Revenge of the Savage Planet is a new Metroid-like adventure from Raccoon Logic Studios, which kicks off by dropping you on some backwater planet in space, with no gear, no backup on the way, and pretty much nothing at your disposal besides your wits and what you can salvage from your ship’s wreckage.
It’s a very open-ended start to the game, and you’ll see your quest list fill up faster than you can get to everything on it. But there are a few tasks that you should prioritize, and a few gameplay when you land in Nu Florida, to really get the best experience possible out of your time with Revenge of the Savage Planet.
Best Tips For Starting Revenge of the Savage Planet
ABS – Always Be Scanning/Surveying
While the whole opening premise of Revenge of the Savage Planet is that you’re dropped on this planet with nothing, there are plenty of resources in the wreckage from your ship, the tech that Alta Interglobal has left behind, and just the natural resources from the planets you visit, that you can use to make your journey easier. Scanning everything you can is also part of your character’s progression, so whenever you enter a new area, it’s worth jumping into the scanner mode to see if anything is highlighted orange, which means it hasn’t yet been scanned.
The second part of this is to always be surveying the area. If you’re playing on a controller, then you’re going to be constantly clicking R3. This helps you keep the direction you’re heading in top of mind, because it’s very easy to lose track of your goal otherwise.
Get Your Upgrades Sorted
There are plenty of upgrades you can shoot for at the top of the game, and you’ll hit all the key ones by going through the main questlines, like adding a grapple to your whip. But there are a few you also need to prioritize from the start. No fall damage is a huge one, for example, that you should clear as soon as you can. Same goes for getting a double-jump, though that is unfortunately more involved than it should be, since you need to complete multiple environmental tasks to get to the point where you can unlock the double-jump upgrade. Upgrading your mask to filter out toxic gas is another that you’ll want to get as soon as you can.
Basically, if it’s to do with exploration and movement, you should focus on doing it as soon as you can. It’s worth your time to jump to the next planet and progress the story to hit some of these key upgrades that can make the time you spend just exploring each planet you go to a lot more fun.
Isolate Before You Capture
In the same way you’ll want to scan everything, you’ll want to capture all the fauna you encounter in Revenge of the Savage Planet. In some cases, doing so is pretty straightforward. Some of them don’t require you to stun them first, you can sneak up and grab them with your whip. Most, however, will require that you engage them in combat and hit a weak spot a few times before you can whip them and pull them into what looks like a wormhole, transporting them back to your home base. Any damage you take while pulling them into the wormhole will stop you from being able to pull them in, and you’ll have to redo the whole capture process.
There are often multiples of the kinds of creatures you’ll be looking to capture all hanging out together, and trying to capture one of them in a scenario where the rest will surely catch on to what you’re doing is a recipe for disaster. Until you’ve eaten enough of the orange goo you’ll find on each planet, and even after you’ve upgraded your health and stamina significantly, you’re very squishy. You’ll die faster than you think if you aren’t careful with how you approach a group of creatures, and you need to capture at least one of each to research them and unlock more upgrades for yourself.
So don’t just try and pull one in if it’s not completely safe. The animation for doing so is far slower than I would have liked it to be, and while Raccoon Logic could make it a tad faster, that feels unlikely. Best to be prepared and plan your capture strategy when approaching a new group of creatures you haven’t researched yet.
Avoid combat whenever possible
You gain some resources from killing the local fauna on each planet, and you’re often thrown into scenarios where you need to fight your way out. But when you’re exploring the planets you visit, avoid combat as often as you can.
It’ll be difficult because many creatures in Revenge of the Savage Planet are hostile just from you walking by them, so you’ll hear the combat music start and stop plenty of times throughout your playthrough. But trust me when I say it’s a much better use of your time to try and find resources in the environment through whatever objective you have or environmental puzzles you find. Those will always give you more resources than random combat scenarios will.
Your Blaster Sucks On Purpose, Use Everything Around You Instead
The blaster you start the game with, for the most part, sucks. But it sucks for a reason, which is that you’re not meant to just pull out your blaster with every hostile creature you face. It’ll help you, for sure, but you’re also meant to use the environment around you. Don’t just rely on your blaster to take care of everything.
To be clear, it’s not because your blaster won’t be able to handle whatever you come across. It will, but it won’t be as effective, or as efficient, as the environmental hazards you can use to your advantage. Especially after you’ve unlocked the ability to fire various kinds of goo.
These are the main things you’ll want to know when starting Revenge of the Savage Planet, and if you keep them in mind, you’re sure to have a smooth start in the game’s early hours.
