Primal Planet

Against the backdrop of an alluring moonlit sky, silhouetted pixel art dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes parade across the evocative title screen of Primal Planet. I, along with my childhood self, was immediately entranced and remained so for the entirety of my nearly 18-hour playtime. The opening scene features a familiar prehistoric tableau: a family unit huddled around a fire (fires are important in this game, both symbolically and logistically), fragile to the many dangers that lurk beyond the light. Disaster strikes. The family are separated, and the protagonist must find them. The adventure begins.  

Stepping out into this lush, dangerous world – the dark, primaeval forests and swamps; the rolling plains with big skies and flying predators; the mysterious deep, dark oceans – one is struck first by the remarkable pixel art. Each screen is packed full of life, colour and movement: dinosaurs big and small; verdant trees and vegetation; buzzing insects; swooping birds; gushing waterfalls; and darting fish. The character and wildlife designs, along with their animations, are all highly impressive. This teeming world is clearly the work of a supremely gifted pixel artist (take a bow, Albert van Zyl, aka Seethingswarm, the solo dev of the game, and the other artists who contributed to it). It is among the very best modern pixel art I’ve ever experienced.

Primal Planet is a loopingly intricate 2D metroidvania, but with fewer roadblocks than most games in the genre. It also features well-integrated crafting, survival and light base-building elements. Taken together, it’s an engaging set of mechanics to play with. The moveset, platforming and combat are relatively simple and forgiving. And there are no bosses, another thing that sets it apart from most other metroidvanias. However, there’s little directional handholding beyond the opening section. Exploration is the name of the game, and it requires patience. There is a lot of backtracking and a lot of getting lost. The level design is excellent but intricate. And while the individual area maps are helpful, the world map is – I think purposefully – vague and sketchy and, crucially, does not feature the names of the different areas. (I ended up drawing my own map, which proved most helpful when moving from one area to another). But what a luscious world to get lost in. I never tired of exploring this strikingly gorgeous world. There’s always something new to see. However, the time and memory power it takes to do this might be off-putting for some players.

The combination of exploration and survival elements makes for a most pleasing, and forgiving, risk-and-reward gameplay loop. Checkpoints, both at the safety of fires and the start of areas, are frequent. You never lose many resources, or much time, if a dinosaur happens to get its teeth and/or claws into you. I’m looking at you, Raptors. The inventory is well-implemented, and the game auto-pauses as you scroll through your user-friendly backpack, looking for that health-providing Triceratops meat you cooked up earlier. There are a lot of upgrades to choose from, but it’s unlikely you’ll earn enough XP to upgrade everything before the end of your playthrough. You must thus be selective, choosing upgrades based on your preferred playstyle. I liked this system, in theory, but didn’t realise I wouldn’t be able to upgrade everything until the final third of my playthrough. I’ll be more prudent with my upgrade choices next time.

Not everything wants to kill you on the primal planet. You will meet up with an orphaned little dinosaur companion called Sino, who fights by your side; and, later, you will gain other (human) companions, each with different abilities, which can also be upgraded. The importance of community and family is a recurring theme in the game, which is played out beautifully in the (simple) village-building and companion mechanics. You can move your village, your base of operations, to new areas, staying true to the hunter-gatherer ethos of the protagonist and his community. You can also choose which companions to take out with you and Sino on your explorations. You need to keep your friends close in this world.

It’s certainly a harsh, complex and impressively dynamic environment. A brutal and ever-changing ecosystem of predators and prey. It reminded me a bit of Rain World, though certainly not as harsh. Stumbling upon a T-Rex hunting or a giant Pteranodon swooping down upon its prey as you sneak by is exhilarating. The day-night cycles and changing weather add to the sense that you are part of a living, breathing world. A special mention here for the sound design – the unsettling roars, the myriad insects buzzing, and the rain splashing on the water – which adds considerably to the immersion. Playing with headphones is recommended. 

Talking of immersion, the underwater sections are chock-full of wonder. Like everywhere else, the ocean is full of life, living things that want to eat you, or are just going about their business. It feels like a strange new world, within and below the wider world, diving in those murky depths. The sense of exploration and discovery ramps up, along with the stirring music. which results in some of the best underwater sections I’ve ever experienced in a 2D video game, taking me, once again, right back to my childhood, swimming about in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World.

The game certainly does look back to the gaming past; who remembers, for instance, Joe & Mac? This is most obviously reflected in the aforementioned miraculous pixel art, which generates nostalgia even as, while basking in its luscious beauty, you realise that this level of pixel artistry could not have been achieved ‘back in the day’. Likewise, the narrative, though perhaps not quite as impressive as the art, is considerably more ambitious than its 80s and 90s predecessors.

And what of the story? We left our protagonist searching for his family. It’s an old-fashioned tale of a woman and child in danger who must be saved by the heroic man. This rather male-centric trope is offset somewhat by the characterisation of his partner and some of the other women characters, who are certainly no damsels in distress (as Joe and Mac’s girlfriends were), but fighters, as presumably one has to be in such a harsh world. However, this gender dynamic is perhaps one of the few things in the game from the past that should have been left there. 

There is no dialogue in Primal Planet; everything is communicated through physical actions and body language. The animations showing the emotions of the characters are delicate and rather beautiful. They show so much with so little. The hero and heroine hugging and the protagonist patting Sino’s head are among my favourites, along with the delightful swimming animations. The non-verbal communication draws you into the characters’ fight for survival, contributing to that deep sense of immersion.

As if all this weren’t enough, there’s a pleasing twist in this prehistoric tale. Early on (indeed, in the trailer for the game, so no big spoilers here), you stumble upon strange, seemingly extraterrestrial technology. Dinosaurs AND UFOs?! A genre mash-up straight out of the dreams of millions of children across the world. My child self’s heart certainly missed a beat.

But this plot twist also opens up new themes in the game for my adult self to chew over: colonisation, the scientific exploitation of nature, the relationship between technology and the natural world, and the custodianship of nature. There’s a wonderfully cathartic combat scene towards the end of the game that resolves, at least momentarily, all these interconnected themes. The final ending is very open-ended, which could feel anticlimactic for some. However, it nudges one back out into new explorations of the enigmatic primal planet. I, for one, didn’t need much nudging. 

(In another link back to Joe & Mac, Primal Planet features a co-op mode, which I haven’t yet tried but certainly will in the near future).