Immortal Planet

Yes.

unique vibe, nice mechanics.

Game is very fun, Short but I think fairly priced for the length. Combat can be a little tedious and easy but still retains some very fun challenging moments.

This was a miserable experience through and through. To repeat what many others have said, the speed is a significant, game breaking issue. It's not just a matter of it "not being for me," it really feels like it is not being for anyone. I really struggle to understand why the game was designed to be so achingly slow. It doesn't do any favors to the game, and it honestly feels like it was made this way to desperately appear different and stand out from other games in the genre. Even the text crawl has this weird every second show three words thing that is agonizing. If you decide to press the button to show all the text, it does show the whole sentence...only to automatically clear it out a second later. Why? If you let the text scroll to completion, you get a chance to read it by pressing a button to confirm you are done reading it, but you punish a person when they want to just quit the scroll effect so they can just read the words?

Then there is the combat system which feels very stilted and has very inconsistent feedback to hits and flow of battle. In a "souls-like" combat system, tells are an extremely important part of the gameplay. Enemies need clear ones, and you need to be able to read the enemies effectively to counter them. In this game, each attack, and from my experience almost every attack, have about 1-2 frames. You aren't really "reading" the enemies; you are reading them preparing an attack, and then effectively trying to guess how many seconds before the rest of the attack comes out. It's unintuitive and doesn't feel even the slightest bit rewarding.

On top of that, there is this weird mechanic of dashing into enemies when their stamina is low to paralyze them for a few seconds, which on paper sounds pretty interesting, but kind of falls apart when you consider how important that becomes later on. It less feels like you are fighting and really just trying to dodge into enemies to proc the paralysis so you can re-position and maybe get a couple hits again before you do it all over again.

I managed to unlock a couple weapons and I tried the three initial ones and they all felt same-y, which was mainly because of the 1-2 frame attack animations I mentioned before. Weapon movesets and variety are also important in souls-like, and having them all rendered with essentially the same move is a massive disappointment. The only thing that felt any fun were the spells, but you can only throw a few of those before you are completely depleted and have to either A) Die, or B) find a shrine.

This game honestly feels like it needs quite a bit more work. The speed is a serious problem that I need to continue to emphasize because it seriously breaks the game. It is not fun.

I thought the negative reviews were exaggerating about this game being slow

No this is legit slower and more tedious than filling out a retail job application form

Immortal Planet is an isometric Souls-like game. Top down, slower paced, stamina driven action in a smaller package that could be beaten in only a couple hours, depending on the skill level of the player. The world building is interesting, and the combat system is decent, but a lack of boss variety, and an unsatisfying array of weapons and skills beyond a very few specific great standouts to use ultimately dragged the game out of what could have been an excellent experience.

Immortal Planet places you in the control of an "Immortal" who has woken up on an icy planet filled with other immortals who have lost their minds, doomed to "awake-walk" in mindless, savage insanity. You explore the world, find other souls who haven't yet lost their mind, and look for a way to escape the planet. Along the way you learn about the world and what's happened to it. Gameplay is very much traditional Souls-like: You get XP, lose it on death and can reclaim it if you get back to where you died. It also serves as the game's currency. Cryochambers are bonfires, and respawn enemies. Areas branch out and shortcut into each other, opening new ways to traverse the area. There are 4 main stats to level, that all affect varying derived stats, like weapon damage, item uses, spell uses, stamina, and HP. I went with a primarily Dexterity and endurance focused build, for high weapon damage, high stamina, and decent HP. Spells were so limited in uses (2-4 at most without investment, which only raised uses by 1 per every 5-10 poits invested) I never felt like they were worth focusing in - same for utility item use. You could do as much if not more damage in 1 or 2 swings of a weapon, as in a cast of a spell. Having an "Estus Flask" took one of your two items slots, as well, which feels cruel to builds that would want to be item focused, you'd have to not have an estus flask.

