Chordian Planet of Lana Review

This is a beautiful side-scrolling puzzle platform game with great variety, featuring a boy looking for his sister abducted by mechanical aliens. Early in the game, the boy rescues a small pet which opens up for cooperation puzzles. The kind where the pet can do things the boy can’t do, and vice versa. The pet is really cute and you can pat it. Although the game does have its challenges, for most of the game they are spaced out far by stretches of easy jumping and contained cooperation puzzles. As always it does get a little more challenging towards the end, which also introduces a few QTE – including the quick tapping kind. I would say these are not the worst QTE I’ve encountered, but you do have to pay close attention. I also liked that many puzzle set pieces has an exit with a rope on a ledge that required the pet to go fetch it for the boy to climb. First, this makes sure the puzzle can’t be exited until both characters are able to leave together, and second, it makes it impossible to leave until the puzzle is solved. Later on in the game, the rope on a ledge is replaced with a tentacle creature but it serves the same purpose. Apart from the usual cooperation puzzles, where the pet has to access an area the boy can’t, or the boy has to bring the pet across the water it doesn’t like, there are also stealth sequences. These are short and of the kind where the boy has to avoid being detected by a patrolling robot or a predator. The story and its levels lead you into all kinds of environments and ends up being quite the adventure. Epic views are frequent and expertly designed, and the story also tugs at your heartstrings. These emotional breaks are also among the best I’ve experienced in a video game.