During a sale in mid 2015 I purchased Freedom Planet off GOG. Not expecting much but a decent platformer to play when I could be bothered to find the d-Pad controller I have tucked away in my room somewhere. This is a genre I used to play a lot as a child and teenager, but have not really touched in my Adult years.

On Jan 2 2016, I installed it.

6 Hours and 8 Minutes later, I had finished Lilac’s Adventure path.

6 Hours 8 Minutes STRAIGHT sitting in a chair playing this. I normally do 86 minutes then a ‘what I think’, but this one absolutely captivated me and took me back to a mid teen playing Treasure/Konami games on the Sega systems on the old TV in my room.

So yeah.

This is not a proper F86M! Following text is from the twitter threads.

In short, this gem of a game is Absolutely Fantastic :D

Seriously returning feelings of a young me in my teen years gaming on the little 12" TV with the Mega-Drive or Saturn, this was a really simple unit but had AV input and was sitting on an extended arm up near the roof. I mainly used that TV because the parents didn't like me setting up the consoles to the large one in the main lounge. I do feel that this game would of been awesome to see on the oversized CRT in my youth.

There's a lot of nods to various Treasure and Konami games; I the game is influenced by titles such as Sparkster and Gunstar Heroes, much more than the Sonic feeling people claim it to have. But I will admit to a wide grin when the 7-Force equiv boss showed up!

Most of the Sonic comparison comes down to this starting as a Sonic fangame before it created its own universe, so it retains the loops and springs found in those games. But it operates at a slightly slower pace, and the characters have attack abilities instead of jumping and rolling.

The game levels are large and brightly coloured, and the checkpoint system used is also a life saver, especially in the final level. If I had to restart from scratch each time I died I would of uninstalled it early. This game is very charming and vibrant and while completing it in one life is certainly possible, would take some time learning the levels and boss fights. It can be quite tough, and several battles took me quite a number of attempts to complete.

Lilac, Carol, and Mila all have different play styles. I really only played through as Lilac for the first run, but have since looked at the others. Plus, playing as a Dragon was pretty much inevitable.

The non playable cast is also quite fun. Sometimes the voice track audio drops in and out a slight amount but it never gave me any issues. They're all distinctive in their personalities, and it really goes for a slightly over-the-top way with some of them. The Big Bad is also a credible threat rather and does show himself to be more feared than joked at.

One real surprise was that it recognised my old direct-input dPad controller, and had all the buttons set up CORRECTLY right off. This NEVER happens on the PC. Even the other platformers I've played I had to tweak for several attempts to get it right and playable.

Downsides? One. The final mode of the final boss is an utter bastard. 43 dying BLOODY attempts and sore thumbs to victory! Once you know how he works it can be done rather easily but my personal timing is not the teenager me that enjoyed these games so much in the 1990s.

Highly recommend giving it a go if you ever liked any of sega 90s era games from Sega, Treasure, or Konami. Best 6 Hours 8 Minutes I've spent playing a game in ages.

Game Acquisition: Purchased on Sale
Platform Used: GOG
Tweet Thread: 1 - 2 January 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009

Windows: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
Processor: Dual-Core 2.0 GHz or better
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: ATI Radeon X1300/NVidia GeForce 6600 GT or better
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Hard Drive: 400 MB available space
Sound Card: DirectX-Compatible Sound Card