The combat system is Souls with a twist: If you dodge INTO an enemy, and they have very low stamina while your stamina is decent, you'll shove the enemy backwards, and stun them for several full seconds. If the inverse happens, and you dodge into an enemy when you have low stamina, you'll get stunned for a few seconds instead (and normally immediately die.) This works on everything, including bosses, and is the main mechanic of the game. Everything revolves around blocking or draining an enemy's stamina and then either stunning to combo them, or simply shoving them off a cliff. Every area in the game is hanging corridors over bottomless pits. Falling off is instant death for everyone, including you, so the best way to kill any enemy is to just sit by a ledge, block two attacks, and dash-shove them off a cliff for a kill. It felt like a real shame that the most efficient way to fight in the game was to basically ignore combat, wildly shoving people off cliffs every chance you got. It was also frustrating because platforming in the game simply meant dashing over holes, and a single mistake meant instant death. There is also a second main mechanic in that every weapon has a special attack that Awakens the weapon into a new combat mode that affects things like weapon attack speed, range, damage, and the like. My favorite weapon was a fire-katana that, when awoken, lit flames around you as you swung, doing damage to everything, including yourself. It was easy, free damage. Conveniently it was also accessible the second I entered the main hub after the tutorial area, for free. There are very few crowds in Immortal Planet, except for some boss fights - most rooms you'll fight 1-2 things at a time.

Bosses felt like a missed opportunity. Each area has 2 bossfights, but really it's just the same boss twice, with the second fight having a "phase 4" and starting in "phase 2", rather than 1-2-3. One area, has a very different second boss fight, which was nice. I wish the other areas were the same way. The bosses are all approached very differently, and required thought and good pattern recognition skills to know when to go in, when to block, and when to dodge. Blocking and dodging are both essential - if you only dodge or only block, you'll find yourself dying to enemies that would otherwise be very easy. Know when to do both, and your skil level will increase dramatically. This goes for all fights, not just bosses.

Overall, a game that frustrated me until I learned that the best way to "fight" was to throw people off cliffs. Once that clicked, I flew through the rest of the game. I played it once and feel no urge to play it again, because I don't think there's enough support for other playstyles than "melee with a couple utility button clicks". A soft recommendation if you're looking for a smaller sized Souls game that doesn't demand a lot of investment.

PS: The Achievement for beating the game says "Bad Ending". There is no good ending, there is only one ending, so don't waste your time.

An OK game, that's lacking content (too short, too few to do). Also it suffer the competition, there's plenty of games that are way better for the same price (Hollow Knight, Salt and Sanctuary, Unworthy, Blasphemous, etc.).

Good game.
Controls are wanky, but if you play with controller, then its good and optimized.
Art and story are AWESOME. Nothing ground braking. Just. Awesome. Though story, as well as game, is short
Combat is meh. Slow, reactive. Fighting style is depended on offering from character creation(Evasion-master\damage-healer\block-stunner). But overall combat is: evade, wait for enemy's attacks, dash, attack x1\2\3 times, repeat.
Overall definitely worth to buy and play.

I recommend this game but i still have to give it a thumbs down.

This is a beautiful game with solid gameplay mechanics that fit incredibly well with its isometric style, if you are searcing for a hard experience look no further.
But it's the same difficulty that turned it down for me, consider this, the first non-tutorial boss you will encounter can: dash across the map stunning you for several seconds on contact, hit you for a third of your life, fire a laser across the arena that leaves a trail of fire that keeps damaging you and spawn mines that home on you and stun you when you get too close.
Not that bad you may think, but consider that this boss uses at least three of theese moves in less than a second and you can start to notice how it can get annoying.

Edit: forgot to mention that the majority of the time of this boss is spent returning to it instead of fighting it, there's a reason other games put save spots before bullshit bosses.

