This Week's Blogs (11/19/26 - 11/26/23)

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Planet of Lana: The Quest For The Sublime

(11/19/23 - 11/19/23)

Chapter 0 - what this blog post will entail

This essay will be a non-concise review on the 2023 game Planet of Lana, as well as an argument as to why it should be considered by all - regardless of who you are or what you're made of - to be a good game. Expect me hopping around in circles, expect me talking about one thing when the title chapter said that I'll be talking about another thing in said chapter - this will be impromptu through and through.

Forgive me for any parts that don't feel either complete or expressive enough.

Obviously, spoiler alert: if you haven't played this game yet, do yourself a favor by either not reading this, nor play the game and then come back here. As it will contain major spoilers.

Alright, let's get into the general introduction.

Chapter 1 - Prologue and General Introduction

Alright, so to begin with, I'll explain - and I'll fail to do it in a way that either makes sense or is concise enough to be considered as a part of a critical essay on the game itself - what this game is. And I'll highlight exactly what I'll be reviewing right now: I'll be reviewing the music; the gameplay; and the non-dialogue story. Not in that order, of course. I'll be detailing these in an order that fits my "needs" in the piece. Okay? Gotcha, cool.

So, Planet of Lana is an indie-game released on the 23rd of May, the year of our Lord 2023, that is a parkour-based PC-game - at time of writing, as it will be released on consoles at Spring 2024 - with no dialogue. Oh, and by the way, when I described this game as a parkour-based or parkour-type game to my brother, he got a bit irritated at my gen-zoomer writer-style comment on the game, and quickly and swiftly corrected me by stating that this game's formal style name is a "platformer." So, rather, Planet of Lana is an indie-platformer.

At the start of my adventure in this game - which was actually a test run for my brother, in order to see that this game can actually run, as this game - like any other game - has specifications that we might or might not live up to or currently have, but was successful, otherwise this essay does not exist - this game was amazing. The detail was phenomenal; the execution of the concept of this game, that was trying, or going for, a specific theme, or setting, was par excellence; and overall, the game had a very specific theme going for it that was trying to come off as said theme, that reminded me a whole lot of Studio Ghibli. Which is no small feat, as the developers of this game - or rather, the people that were involved with the development of this game - were mainly Scandinavian. However, I'll state first and foremost that in regards to anything entertainment-based, both the Japanese and the Scandinavians do not slack off. Heck, I'm pretty sure that Japanese and Scandinavian people could pull this kind of stuff, with this kind of quality, off, even on their off-days, or even when they are slacking off and are conscientious about it. That's how talented the Japanese and the Scandinavians are when it comes to this sort of stuff. They say that racism is bad and that everyone is all equal, I say no: there's always just some white people that are better at coming up with entertaining media: like games; shows; art; writing - stuff like these aforementioned examples, than other white people.

Obviously that was a joke. I'm anti-racist. But jokes aside, if I am coming up with racial statements to prove this piece of media's worth, that's how you know it's good. Otherwise, I would not mention race at all. Oh, and by the way, please don't come after me, SJW's. Please?

Ok, more jokes aside, I stated that being compared to Studio Ghibli - in terms of quality - is no small feat. I should enforce that statement by actually retracting a little bit of that statement by saying that this whole game seems like no small feat, in terms of quality. In this game, every single thing was taken into consideration: the puzzles; how the puzzles look; the music; how well the music flows with the specific scenes in the game, how well it fits into the game, and how the music is involved with the gameplay experience; the art; how the maps look; if the maps' settings fit in with the whole vibe that the game is trying to go for, or look - every single thing was taken into consideration. No one was slacking off, everything's quality was sublime. I actually feel bad that I didn't have to pay for this game. It's one of the few times when - after playing a game - that I regretted not having my brother or myself pay for the game as a whole, as in the game itself, not only are you accounting for the experience as a whole, but also the gameplay, the soundtrack, and the visuals, just to name a few. And I haven't felt that since Wolfenstein: New Colossus. All of that and neither myself nor my brother paid a cent.