I’ve been pretty restrained with the current Steam sale, but one game I did pick up today was Freedom Planet, an homage to ’90s mascot platformers and particularly to Sonic the Hedgehog-style speedy platformers. And I’ve only played three levels so far, but I’m already gobsmacked by quite how good it is.

Freedom Planet tells the tale of the Kingdom Stone, a powerful artifact that is stolen by a horrible alien dude, and the quest of a plucky band of heroes to rescue it. The playable cast includes Lilac, a purple dragon that looks like a tsundere female Sonic; a green cat called Carol; and an overexcitable dog-like thing called Milla. There’s also an alien who thinks disguising himself as a duck is the best way to blend in — although on a planet of furries, that’s probably not all that unfair an assumption.

You can play the game in two ways: Adventure mode punctuates the levels with some lengthy, fully voiced cutscenes that tell the unfolding story, while Classic Mode allows you to play it in authentically old-school fashion without having to worry about narrative. When you’re in the platforming segments, you control your chosen character as they run, jump, climb, bounce and kick the shit out of enemies in their way. Each character handles noticeably differently and forces you to approach the levels in a different way, and some hugely enjoyable but challenging boss fights force you to play methodically rather than just mashing the attack button randomly.

It’s an absolutely beautiful game. Deliberately taking a low-resolution pixel art aesthetic but running in high definition for some beautifully sharp corners, each and every character is packed full of a ton of visual personality, with lots of different and unique animations for different situations. During the cutscenes, the characters make appropriate poses and animations according to the things they’re saying rather than just flapping their heads, and the whole thing is just so full of character that you can’t help but be drawn into the rather silly (yet surprisingly dark at times) plot.

And it plays as good as it looks, too; wonderfully tight, responsive controls mean that you never feel like you’re battling against the game, and the characters are always doing what you want them to do. Some tweaks have been made to Sonic’s basic formula, too; characters can run up walls and even along certain ceilings without too much difficulty, a double-jump special move makes traversal a little more straightforward, and each character has their own unique super-special abilities that help them get around as well as kill things.

I’ve only played a few levels so far but I like it a whole lot, and am looking forward to exploring it further. That will probably have to wait, however, because tomorrow is Heavensward day, and I’ve finished my work for the week, so I know exactly what I’m doing all day tomorrow…