Second Edit: while thinking about it I had a similar experience to Hyper Light Drifter, the game becomes much easier if you do certain things, the boss i described was one of the last, the game has a problem conveying a sense of direction to the player.
Other tips i can give you are: talk to the frozen archivist untill it sells you stuff, the items you HAVE to buy in order to not make the game straight up hell for you are the one that increases the potency of your healing potions and the one that mends freshly dealt damage.

It took a few hours but I think this game has clicked with me and now I'm enjoying it a good deal.

Pros -
Great setting and mood (great art/sound/music)
Very polished
Cool isometric take on the Dark Souls type game


Maybes -
Streamlined from other "Dark Souls" type games (no armor - for example)

Cons - but you'll get used to it
Movement speed is very slow, dodging attacks via just moving out of the way is possible and seemingly encouraged by the game, but it's like you have to pre-plan it. I wish that the game had classes or builds that allow for the player character to be faster. In Dark Souls you tend to run (as default speed) and sprint at the cost of stamina. Here it is walk (as default speed) and run at the cost of stamina. So you are constantly running and have to remembmer to stop before approaching enemies to regain stamina.


Anyway - enjoying the game.

I'm a sucker for Souls-like games, and the inspirations here are definitely clear. I say this up front because this game makes a particularly infuriating error in replicating the formula, and I want to provide feedback: Making controlling your character deliberately clunky is not a good way to make the game "difficult" or "unforgiving". This game certainly is difficult and unforgiving, but the fact that this difficulty is created by simply making your character painful to control really ruins the experience. You are slow, your stamina bar is particularly restrictive, and the dash-stun mechanic, while a neat innovation, often leaves you stunned because you accidentally dashed (intending to dodge) a pixel too close to an enemy with stamina remaining.

I normally find myself leaning into difficulty in games like this, but the above factors combined with odd pacing in the enemy layouts (the more difficult enemies are about what you'd expect, but the "easy" ones were surprisingly difficult to kill unscathed) served to make it just...unpleasant. I feel like most of these things could be addressed by some dedicated tinkering with the game systems, but as it is, I don't know that I'll pick this up again.

Some tips for beginnners: if you're not skilled at timing blocks or dodges, start with the Bloodshot Eyes relic. They'll help you regain health if you get hit - perfect for button mashers.

Also consider the Shieldaxe for your starting weapon. In its normal form, you can use it to efficiently block attacks until your enemy is out of stamina. Then you can dash into them to stun them, then turn your shield into an axe and easily kill them. Almost every enemy in the game, final boss included, and be defeated by this method if you're patient.

Finally, I advise against putting too many points into intelligence/willpower. While it's great to be able to throw a lot of high-damage fireballs, the most effective DPS in this game will always come from your melee weapons. Stunning your enemy so you can hit them a lot is almost always better than hanging back and throwing fire.

There are a lot of things I really like about this game - enough that I'm sorely disappointed that my enjoyment is crippled by two factors: the game is terrible at giving the player information, and arbitrary and frustrating design decisions have been made with the idea of making the game hard, not making the game better.

The first problem is mostly an irritation - the game explains itself poorly, providing you the absolute dirt basics in an opening tutorial, then the rest is just there, without even being mentioned. Entire systems are present without so much as a clue about how they're supposed to work, you're handed a sheet of stats with no explanations, things like that - but fundamentally, that's academic, you can work everything out with enough experimentation. The real issue here is the lack of good feedback. It's sometimes difficult to tell when you've been hit, particularly if you just landed a flurry of blows, but even worse is that it's hard to read the enemies. Each one only has a handful of frames of animation, meaning they make the same motion before and after every attack, making it impossible to tell if they're about to hack at you, say, three times, or just once; this turns attacking into a dangerous guessing game, but it's compounded by the second major issue.

