Revenge of the Savage Planet Review — Nu Grob 2!!!

Revenge of the Savage Planet has, so far, been my biggest surprise of the year. What I was expecting was some kind of platforming game set in space. What I wasn’t expecting, due largely to the fact that I’ve never heard of the first game this is apparently a sequel to, was the game’s offbeat, absurdist sense of humor, nor the fact that it would work so incredibly well and stay consistently funny throughout. Revenge of the Savage Planet took me completely by surprise and has become one of my new favorite games, largely due to its ingenious use of comedy. And that’s to say nothing of the game’s solid, albeit pretty basic, gameplay, which still manages to support the entire experience with enough fun and polish to make it all worthwhile.

Revenge of the Savage Planet is an action-mild adventure game with a lot of platforming and some light crafting and resource gathering mechanics. The game begins with an introduction to your new job. Since your company was purchased by the megacorporation Altacorp, you were sent via cryosleep-aided space travel 100 light-years away from Earth in order to colonize an alien planet for your corporation. You’re kitted out with all the latest tech and given a chance for great success within the company, so long as you work hard and terraform the planet as fast as possible. Only, there’s one hiccup. You’ve crash-landed, scattering your gear across the planet’s surface. You’ve also been fired, meaning there is no longer any company to aid you on your journey, to receive the fruits of your labor, or to ever help you get home. That, in and of itself, sets the tone for the game’s tongue-in-cheek approach to storytelling. It’s not just that the world is against you. It’s that it’s laughing while it does it.

Revenge of the Savage Planet plays as a platforming-heavy game with a big focus on exploration. With your gear scattered across an unknown alien world, your task is to jump, climb, and otherwise skedaddle across various biomes as you discover and neutralize new threats in ways only a brave, spacefaring adventurer can. The game puts a mild emphasis on crafting, with new tools and upgrades created by using the materials you will more or less gather along your way from objective to objective. It also interestingly plays into the exploration mechanic by adding a scan feature, where you analyze the environment to learn the names and nature of the fauna as you explore it. This feature might seem simple at first, but it actually contributes quite a bit to the overall immersion and charm of the game.

The game incorporates the planet’s unique alien terrain for interesting platforming and environmental puzzles, and it will throw obstacles your way that can only be solved by collecting the right upgrades or gear. This creates a lot of meaningful backtracking that doesn’t feel forced or tedious, which is a rare thing in games that rely on gated progression. Every return trip to a previous area feels fresh thanks to your new abilities or tools, which let you access previously unreachable sections. The world design encourages curiosity and rewards players who go off the beaten path, and that constant feeling of discovery really elevates the experience.

Where Revenge of the Savage Planet stands out, however, is in the game’s sense of humor. The absolute best part of the game, hands down, has to be the live-action cutscenes that play when you progress through the story or as ads when you come back to your home base. These absurdist skits are hilarious and feel like they came right out of a late-night Adult Swim block. They’re bizarre, over-the-top, and entirely unpredictable. The commercial for Nu Grob 2 is, without a doubt, my favorite, and I find myself pausing what I’m doing to sit and watch every time my ship’s TV turns on, which is quite a feat if you understand just how bad my ADHD is.

Beyond these skits, the game puts a lot of effort into humor that persists throughout the entire experience. Forget the dialogue, as entertaining and full of character as it is, and just look at how much time and effort has gone into making the game feel packed full of cartoony physics and animations. From our character’s wacky sprint animation to the way you slip and slide over slime trails throughout the map, the game feels more animated and alive than anything I’ve played in a long time. It really feels like I slipped into some Looney Tunes or Rick and Morty-style comedic world, without the cringe or forced feeling that occasionally comes from other games that try the same thing. And yes, I’m talking about High on Life.

The tone is consistently playful, and the world design supports that with bright colors, strange creatures, and absurd interactions that add to the overall surreal experience. Even the enemies have comedic quirks, making combat feel more like a slapstick scene than a gritty fight for survival. It’s hard not to laugh when a puffball-like creature explodes into confetti or when your character lets out a dramatic yelp after slipping on goo.

Though I experienced the game in single-player mode, the game does have co-op options, and I can only imagine how much more fun it can be with a close friend or partner by your side. It might trivialize the already somewhat easy combat, but I’m not sure what, if any, safeguards Revenge of the Savage Planet has for this. Regardless, the possibility of shared laughter and chaotic misadventures across the alien landscape adds even more replay value and potential enjoyment to an already great experience.

Revenge of the Savage Planet is great for what it is, which is a platforming-heavy exploration-adventure game with a big emphasis on comedy. However, the way the game is set up initially got me hyped for a base-building, or rather, town-building mechanic focus that isn’t there. I was expecting something like Aska or Stardew Valley, but with an adult comedic twist. The idea of expanding a settlement, managing resources, or watching absurd alien villagers go about their routines could’ve added another layer of gameplay that fits right in with the game’s bizarre world. If they were going to make a third game in the series, I hope they go down that path. It would have me hooked instantly.

All in all, Revenge of the Savage Planet is a gem that caught me completely off guard. What started as a random download turned into one of the most fun and genuinely funny gaming experiences I’ve had in a long time. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to gameplay, but it doesn’t need to. Its charm lies in its personality, its unapologetic weirdness, and its refusal to take itself too seriously. If you’re looking for something different, something bizarre, and something that’ll make you laugh out loud while still giving you a fun world to explore, you owe it to yourself to give this game a shot.

Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam PC Review code for Revenge of the Savage Planet. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Revenge of the Savage Planet is available on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation.