If you’ve ever wanted a little dinosaur pet that nips at the ankles of bigger carnivores while you hack at them with your primitive axe, Primal Planet has you covered. The metroidvania brings some cool ideas to the table and a few that belong in the Stone Age.
QD’s Speedrun Review:
Primal Planet tells the simple story of a prehistoric man trying to keep his young family safe. The game mixes classic metroidvania gameplay, with survival type elements, like resource gathering and crafting.
While it’s a cool take on the genre, I didn’t love the constant need to be crafting items to stay alive, as opposed to health replenishing when resting.
Its strength is in its setting. A dense and dangerous jungle filled with killer crocs and deadly dinosaurs!
The pixel art visuals are excellent, and the world feels alive with non-violent creatures as well as ones that want to chew on your bones.
While the basic story does its job, I would’ve preferred a straight prehistoric fantasy focused more on the warring tribes, rather than futuristic aliens and tech.
Primal Planet’s approach to skills is cool, with a menu of things to choose from — rather than a branching skill-tree — giving you more control of what you upgrade when. My first dozen skill points went to unlocking a double jump and dash.
I loved the little dino-pet you have that helps you in battle! You toss chunks of meat to replenish its health… But that does mean it can run out of health and die 🙁. It also has its own upgrades, but strangely, skill points are pooled between you both.
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And shout out to the game’s spears. Not just a weapon, they can be lit on fire to burn vines blocking your way and even thrown into cliffs to be used as platforms!
Things I love about Primal Planet:
- Awesome prehistoric setting.
- Beautiful pixel-art graphics.
- Dino pet (goodest boy).
- Dino enemies.
- DIY spear platforms!
- Generous auto saves.
Things I don’t love about Primal Planet:
- Maze-like map — I got lost A LOT.
- Reliance on resource gathering and crafting.
- Enemy AI could be better.
- Pooled skill points.
- Too much underwater traversal.
- Half a dozen hard crashes.
Is Primal Planet worth your time?
If you’re a fan of the metroidvania genre or just want to run around a world full of cool dinosaurs, then for sure! Developers Seethingswarm nailed a lot of the important stuff in Primal Planet, and the bits that didn’t gel with me weren’t enough to stop me playing.
Do I recommend it? I Yabba Dabba Doo.
Primal Planet releases on the Nintendo Switch on March 27th. It’s already on PC and there’s a PlayStation 5 version in the works.
Access to Primal Planet was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this article.