This game is hard - and not in the way the Soulsborne games are. There's no 'I understand what went wrong and I can work to improve myself with what I just learned', which is the beating heart of what makes those games compelling. Enemies strike for a quarter to half your health per hit. My 'immortal blood vial' (read: estus flask) still only has a single charge in the prison, the game's second area, and while you can find additional charges by opening containers, they're temporary, lasting only that life and vanishing when used - even worse, every time you open a container, there's a random chance that an enemy will spawn inside it, already halfway through their windup, punishing you for seeking out healing in a healing-starved system. Dashing into an enemy with too much stamina will stun you, but given the game's top-down perspective and 2D art, it's unclear when your character is actually colliding with something, so an attempt to dodge around a boss to evade a slash can stun you for a painfully long time... come to think of it, a surprising number of things stun you for a painfully long time. Numerous attacks from the first boss, dashing 'into' an enemy with too much stamina, an aoe attack from a common enemy in the second area with a very short windup, and I'm sure a great deal that I haven't seen.

These two issues combined mean that, for me, the game is not fun. It might be fun for the 'dark souls is too easy' masochists that it was clearly designed to appease, but for me, a veteran gamer with solid reflexes and hundreds of hours logged across both console and PC versions of all three Dark Souls titles, it feels like an unrelenting wall of punishment. Massive damage, constant stuns, chests dealing death at a roll of the dice, obtuse systems, and poor feedback turn this from a challenging and rewarding experience into a frustrating one - it invested too much into the 'difficulty' aspect of soulsborne design, and not enough into the 'carefully refined design' aspect. Hell, if the game was a little less stun-eager, got rid of the nonsense rng-mimics, and dialed back the damage a little, I'd be willing to power through the rest of my issues; I love the premise and the setting from what I've seen, which makes it all the more painful that it seems like it just doesn't want me to play it.

I'm sure people like this game, reviews looked pretty positive when I bought it, but I can't in good conscience recommend a game that provides me frustration instead of enjoyment.

While this game had interesting gameplay and FAR more interesting lore, the game's developers intentionally lied about a "good ending" to the game that has never existed.

I can't support people who would trick players into sinking more hours into a game to give a false sense of more popularity -- and purely because players were honestly curious about such a unique and interesting narrative that they clearly never had the time or resources to finish.

The game has its other flaws, as well -- all weapons function almost exactly the same with the exact speeds and damages, extremely repetitive gameplay, minor yet persistent bugs with the game's all-important hitboxes -- but these flaws would have been forgivable had the makers of this game simply admitted that they weren't able to finish their very interesting story. The game has only one, single "bad" ending, confirmed by the developers: this ending is "bad" not due to any choices made by the player, but more because it is forced on you due to the fact that the game feels like it's missing one last dungoen that would tie all of its story together. Instead, where that final location may have been, there is simply a big button that might as well say "RAN OUT OF TIME: END THE GAME, WHOOPS."

The developers decided to give you the sense that, if you finished the game a second time, you might find that closure to the story they already told you. There is no different ending, though. Don't give these people money.

Almost Tactical

Level by level

Just a little patience

Edit: I added a few things now that i've beaten regular mode.

Out of all the indie Soulslike games, this is probably one of my favorite.

Since i like the patient way of fighting, I really like the Dark souls series, especially 3, but I don't like Bloodboure all that much. If you are looking for Dark Souls mechanics in a different way, this is probably a good choice, if you like the isometric view of the camera and controls.

The gameplay is very solid, everything you do is meaningful in terms of fighting. Do you attack? Should you dodge as soon as you see the attack? Should you block? Is it safe to heal? This game rewards patience and reflexes. However mechanics wise, i have issues with the dodge/block mechanic. When you are blocking and try to dodge, it does nothing. Which is fine, but the thing is that it buffers the dodge. So when you hold block, press dodge, then let go of block within a few frames of pressing dodge; you will dodge in the direction you were blocking at, meaning most of the time you will probably be dashing into the enemy. Which can turn the fight sour since on how the dodge mechanic works in this game. This has been at least 70% percent of my deaths, where i dashed into a half stamina enemy when i didn't even want to.

