Title: Knack
Format: PS4
Release Date: Nov. 15 2013
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: SCE Japan Studio
Price: 59.99
ESRB Rating: E
Knack starts out with a great concept: kick off the next generation with a throwback to the days of the original Playstation and the PS2 with a platformer reminiscent of titles like Ratchet and Clank and Crash Bandicoot. The light-hearted combat and simple platforming took me right back to my early gaming days, but it all feels dated.
Knack is a being created by the professor as a defense against the Goblins that are in an all out war with the humans. He is made out of relics found in caves and ancient temples with extraordinary powers. He grows larger and stronger as he picks up relics that are in no short supply, seeing as they are the main power source for most machines in this world.
When Knack was first shown off back in February, the idea that you could pick up relics and drop them whenever you please was fascinating. I wanted to have to make the challenging decision of when to drop relics depending on puzzles presented that would require a bigger or smaller Knack. That decision would be coupled with the consequence of being too small for a boss fight. Turns out, none of those things are reality. Knack is scripted, dull, and boring.
In the beginning of the game, Knack is brought in for inspection to see if he is equipped enough to battle the goblins. A man by the name of Victor is convinced that Knack is inadequate; he believes that his state of the art robot body guards will do just fine. Knack is given the opportunity to prove them wrong, and the player is given control.
After dispatching some pretty simple, yet clever enemies, Knack takes on Victor’s army of large robots. These levels are charming in the way they push the player to try new things. For example, Knack can use sun stones laying around in the map to perform punishing attacks and the game taught me one and gave me the largest enemy to practice on.
I was hooked. The first hour was so charming, cute, and silly. The enemies had interesting patterns that were a blast to learn, and they proved to be a pretty decent match. As Knack got larger, the enemies scaled to keep the difficulty present. At a certain point, they stopped scaling so the player was clearly in total control. I couldn’t wait to play on and learn my next enemy type. This is when I realized that there are no more enemy types, just new bodies for the same abilities. There is a lack of depth that the developers clearly tried to mask.
Everything in the first hour works beautifully. The world is very well designed and colorful; it may not be technologically impressive, but it’s fun to look at. Then the story attempts to get off the ground, and the atmosphere created by the art is destroyed.
The voice acting is comical, but not on purpose. Knack’s voice made me wince the first time he opened his mouth due to his macho-man esque voice. I couldn’t even believe it was him who was talking. None of the characters seem to be concerned at all during the game’s biggest plot twist. There was so little inflection in the voices and such a lack of intensity that I almost missed the twist.
The story is uninteresting and uninspired. It’s the simple save the world, dodge an obstacle or two along the way, and never understand the reason for all of it kind of story. It is all too transparent and every minor twist and turn it offers can be seen from a mile away. It also doesn’t help that the only major plot twist was ruined in a T.V. ad before it’s release.
There are a few puzzles, though puzzle attempts is a more appropriate way to put it. They are just simple, jump here to get to there solutions that are uninteresting. It’s even hard to see how this could be interesting to younger kids. Simply put, it’s bland as can be.
Now, onto the gameplay. I really should say the lack there of because there are two controls. There is one button to jump and one button to punch dudes. There is a third button to use super attacks, but it isn’t used regularly. This simplicity would be understandable in a game for all audiences if the enemies weren’t so hard. If you play with your kids, make sure you’re on easy.
The gameplay was fun for the first few hours but the lack of depth quickly wears you down. I had fun learning new enemies for the short time before the game recycles the same abilities. I would have prefered it if they’d just thrown out abilities after a while, even the good ones. This would have provided an incentive to continue playing the game other than that I was to review it.
The one true variation in gameplay is that in one level Knack has the ability to turn invisible, but at the price of his size. This seemed like an interesting edition except that it is always obvious when you need to turn invisible and all of your relics come back so there is not any consequence.
Everything about Knack is scripted and boring. Every time something cool was about to happen, whether it be a finishing blow to a boss or a heroic rescue, the control is taken from the player. You are left there to watch something cool happen, thinking of how cool it would be if you were allowed to participate.
The boss battles are simply tragic. The lead ups and waves before each boss are always well developed and the most fun of the entire game. You walked up to the boss energized having played the best levels only to be severely let down. The bosses are very easy to pick up on, but they last way too long. Every time I thought I was done, the boss came back for more.
Knack offers co-op that is only useful if you want to play with younger kids, as it becomes really easy. Turning the difficulty to hard makes the going a little more rough, but it is not enough. It is clear that co-op was an after thought that did not receive the proper amount of attention because the levels do not scale at all. It’s a shame that co-op wasn’t a priority; it could have worked wonders for this kind of game.
It can be expected that all consoles will have their fair share of forgettable launch titles, and Knack is the epitome of mediocrity. Unfortunately, the promise of a pretty world is sometimes not enough to hide the tired gameplay and lack of depth. Knack uses some smoke and mirrors in the first two hours, showing everything it has to offer. The rest of the game is more of the same, and never seems to go anywhere meaningful.
@lanphlog
5.75/10
