Official Review PlayStation 5 Updated

Planet of Lana 2: Children of the Leaf GBAtemp review
PlayStation 5

Name: Planet of Lana 2: Children of the Leaf
Item: Planet of Lana 2: Children of the Leaf
Rating: 8
Author: KiiWii

Product Information:

Release Date (NA): March 5, 2026
Release Date (EU): March 5, 2026
Publisher: Thunderful Publishing
Developer: Wishfully
Genres: Adventure
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10 and up
PEGI Rating: Twelve years and older
Also For: Computer, Xbox Series X|S

Game Features:

Single player

Local Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Co-operative

Companionship and trust encapsulate this 2D platforming puzz-venture.

Almost three years ago, Prans reviewed Planet of Lana for PC, and, boiling down his views, he commented that essentially the game looked beautiful, the companion mechanics were a great addition, and that the puzzling took a bit of trial and error to solve.

Three years later, and this sequel undoubtedly brings more of the same, with almost identical themes and puzzles, so whats the draw with this iteration?

Essentially the story is a continuation where the previous invaders have scattered technology around an otherwise low-tech or primitive planet, Novo, which is inhabited with people who are inherently closer to nature and plainly enjoyed the wilderness that once was.

The filthy cosmic invaders are littering their newly occupied environment with radioactive trash and Lana's niece accidentally becomes infected and its up to the dynamic duo that is Lana and Mui, to scour the planet for ingredients to craft a cure.

In an interesting system of controls, you move Lana with the left stick, sprinting with R2, ducking with L2, jumping with Cross and interacting with Square. With the right stick, you command Mui to move to a spot with R1, interact with Triangle and stay or follow you with the Circle button.

It sounds complex but it really isn't. In fact, on reflection, it would have definitely been more complicated with two players to cooperatively coordinate movements for each puzzle, but it could have added a heck of a lot of unruly and riotous fun, even as an optional mode!

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Spectacular visual styling throughout

The first thing that hits you about this game, is how utterly breathtaking the scenery is. The illustrative aesthetic paired with soft edges and vibrant layers of colour truly breathe life and energy into Novo's biomes. The sense of scale depicted here is quite clever too, the screen space is devoid of any onscreen information unless absolutely necessary. There are no health bars, direction arrows, and no inventory taking up any part of the player's viewpoint.

Lana's movement is instantly reminiscent of The Prince of Persia, with physics-driven mass and gravity injecting life into her climbing, sprinting, jumping, and shifting of body weight when it comes to pulling yourself up onto a ledge, or lowering yourself down into the water, for example.

The shady underground sections instantly reminded me of Limbo, and even the Little Nightmares games, too. The horror elements combined with the perilous platforming, moving lights to fend off and trap the creepy baddies is so visceral and captivating, it's fun to execute the correct method to evade death or escape impending doom.

The swimming in this game also evokes a Sonic the Hedgehog-style drowning panic once you plunge into the depths, flitting from bubbling coral to bubbling coral on one breath. The screen dims the longer you go between sating yourself with Oxygen, which is a nice indicator, but pumps those stress-laden endorphins around your body all the quicker.

There are giant electric fish down there that are motion-activated and ready to pounce on you, so the coercion to move swiftly, yet take your time avoiding certain death, in favor of a light drowning, brings palpable levels of tension. You get to control a little fish too, with the ability to blow out an ink cloud as a smokescreen, providing a method to break the line of sight of these terrifying aquatic beasts for Lana, when you've swapped back to her.

The balance of calming environments and utter terror-inducing pressure or tension-fueled areas is masterfully composed. I didn't notice any overly dark or difficult-to-see areas within the environments either, so perhaps the developers listened to previous critiques.