Also, there is a lack of personal customization. You can't change the controls. To me that is a big minus, since I honestly do not like the button setup on both the controller or the keyboard and mouse, but I've delt with it for now. Can't really do much on the visual and audio, I mean I like playing my own music while playing the sound effects of the game, can't do that either. All sound and music is a combined volume.

When it comes to equipment, the idea is ok. The way how items work is fair. No qualms with it. BUT, I'm hoping down the line in, can an option be there if i just want equip all spells or gadgets. As well as the healing item should be it's own slot

Now when it comes to weapons, each weapon may have different versions that changes how the weapon works and usage. Usually it's like a weaker version and then a stronger version that consumes more stamina compared to the weaker version. There are a few exceptions, but not the norm. Usually the difference comes when you "awaken" the weapon, or transforming the weapon. All weapons seems to have to their own unique mechanic when they "awaken" which is neat. Some may have passives, i just don't feel like it's really explained very well if they do or not.

Which comes to my next topic, information. Specifically detailed gameplay information. I mean sure, it paints the lore really well, but doesn't really explain game mechanics that well. When you're leveling up, you don't know what your points do and you have to keep shuffling points to see what the points do. When you're shopping, some items need a requirement to equip it, and when you're buying the items, you don't know if there is a requirement or not. you don't know if you're buying an item you can't even use yet. Those are just a few.

Even though with those flaws in my opinion, this is a great game for anybody who like soulslike games. 4/5.

In short, I enjoyed playing this game, it was more enjoyable than I originally thought it would be. Before I go on though I would point out that, I am very much the targeted demographic being a huge fan of this style of gameplay, having finished the souls series multiple times. Also note that I played the entire game using an Xbox 360 controller so I cannot confirm how well the keyboard handles.

Pros:
• Level design is well done, and encourages short cuts
• The combat is immediately familiar and holds up to other titles in the genre
• The weapon and item selection is quite varied allowing for replayability
• Every single boss is good, some even great (Alpha Twin = Prince Lothric?)
• The artefact choice at the beginning is great (needs to be a way to swap them)
• From first glance, the builds that are possible seem varied and extensive
• Dash into enemy to stun is a great mechanic whilst not perfect
• The story whilst not perfect is surprisingly interesting, and a great take on the whole hero keeps resurrecting idea that the souls games are known for
• Not to spoil anything but the challenges to get more healing is something I personally really like.

Cons:
• Dash is not the most accurate of movements which causes some issues in both traversing the level and during combat
• Resting resets the state of your weapon
• Door mechanics can occasionally force an area reset
• Some enemy attacks can be hyper specific at any distance (Prisoner One Laser Beam)
• There is the occasional attack which does not give any time to react leading to some unfair deaths (Toxic grenade, Psycher Rifle)
• Parrying seems a bit too easy (maybe just me?)
• There needs to be some obvious rest point after a boss which isn’t always the case
• Blocking does not seem to stagger enemy chain attacks
• The mimic enemies are too random and I was mostly annoyed by them

Bugs:
• Small thing where going up an elevator into the hub section, before the elevator even arrives you can move the camera like you are walking normally before you are even in the level.
• There were two points where I had to reset the level as a door closed as an enemy on the other side of it had seen me
• The biggest issue by far is that the final boss in the ship got stuck on walls a whole bunch, which ended the fight prematurely for me

Summary
I beat the game in 8 hours, and I did not feel I was rushing, the time whilst not huge is fine for a game like this as the levels don’t vary significantly and the game does not want to waste your time. Because of the 2D plane the combat whilst enjoyable is not as nuanced as something like dark souls, and the shorter time means that it does not get exhausting like a 20-hour game would. In summary, I don’t think the game is for everyone but souls/ soulsborne fans will enjoy it, I personally would pay full price for this but getting it during a sale would be even better especially if people see value for time put into a game as it is not the longest of experiences. I would love to see more of this, especially some kind of local/ online vs mode.

After playing this game for a while I really can't recommend. There are a lot of things about that I like ,the aesthetic, setting, even the combat, but there a lot of little things that when brought together drag this game down.

