Sackboy: A Big Adventure

The second main installment in the LittleBigPlanet franchise to be developed by Sumo Digital takes Sackboy into a fully 3D world in the same fashion as games like "Super Mario 3D World". While the LittleBigPlanet universe offers ample creative freedom for art direction and design, this time around, the outcome felt somewhat lacking in inspiration and a bit bland. Although the platforming mechanics can be somewhat imprecise, the overall difficulty remains relatively low, with only the Knitted Knights Trials and the post-endgame levels providing a degree of challenge.

Personally, I focused primarily on completing the main objectives, as collecting marbles didn't hold much appeal for me. In addition, a significant portion of the adventure relies on co-op gameplay. Despite attempting to find online partners, I encountered several instances where teammates wandered aimlessly or quit midway through levels. It's still possible to complete the game in single-player mode, although you might need to revisit areas to gather enough orbs and unlock the next world.

In conclusion, the game offers a reasonably enjoyable platforming experience, but it falls short compared to the diverse range of movements and characters found in LittleBigPlanet 3.

So 6 years after LittleBigPlanet 3 and Sackboys back, but this time its different, instead of being a mostly online game about creating your own levels and exploring other peoples' levels, its now a co-op oriented platformer. Sackboy can also be played single player, but you won't be able to access all the levels since some require you to have a partner. Sackboy is mostly a mixed bag, and I don't mean any pun, although its pretty easy to make puns off the title of this.

Sackboy actually has a story, although its pretty simple, the people of your town get kidnapped by some evil jester magician and you must travel across different areas, which is set up similar to Yoshi's Crafted World. Each World consists of around 10 or so levels, some levels are longer and others are more like mini levels. In each level you have collectibles that you need to collect in order to unlock the final boss of the World. Each World has its own gimmick, like one is under the ocean based, another is a futuristic space setting, and in each World you get different abilities. Like one gives you a grappling hook, others you get a jetpack. I found the game a bit boring and too easy in the first World, but the game did pick up around the second World.

The thing is the game goes from super easy to frustratingly difficult fast. The platforming in this is very awkward and often I found the camera to be off and platforming in this just felt a bit unsatisfying at times due to the camera and physics in this game. There are many times I was hitting the right buttons or doing what I was supposed to but the game mechanics or physics caused me to die or miss grappling onto a platform. Super Mario Odyssey did platforming way better and it came out 3 years before this, and this game at times feels similar to Odysseys style.

Now in terms of level design, its a very mixed bag. Some levels are fun and have cool gimmicks that work, others are just overly frustrating, long, and devoid of fun. Like if I had to break the game apart I'd say 30% of the levels are fun/unique and interesting, maybe 30% are frustrating/poorly designed, and then 40% are just forgettable and somewhere in the middle of both. My favorite levels are probably the music levels, each World has a music level and you platform to the beats of various songs, like one has Jungle Boogie by Kool and the Gang, and another has you platforming to Bruno Mar's Uptown Funk. These levels remind me of the Rayman Legends music levels. The game's checkpoints are pretty decent though, so even if the platforming was frustrating it wasn't bad enough to feel like I was redoing a lot if I died.

The boss fights are also alright, nothing special and pretty basic, but they weren't too frustrating. I think my biggest issue with Sackboy aside from the frustrating platforming at times and mixed quality of level design was the length. Sackboy has 5 total Worlds, and each World contains around 10 levels, some have even more than that. I just found the game to drag out a bit for this kind of game, especially considering many levels in this just lacked variety and felt too repetitive. This game is around 15 hours, but it feels like a long 15 hours, and its way longer if you are exploring and going back to levels to collect everything and doing the optional time trials. This game also has the frustrating missible collectibles that if you miss you have to either die and restart the checkpoint or redo the entire level. It doesn't have many of these but enough to add frustration. After you beat the final boss the game gives you an optional World with harder platforming that you unlock by collecting a large portion of the collectibles in previous levels. Its a cool bonus and I'm glad the game actually rewards you by giving you more levels rather than pointless things like extra skins or music. This game actually does have a lot of skins too but thats more for the novelty.

The thing is, Sackboy I feel is better enjoyed with co-op and playing either with your friend, kid, or significant other. Sackboy is basic enough where most casual gamers could pick it up, but I feel playing this alone just makes it drag out. Still this is no Rayman Legends and it still has its problems, but I feel if I played co-op with someone, I may have enjoyed this more. Sackboy gets some credit for trying to change the direction and revive the franchise, and it is a decent enough platformer, with some creative ideas thrown in, and the art style is pretty cool at times, and I did like some of the gimmicky sections and music levels, but there just weren't enough of these cool moments. It does make some use of the adaptive triggers on PS5. The only thing Sackboy really benefited from was being released with the launch of PS5 and it was really the only kid friendly game or platformer released with the PS5 launch, well if you don't count Astro's Playroom which I found to be better than this. Sackboy will likely be forgotten in a year from now when we get better PS5 games and more platformers. This game I feel is mostly for parents to play with their kids and get frustrated along the way or playing with their casual significant other who isn't a hardcore gamer but wants something simple.