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Compelling game play, Emotional set-pieces

The sense of adventure, exploration and discovery is also key to this game's success. As linear as the chapters are in essence, they get you exploring nooks and crannies for solutions (as well as secrets), and force you to think about how you're going to approach certain puzzles. As mentioned before, in the previous review, the puzzles do present a trial and error approach to them that cannot be escaped unless you cognitively decipher the task at hand and the only possible solution in an instant.

For example, there are puzzles where you move blocks to reach greater heights, or place objects in a particular order that's been hinted at prior to that area; those are relatively simple. There are puzzles where you need to create a trail of flammable material to connect one area with a flame to another to clear something or destroy something. I found this to be relatively straightforward, too, and rarely had to retrace any major steps to proceed to the next problematic obstacle.

The toughest puzzles stem from having to outpace enemies or their field of vision in the stealth segments. These ones in particular became taxing and an exercise in iterative process and experimentation in order to overcome the tightest of timings between a laser turret scanning around for me, or a murderous motion-activated alien stomping me into the ground.

While it feels like there's quite a bit of traveling "filler" between puzzles, you hold a direction on your controller (sometimes you travel left as as well as right, which is odd but strangely feels fine in this title), you go through a visual journey as well as a literal one. The environment physically opens up, panning and zooming to focus on the incredibly detailed onion-like layers of the environment, story beats are layered in via poignant NPC interaction, and critical narrative details can be seen in the distance, and even environmental puzzles present themselves that require timing and finesse.

There are some truly heart-wrenching points in this game where I, a fully grown man, was shouting "No! It can't be!" at my PlayStation in utter disbelief at what had befell the duo.

With the accompanying soundtrack and atmospheric ambience, be prepared to hit emotional highs and lows throughout this title. It's a fantastic escapade that should definitely be experienced if you love these nuanced 2D games that convey themes of love, loss, and hope.

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Definitely a missed co-opportinity

Planet of Lana 2 is easily recommendable as a casual platforming puzzle game that demonstrates mastery in storytelling and world building, as well as driving intrigue through exploration and interestingly framed physics or elemental-based tasks within its unique and varied universe.

Some puzzles can force you into an empirical method testing loop if you can't spot the required answer, but honestly, nothing will hold you up for too long throughout the adventure.

I cleared most of the trickier puzzles easily in under 3 attempts, but in most cases, I got tripped up on which direction I needed to head in next, or whether Lana had to go through the assault course of tricks and traps first, or Mui. Exploration is fun and engaging, and there are secrets to find, too. In the latter situations, I simply had to restart the puzzle and do it again as the alternate character.

Verdict

What We Liked ...

A smart puzzling adventure.
Excellent graphics and presentation through out.
Compelling stealth and elemental danger sections.
An emotional roller-coaster.

What We Didn't Like ...

Lack of direction in some cases.
Rather easy for the majority of it.

Gameplay

Like Prince of Persia meets Limbo, this is a platforming adventure that sees you swapping characters, using vehicles and tools to solve puzzles, out running danger, cracking combinations and traveling through dangerous yet epic biomes.

Presentation

Absolutely stunning stylised visuals bring this title to life. The glyphs, scribblings, character design and environments culminate in a beautifully engulfing experience.

Lasting Appeal

Each chapter last around 30 minutes, but there is a lot of running from point to point which feels like filler in between the puzzling.

out of 10

Overall

I'm a big fan of this game, and overall I had a wonderful time experiencing its excellent emotion-driven storytelling combined with compelling conundrums and mysteries to solve along the way.

Reactions: Nakamichi, console and Prans

Thats really cool!
I actually played the first one after Pranses's review and enjoyed it, so this is sweet!

Reactions: KiiWii

Pass for me. I found the first one pretty boring and couldn't hold a candle to similar games like Inside, Limbo, Little Nightmares, Somerville and a couple others.

rudras
Mar 7, 2026

I pass too...the first one didnt convince me... it lacks personality in a way for me.

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Product Information:

Game Features:

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Compelling game play, Emotional set-pieces

Definitely a missed co-opportinity

Verdict

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