1. Slow combat
This isn't actually a bad thing, and the combat is enjoyable. My only gripe is that the best method is often just to knock enemies off the edge since it can be much quicker than killing them straight up.

2. Slow movement speed
Walk speed being slow doesn't really matter, but the sprint speed is barely faster, and this just makes the game annoying to play.

3. Collecting heals
Like dark souls you spawn with a healing item. However, in immortal blood you can only ever spawn with one, and if you want more you must collect them. On its own not a problem.

4. Doors
Doors won't let you pass if there is an aggro'd enemy nearby. Not usually a problem, except one time I tried to bait an enemy who was waiting for me at the end of a hallway. I aggro'd him from outside of the hallway, but the door just closed blocking us from reaching each other. Leaving the area and returning did not reset the door, and as it was the only path fowards I had to jump off an edge.

5. Random spawns
enemies will randomly spawn from chests which contain heals. On its own no big deal, and makes the game more interesting.

All of these things on their own are fine, but when they are all present in the game they slow it down so much that it just becomes a slog. This is epecially the case when you are trying to go fight a boss. You have to try to dodge all the enemies (so you can get through the doors) while also collecting some heals, which could also randomly produce an enemey. Its slow, but fighting enemies is even slower, and it just becomes annoying to have get through each time you want to fight a boss.

TL;DR
Aesthetic, lore, setting are good.

Combat is slow, movement is sloor, doors are funny, only 1 innnate heal must collect others, random enemy spawns from chests. On their own all these things are fine, but together they just make the game really slow and suck the enjoyment out of it.

Very interesting game, I'm enjoying it immensely. It has a very sedate pace. Combat has almost a rythm to it that is easy to lose and then you start to become frantic but if you keep with the ebb and flow and it is truly great. The story is told in small descriptions found in the compendium. When you defeat a new enemy you get a small introductionary blurb but if you kill enough of them you get asmall description about the Immortal society. So in this way you have to keep checking your compendium, looking at the enemies you defeated and reading about the items you gain and you learn a little bit more about what's going on and this world you are playing in. If you have an open mind, enjoy story rich games and are willing to treat each battle with a certain level of respect and focus the game is great and highly recommended, already lookin forward to possible DLC.

Immortal Planet is an Isometric RPG that mimics a Dark Souls format. I think the game has great combat, dialogue, level design, art direction and immersive atmosphere. The pace of the combat can be a little slow due to reliance on stamina and avoiding attacks. Everything that this game does has a purpose in my opinion, but someone who is not familiar with the genre may find that movement is a little stiff. In short, I think this is a fantastic game for people who like methodically slow gameplay that relies on timing, patience, and reflexes. It also has a limited 90-degree animation which is nostalgic but causes some aiming problems.

Pros:

Cons:

Rating 8/10

only just beat the first boss but am really enoying this. I have become skeptical of most souls like indies lately but am glad i took the chance with this one so far. The first boss I had to try maybe 5 or 6 times but it felt just like in a souls game the satisfaction i got from finally beating it! I can only hope the progression continues to be as enjoyable as the first hour was. Also really hope points in intellegence will be a viable option.

So before I go into this, I should mention that I am a huge sucker for anything soulslike, so I have a special place in my heart for games like this. Immortal Planet is, as advertised, an isometric souls-like game. It uses the same familiar stamina system. There is no rolling, but you do dash, so in that regard it's more like Bloodborne.

The story is captivating, the controls are tight, all enemies require study to defeat. So all is good in that department.

The bosses are also very interesting and complex. The two I've faced so far have 3 phases which are outlined by some UI bars above their heads. The boss hits deal HUGE damage, but they are very well telegraphed, so it works out.

The character leveling system and customization is also reasonably robust. So far I've discovered 3 spells that all have interesting and situation dependent properties. A lot of strategy here.

I think anyone who's a fan of the souls series would not be disappointed with this indie title.