Sackboy: A Big Adventure Review

Synopsis:
Face thrilling, unpredictable challenges as you explore distinctive hand-crafted lands through deeply immersive and expressive controls. Go solo in an epic race against time stuffed with danger and peril — or create teams of two to four adventurers for fun-packed party play as you work together to overcome nefarious tasks however you can imagine. Can you save Craftworld from the dastardly Vex and his nightmarish Topsy Turver device… and become the Knitted Knight of legend?

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Reviewed on: PS5
Also available for: PS4

Cast: Dawn French, Richard E. Grant, Eve Karpf, Lewis Macleod, Rupert Degas, Simon Greenall, Susannah Fielding, Darin Nargada, Leo Hart, Dexter Norbury-Bell, Elliot Cundy

Developer: Sumo Digital
Development Director: Gary Moore
Design Directors: Ned Waterhouse, Jack Houghton
Technical Directors: Craig Wright, James Graves
Art Director: Joel Smith
Audio Director: Jay Waters

It can’t be a new console launch without a brand-new 3D platformer. For the PS5 (also available on PS4) Sumo Digital has cooked up a new Sackboy adventure, the first since LittleBigPlanet 3 released in 2014. However, this is a straightforward 3D platformer more in line with a Mario game. The franchise has officially ditched the player-creation tools and level creation that the LittleBigPlanet series is known for. Some may find the decision disappointing, but Media Molecule (the creators of LBP) are giving you more than enough creative freedom inside Dreams. Alongside Astro Bot, PlayStation now has two adorable platforming mascots back in its portfolio — and between these two games, the launch of the PS5 has felt more like a PlayStation celebration. We may have had Knack to launch the PS4, but that game never delivered the mascot action fans were seeking.

An evil mastermind named Vex is attempting to destroy and steal away the creativity of all worlds. You play as Sackboy and must traverse five worlds and over 50 levels to put a stop to Vex’s mission before all of Craftworld is forever wiped away.

Sackboy on a boat with a laser sword and superhero outfit — I’m just a Sackboy on a boat, with a laser sword and a superhero outfit — image captured by the author.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure keeps the overall creative, dreamer aesthetic of the LBP franchise, even if it has lost the user-created content. Each level Sackboy visits is built upon tangible things, and everything in the game has that aura of realism you get watching Toy Story or playing Yoshi’s Crafted World. That said, the levels do get a bit more fantastical than the franchises mentioned above. Although you start in a sunny environment that could have been a highly detailed diorama, later worlds take you to bayou swamps and future-inspired towers run by rogue AIs.

One complaint that stuck with LittleBigPlanet throughout its three games was that Sackboy was a bit too floaty. In Sackboy: A Big Adventure, the sack-character has kept that similar feeling, even if it has been tightened up somewhat. There’s no double jump here, but Sackboy can hover for a second in the air. You can perform rolls and dive-rolls, which — when strung together — add speed to the usually dawdling nature of Sackboy. In the game’s most challenging levels toward the end of the campaign, the lack of a double jump can become a frustrating exclusion. It’s significantly more noticeable (and annoying) if the last 3D platformer you’d played this year — like I had — was Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time.

Cardboard pigeons in Sackboy: A Big Adventure — When I said there’s a “tangible feeling” to everything, I didn’t mean *everything*. Like these pigeons, which are obviously… cardboard — image captured by the author.

In combination with the PS5’s Activity Cards, the level design of Sackboy: A Big Adventure is built for quick pick-up-and-play. There are no lengthy levels or even frustrating roadblocks. Each stage lasts at most 10 minutes, and if you’re not seeking out the collectibles that reward you with new costume pieces, you can fly through them in minutes.

For completionists, there’s a nice mix of goals. Every level has three to five secret Dreamer Orbs to find, and there’s a handful of costume bubbles that reward you with new outfit pieces. There are also rewards for collecting enough prize bubbles to achieve a bronze, silver, or gold ranking. Each level also has an objective for finishing without dying. You don’t have to do all of those things in one playthrough.

Play

The one place where Sackboy feels rather lacklustre is combat. Sackboy can punch enemies or bounce on them, but the punch feels just as floaty as the jumps. Sometimes I’d take damage after wailing on the Square button but Sackboy somehow failed to connect with an enemy. Bouncing on enemies’ heads like Mario feels excellent, as does spinning them like Crash, but Sackboy lacks a signature or impactful move.

Introduced early are musical levels with trendy licensed songs. Everything in these stages moves to the beat, and if you stand still for too long, Sackboy will begin dancing in tune. The first of these didn’t win me over — it uses a frankly, ridiculously overused 2010s pop hit — but every one after… perfection. One is among my favourite levels of 2020. I won’t spoil the songs; they’re worth discovering yourself.

Sackboy local co-op gameplay — In co-op you can work together to defeat enemies, race for the most prize bubbles, or just slap each other… — image captured by the author.

Although online multiplayer isn’t available right now, Sackboy: A Big Adventure supports up to four players locally. I tried it with two controllers to grab some trophies (yep), and it unfortunately doesn’t use the dynamic split-screen system the LEGO games have used for years. That means all players share one screen and can’t wander off alone. I’d assume this will be the same in online multiplayer, which is slightly disappointing.

Playing on PS5, you get a snappy experience from a 3D platformer the likes of which many haven’t experienced in years. Load times between the overworld and levels are a mere second or two; respawns are the same. It’s a beautiful outlook for the generation. One disappointment after playing Astro’s Playroom was the lack of proper DualSense features — there’s no meaningful haptic feedback, and while the controller makes plenty of noises, none of them pulled me into the world like Astro’s did.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a fresh start for the LittleBigPlanet franchise that was given life by Media Molecule. With vibrant levels, varied objectives, and co-op play, this is a must-own PS5 launch title. Hopefully, this is just the beginning for Sumo Digital, and we’ll see an even bigger adventure for Sackboy soon.