBuild to publish and distribute bode well for both parties, who continued the relationship to this outing. It focused on you, the main character within a cute, simple themed world inhabited by boxes that shoot at you. You’d aim in all directions, jump all over, and dodge incoming bullets until you cleared the map. You’d follow a path, you’d kill with quick succession, and you’d look pretty badass.
Lovely Planet Arcade is it’s official sequel, and takes the original game and simplifies it, not because the game originally was hard, but it seems like it has taken a more simple route to please the ever growing audience of speed run games. Lovely Planet Arcade is certainly a speed running FPS game that will please those with short attention spans and those in a rush to be somewhere but want a quick game before they go and don’t want to invest that time in a story heavy game. Either that or it will appeal to those who just like shooting things.
Although the graphics don’t seem to be too different from the first game, it does, because of the simplicity of the levels layout, look more toned down. Your enemies and well, the rest of the world kind of looks like a detailed PowerPoint presentation with impressive animations. It’s that simple looking, the colours aren’t particularly vibrant, instead they are kind of washed out, pastel, and colourful.
There are wonderful sudden clouds that appear to imply impact, and upon being shot, there’s nothing except a sudden stop in your movements, a slightly darkened screen with some buttons and titles that appear; basically, a Game Over screen. You’ll see this a lot. Unless you’re freaking amazing. But this game makes you not so amazing. Just a warning.
Forget about having a punchy, grunge, punk track to blow your adrenaline expecting socks off, instead, the game makes a cheery, funk soundtrack work wonders. It’s a happy vibe amongst a stressful, fast paced scenario. It shouldn’t go, yet it does. Calum Bowen scored the original games soundtrack, and he’s back in his musical glory for Lovely Planet Arcade. Although after a while, with a game like this, the soundtrack does wear thin after so many replays. Have a listen to one of my favourites from the soundtrack!
The original game allowed you to freely control your character, all in terms of strafing, jumping, and aiming. This takes a more limited approach, similar to DOOM. The jumping has been scrapped, aiming upwards and downwards has now been tossed aside; now you’re glued to the ground and allowed to only aim to the left, or to the right. You can now focus on simply running and shooting, which really improves your speed runs. Oh wait, I lie. You can jump, kind of. It’s more of a half-a-foot jump into the air where you stay in the air for half a second before falling back to the ground. This allows you to jump and kill an enemy if they are holding a shield.
The atmosphere of the game starts out quite summery, it’s clear, it’s a cartoon themed place that welcomes you in to a world of pretty killing, but after a few levels you end up in mystery and find yourself shrouded by heavy fog, your visibility reduced, and enemies hiding amongst the shadows, only their eyes can be seen slightly in the distance. Then the next act comes forth and the atmosphere is back to normal, although it could be seen as rather gloomy.
Overall, the game being within such a small playing field, gives that feeling of claustrophobia, and paranoia, you know there is more than likely going to be an enemy round the corner, but you’re not sure where. I wish you could say you get welcomed to a few jump scares upon starting a new level, but sadly, because of how fast you’re playing, you become entrapped in a sort of trance.
Your weapon of choice? Just a shotgun with unlimited ammo. It doesn’t even make that KABOOM sound when fired, instead a pop/squeak can be heard, similar to a clown gun really. The shotgun tends to have a slight wait time before it can be fired again, not by much though, just like half a second, but that half a second can make a huge difference.
The enemies are all big, round, green sphere things, they look similar to a simple PowerPoint creation. Some of these green spheres are unarmed but still classed as an enemy, therefore you need to shoot them down to complete the level. Some of them have guns, or rocket launchers, and some of the guns fire bullets that you can dodge, however some guns are instant kill thanks to the green sphere’s perfect aim. Some have shields that can only be bypassed by doing that slight jump and shoot. Some are friendly and can be left alone, however they’re placed in the most awkward places, meaning you’re bound to shoot them and fail the level.
Some of these green things will have a symbol on their round belly. These indicate what perk will come from killing the thing. For example, a spiral symbol indicates that the green thing, once killed, will freeze time for at least two seconds, allowing you to eliminate whatever you can during this time freeze. Once time comes back round, you are then teleported to where the green thing was.
some have guns, some are friendly, some stop time for everything except yourself, and some can teleport you. There’s more that can happen, but each perk for killing an enemy comes through progression. The further along the acts you get, the more intense the perk, and the harder it becomes.
The game revolves around timing, patterns, and getting ahead of the game. For timings, not only do you need to get through a level in a certain amount of time to get a decent amount of stars, but things, once the level starts will run on a timer if you will. Most of the time, if you’re not quick enough getting around the world, an explosion occurs and the game ends with the camera flipping round to the direction of the blast. Other times those bombs are activated by triggers so there won’t be much worry for timing with those ones.
Patterns are a huge part of the game, as you essentially run through a maze from point A to point B, you come across set enemies and traps that don’t change with each replay, so you can essentially paint a plan out in your head, and due to the amount of times you’ll probably fail and have to restart, this becomes instinctive. As you do run through the map, you’ll find that certain enemies have to be killed in a sequence, or traps have to be activated first in order to progress. The game becomes less about dodging and jumping like Lovely Planet was all about, it becomes more about reflexes. Being quick wins the level.
You’ll need to also ensure that all coins – if there are any within that level – are collected, or ensure that all enemies have been killed before stepping into the purple pillar of level completion…otherwise it’s back to the start. There will be times where all you need to do is kill every enemy then the level will be completed.
Lovely Planet Arcade is a fantastic speed running game, it’ll have you snarling at your monitor, throwing your sight to the nearest wall, then straight back to attempt it again. It’s a game filled with millions of, “This is the one!” phrases that come forth from your lips. It’s a fantastically addictive game, and perfect for those with short attention spans, and those with pure determination to pass the level perfectly. I highly advise that you get this.
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