A fateful meteor shower sees strange robots collecting villagers in their basket-like bellies and carrying them away into the night sky. People scream as they are abducted, larger machines stalk the waters behind your village, while smaller robots prowl the area to uncover any survivors that may be hiding. It’s easy to draw parallels between Planet of Lana and HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds, so much so that I was dreading the idea of later discovering that the collected humans were being squelched into some form of goo.
But the world you find yourself in isn’t dominated by these frightening robots, for there is weird and wonderful wildlife to be found wherever you go. Strange black creatures that have a Studio Ghibli-esque quality about them litter the landscape, hiding in cracks and crevices, watching you with blinking eyes, masquerading as small rocks that skitter away on tiny legs, and even giant leviathans that roam the deep sea. There’s just as much danger from some of these organic creatures as there is from the patrolling robots.
Planet of Lana is an adventure puzzle platformer that follows Lana in her quest to find her sister Elo after she is abducted during the robot invasion. Along the way, Lana saves Mui, a little monkey-like creature, which begins a friendship that endures until the very end. You’ll have to guide Lana and Mui along their journey, making them work together to overcome puzzles and precarious situations.
There’s a lot of trial and error as you learn the boundaries of the world around you and how to take advantage of various elements and mechanics. Different enemies require different tactics, and as you come across new obstacles and unlock new abilities, you have a wider range of skills at your disposal.
In a preview last year, I learned the hard way that there were strange rocks that would eat Mui, and if your monkey dies, it’s game over for you too. That knowledge still didn’t stop me from dying a fair few times. While I avoided death by rock, I’ve lost count of the number of times I misjudged how far a jump was and died from the fall damage, and there were a number of puzzles or sections I snagged on for a short while.
Despite the many times Lana or Mui bit the dust, I never once found the game frustratingly difficult, and whenever I did get a little stuck, it didn’t last for long. It all felt like a natural learning curve, as those deaths taught me I needed to change my strategy or perfect my timing more. It was never senselessly simple, either. There was enough challenge there for me to earn a sense of accomplishment from parts I had struggled with, though some platformer puzzle fans might be expecting a little more to test their mettle.
There are two puzzles that go beyond the normal platforming basics, where you have to use clues found in the area to solve them in a refreshing, unique way. I would have loved to see a couple more of these throughout the game, as they were the most interesting. However, these weren’t the most challenging sequences — those were the later levels where precise timing in quick succession was key.
There were also a fair few puzzles I overthought. One in particular I was avoiding a robot, then trying to line up both Miu and a boar on specific spots to make platforms grow, believing I had to time it just right to release the boar to trigger the platform in time for me to jump. After getting gored by the boar a few times, the robot came and killed the boar, reminding me that I could simply drag its corpse to where I needed it, without all the extra hassle. Silly me.
My favourite puzzle from Planet of Lana wasn’t a traditional puzzle at all, but the mystery of how and why the robots arrived in the first place. There’s limited speech in the game, and anything you do hear, you won’t understand. It’s the same for the writings you’ll come across scrawled on walls, but through different murals, secret shrines, and various locations you’ll visit on your journey, you can piece together an idea of what transpired before the events of the game.
Planet of Lana strikes a balance between tranquility and terror. Though its world is beautifully serene with detailed scenery and quirky creatures, there’s the constant threat of danger lurking in the wilderness. The game has a carefully crafted cinematic quality — in how scenes transition, or how the camera pans out to draw your attention to focal points — that accentuates the worldbuilding and narrative unfolding before you.
Planet of Lana is a delightful puzzle platformer that hits that sweet spot in more ways than one. It’s not too challenging nor too simple, and though it could have delivered endless levels of similar ideas, it only takes enough time as it needs to tell the perfect story of friendship and survival.
Score: 3.5/5. An Xbox Series X code was provided by the publisher.