Review: BOKURA: Planet (Switch 2)

BOKURA: planet is a duo-player, dual-device-only co-op adventure that touched down on Switch and Switch 2 back on 7 August.

The follow-up to 2023’s BOKURA, indie creator tokoronyori recalls of the original that he “kept wondering what vistas might have unfolded had I bolted in the exact opposite direction… Eventually I couldn’t resist. I sprinted the other way, and that’s how BOKURA: planet was born—the panorama here is breathtaking.”

Tempting words. Let’s log how NL’s two-person trek unfolded…

Crew member #1’s journal (Blue)

I’ve had my Switch 2 in my hands practically every single day for the last quarter-year, and the flashy fresh feature I’ve tapped the least is GameChat. I’ve dabbled with it nervously during the occasional round of Mario Kart World or Drag x Drive, yet I’d never enjoyed it half as much as those relentantly cheerful 20-year-olds in every advert swore I would.

Then I tripped over Bokura: Planet, an online-co-op-only Switch 2 curio that barely anyone seemed to be chatting about, yet one that felt precision-engineered for GameChat giggles. Eager to road-test one of the console’s headline tricks, I drafted an accomplice (meet Gavin, folks!) and marched into a cosmic conundrum where (apparently) almost no one had set foot before.

The upshot? A smidge over three hours packed with belly-laughs and brain-teasers, all wrapped in a refreshingly inventive narrative frame. It may not tax the silicon inside Switch 2, but you’ll search long and hard to find a neater poster-child for GameChat.

Before I rocket into the details, here’s the groundwork. This outing and its 2023 forerunner share plenty of DNA. Each demands exactly two humans on two separate machines online, leans hard on chatter as the key to progress, and wields the same “each sees half the puzzle” hook—splitting partners into different rooms, forcing clumsy descriptions, dodgy sound-effects and endless trial-and-error. Both rock deliberately lo-fi pixel looks that drift between adorable and unsettling.

The sequel’s headline twist—aside from native GameChat on Switch 2 (it’s on OG Switch too)—is that the “split” gimmick now infects the plot itself. Two anonymous astronauts pancake onto an extraterrestrial rock and hunt for their AWOL scout drone. Before long the pair are separated, and each witnesses private story beats that are meant—on pain of death—to stay hidden from the other for the remainder of the ride.

I’ll confess the concept initially broke my brain. A tiny muted-mic icon flashes before any confidential narrative chunk, and only after the first text dump does your avatar flat-out order you not to spill the beans. Alas, Gavin and I hold platinum badges in verbal incontinence; for whatever reason the crossed mic didn’t instantly translate to “zip it” in either noggin, and we both blurted astonished noises until the game finally slapped our wrists.

Even with the first reveal semi-sabotaged—seriously, swap the mic glyph for an unmistakable scarlet banner yelling “SHUT UP, MORON!”—the forked storyline lets Planet poke its head above the co-op-puzzle crowd. I stifled sniggers listening to Gavin theorise about our relationship (extra intel graciously provided by my shadowy, surprisingly grim solo thread), and my jaw slackened when late twists reminded me how patchy my own “big picture” really was.

Of course you’ll spend the bulk of the runtime chewing through single-screen riddles: describe what you’re seeing to your mate, whack switches, match glyphs, pop gates. The “split camera” trick isn’t groundbreaking, yet the designers remix objectives frequently enough to stave off staleness. One minute we’re giggling over cheekily-shaped icons, the next we’re shrieking past grotesque beasties, bottomless pits and laser grids.

Challenge level hovered in the Goldilocks zone, even when GameChat’s screen-share let us peek at each other’s vantage to fast-forward solutions whenever we banged our heads together. – Jim Norman

Crew member #2’s journal (Red)

I realised my screw-up the instant I blabbed my shocking cut-scene to Jim, who hadn’t been shown the same footage. Retrospectively, sure, the muted microphone icon plainly screams “close your cake-hole”, but after pages of slickly translated text, relying on a symbol for something so critical felt off. I figure the prose counts as in-world dialogue and thoughts, whereas the pictogram is aimed squarely at you, the human holding the pad.

Anyway, that was communication hiccup number one; the second arrived on boot, when we were greeted by a Japanese EULA (don’t fret—hop to the left-hand option and tap ‘A’ to cycle languages; English is second). Neither snag dented the fun.

The ensuing mash-up of cutesy pixels and faintly grungy body-horror caught us off-guard—in a good way—though the parade of phallic shapes did prompt a raised eyebrow at that PEGI 7 label. Beyond the surprise grotesquerie lies block-shoving, button-poking, laser-disabling, now-I’m-piloting-a-bot-on-your-monitor puzzles plus gentle platform stretches. It’s smart cooperative fare, weaving audio and visual riddles together, while the narrative sneaks in some welcome bite. The tale is poignant, and it neatly ties the few verbs you’re given to the themes at hand.

On the downside, the hop takes acclimation; expect a few accidental plummets across the three-to-four-hour ride—mercifully, autosave keeps backtracking minimal. GameChat also throttles overall volume, though the ambient score survives; you’ll just need sharper ears for sound-based brain-teasers.

The front-end isn’t the friendliest either. Handing your session code to a partner is painless, and the game helpfully resumes where you paused when you reconnect later, yet prodding the trio of menu icons feels clunkier than necessary. Planet even touts Mouse Mode—handy, though we never found a use beyond menu-nudging.

For the price of a sandwich, though, there’s zero reason to grumble, and Nintendo could hardly wish for a stronger GameChat commercial. Having now sampled it, it’s obvious why the platform holder fast-tracked this to the Switch 2 eShop while countless other indies still beg for dev-kits. – Gavin Lane

Conclusion

Bokura: Planet arrived as a delightful shock: a branching, tension-stoked co-op tale that injects unease beneath its inventive riddles without fully trading cuddly pixels for nightmare fuel. Want a reflective, grown-up voyage stocked with chuckles, sharp intakes of breath, maybe even a lump in the throat? This brief expedition asks only a sliver of your evening—just bring a trustworthy wingman.