[Update]: After many years and many delays, Freedom Planet 2 will finally be launching on September 13th, 2022.
If you don't know anything about it think of Freedom Planet as a modern Sonic game but actually done with love and passion. It is a fast paced action platformer with colorful graphics, tons of humor and plenty of challenges for you to conquer. While I don't see it mentioned online very often it still acquired quite the cult following since its 2014 release.
And now we have an official announcement for Freedom Planet 2 along with a trailer showcasing the story and the new big bad. Take a look:
One particular quote from the Freedom Planet 2 announcement instantly stood out to me:
"The original Freedom Planet was modeled as a tribute to Sega Genesis platform games. We've learned what works and what doesn't, what's fun and what's frustrating, what we should expand on and what we can afford to lose. With all of this in mind, we feel that we are ready to bid farewell to nostalgia and create a sequel that will define Freedom Planet's identity as a franchise."
Personally I'm really glad they're going with this route because too often these sort of "homage" games end up retreading the same ground over and over again in fear of leaving the comfort zone of nostalgia. So to see the developers willing to try new things and create something truly unique is very refreshing.
One of the first noticeable changes is going to be the graphical upgrade and slight character redesign because the removal of the 16-bit limitation opened up a lot more design space and amount of detail artists could put in. But don't worry, all of the important things that made Freedom Planet good, the action, the exploration, the characters and the story will all return in the sequel.
As far as new features are concerned only a couple have been announced so far:
- Customizable difficulty system - By using special golden gems found throughout missions you will be able to affect map parameters such as the amount of lives you have, the damage you deal, the speed of enemies and so on in order to make the maps either easier or more difficult. It hasn't been stated directly but I'd imagine doing missions the hard way will yield some sort of reward for your troubles.
- You can now parry attacks - Using the newly added guard button you will be able to project a split-second shield that allows you to parry enemy attacks if your timing is good enough. In Freedom Planet 1 for comparison you could only block attacks by using your special ability so the extra freedom added with the guard button is most welcome.
- Quick Revivals - If you die during a boss fight or some other hard encounter you will have the ability to consume a life then and there in order to revive with a small amount of health and a few seconds of invincibility. The idea is to prevent the frustration of getting a boss down to 10% only to get killed and having to do it all over again. Though be warned, you will respawn with a minimal amount of health so unless you're careful you might just end up dying twice in a row.
That's pretty much all of the information we know right now and if you're interested you can read about the fine details over at the Freedom Planet 2 website. I quite enjoyed Freedom Planet 1 so I'll be keeping an eye on how the sequel develops and if any important piece of news pops up I'll make sure to update you.