Why would anyone want to return to the cinematic platformers of the 90s? What else is there to gain from revisiting those old, clunky games in the current year? Were titles such as Flashback or Another World merely transitionary pieces in gaming history, and should only be remembered as such? Here to answer these questions is LUNARK by Canari Games, a self-proclaimed “modern take” on the aforementioned titles, and a true standout even among its classic peers.
What if, and get this, humanity has been almost wiped out, all remaining human embryos were frozen and put on the moon, which was actually turned into a supercomputer AI overlord spaceship? Then, what if it would carry all of them along every remaining living being to a different planet where it restarted society, only for, and you won’t believe this one, everything to go south to the point where only Leo, who is ⅓ human, ⅓ cat, and ⅓ plant, could save the day?
LUNARK’s plot is a jumbled-up collection of some of my favorite sci-fi ideas. Whenever it would approach banality or start overtly relying on any cliché, however, it would pull off a nice, simple twist or simply move along to the next point. Though it unfortunately never reaches any standout moments, the pacing throughout its short runtime of around two to three hours is extremely snappy, helped tremendously thanks to the variety of locations.
Caves, tunnels, city streets, a train cart, a workshop, and an apartment building—all wrapped in this retro-futuristic aesthetic—are only a few the player will get to visit within the first hour. The highly pixelated screen meshes together the primary colors of the game: purples, yellows, and greens. As the story progresses, so does the day, with the city in the background becoming enveloped by the red and orange lights of the nightlife.
LUNARK manages to throw further curveballs by finding ways to change up its palette and style on several occasions. What particularly captured me was the rotoscoped animations used for collecting items and for certain key moments in the story. They are, of course, a nod to the classics, but they add a sense of believability to the setting. They help to eliminate the sense of disconnect between the in-game models and the character art found, for example in dialogue boxes.
To go back to the initial question: the best reason to return to the games that LUNARK is replicating is likely the sense of whiplash created by their absolute lack of momentum in the controls. Platformers often live and die by the sense of speed, but here we have a title where each press of a button is accompanied by a longer, weightier animation. One directional button press equals one step.
Although you may combine it with a different button to run, you always move on a grid consisting of the distance between steps, and can only position yourself on one of those spaces. A standing jump moves you a certain amount of steps forward, while a running leap covers a bit more ground. The roll always ends at the same point. Everything feels calculated.
This allows for each screen in LUNARK to feel like an expertly crafted challenge. Each obstacle is meant to be dealt with by using a specific type of movement, all executed with a bit of enjoyable unfamiliarity to the controls until it throws a new, cool idea at you. Aside from the horizontal plane, there is an equal focus on verticality. The main character has to climb and descend various pieces of the environment; the sense of scale it provides is a staple of the design ideology the game is trying to follow.
All of this careful planning falls into chaos when the enemies come into play. Though at first predictable, they often do not move on a predestined path, meaning that they can chase the player through multiple screens and hit them at a particularly inconvenient moment. To avoid attacks, one can use either an energy shield consumable, or roll through when up close. With many enemies on screen or in any of the boss battles, it can get very frantic. A great change of pace.
This clashes beautifully with the soundtrack—often calm and melodic—which makes it feel like the world Leo is traversing is moving along despite him, not because of him. He may be in a near-death shootout with several enemies, but the music has just hit a quiet stretch instead of an exciting one. It feels pleasantly indifferent, which especially elevated some of the locations populated by other characters, like the city or the workshop.
My biggest complaint with the game is the poor sense of progression. Upgrades to a player’s health or weapons are tied to finding secrets. Neither of them ever feels impactful. The instant death from falling even seemingly small distances never goes away, no matter how many hearts the player gained, but besides that, no checkpoint ever felt like I needed more than the starter amount. The enemies scale in difficulty as time goes on, even ones encountered previously, so, similarly, the weapon always feels underwhelming.
The entire idea of secrets, as such, feels largely wasted, which stifles exploration. A shame, because they are plenty enjoyable to find, and may contain additional pieces of lore. It is likely to be enough for many players, as the character Hugg (who does, indeed, hug you sometimes) is always fun to run into, but some may feel disappointed by the rewards.
Taking a look back, there is plenty to appreciate in LUNARK, a lot of which can be directly attributed to its influences. It sheds a very positive light on not just those titles, however, but also the developers, who managed to take so much from them and create such a fresh experience in the modern landscape, using all they learned by carefully examining and reinterpreting their elements. I am very excited to see where Canari Games goes moving forward and will be looking forward to their next projects.
Mateusz played LUNARK on PC with his own bought copy. It is also available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
