Sackboy: A Big Adventure Review

"One Wild Handcrafted World"

Campaign

February 15, 2021 at 8:38pm
By Jason Stettner

This is the latest adventure for Sackboy, being a spin-off from the Little Big Planet franchise that focuses directly on strictly setup platforming situations. It’s not so much about the creative building side of things, and more about working through an engaging narrative with various challenges along the way. With some cinematic segments throughout you witness this terrifying Vex arrive in town and suck up all your friends to work on a machine of doom.

You’ll need to gather courage, and head out into the various worlds impacted by this monster in order to stop it. In general, you’ll be working through a great selection of levels that are each themed by the particular planet area that they’re set on. One is a chilly mountain, another is under the sea and there’s a jungle one as well for example. Each of the levels within these areas is greatly varied, offering unique challenges and locations to visit.

You might get an auto-moving level while on board some sort of boat for example. Another may have you using a grappling hook, or there are some more straight forward levels. Aside from the primary ones there are special Knight Trials to work through, and some coop only level options too. The goal of the levels in general is to collect orbs, you do this by really exploring and finishing up any hidden secrets.

You will need a specific allotment of these orbs in order to progress towards the boss fight of an area, in all honesty I’m not a fan of progress gating like this. It wasn’t bad here since the orbs are decently easy to get, I just don’t like getting progress blocked like that and it may be slightly harder for the younger ones to achieve enough orbs as you continue along. At the same time I do want to mention that this is well designed to the point that any type of audience could hop in here and have a good time with it.

Gameplay

It’s like most 3D platformers where you’re getting a bit of a distance view camera angle wise and are hopping along the levels. There are varying levels of challenge to it as well, but I don’t think anyone should find this too difficult to work through. I did find some of the grappling sections to be a tad touchy, as I would bounce off objects which was annoying. Other than that, some of the moves you get to use as you progress are really cool and feel natural to the play.

You get to hop into balls sometimes for rolling, or are able to swing which was neat too. You’re able to enjoy the entirety of the game with others as well, whether that’s local four player multiplayer or online four play multiplayer. That’s great to have available, and definitely appreciated for sure. This worked efficiently well too, which was a treat. I was also very impressed with the visuals, apparently getting a dynamic 4k resolution at 60fps which looked good.

This was of course the upgraded Playstation 5 version that featured extra elements of carpet grass and other smaller changes over the older version of the game on Playstation 4. I did really like how it all looked, carrying a lovely vibrancy of craft style to it. Small little details on many of the objects, or fun cut out characters dancing about. There were even some musical scenes to some popular hits that while odd, were bumping world wise.

It just seems like a selection of worlds made with love and care. Also just a generally lively world too, so much going on with it while still being decently simple in terms of its structure. It was also very reactive to the DualSense controller, to a smaller degree with haptics but very lively in terms of the audio coming from the controller to the point of turning that off making you feel as though you’re not hearing a large amount of what’s going on within the game.

When it comes to collectibles there are many orbs to gather, whether they’re important or currency based. You’re also competing with others when doing coop for score. When you gather enough currency based orbs you can use them for a wide selection of outfit designs to make whatever sort of wild little Sackboy you’d like to. That was a nice touch for sure.

The Conclusion

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a great platformer filled with care in each of the little details in the environment, featuring some fun action that’s perfect for all ages. It hits the mark as being a really fun, easy going sort of platforming game that I think is excellent for the launch of a console. It’s got some quality time to it, and many things to collect while playing.

I don’t think it necessarily has the same replay value as other platformers since the collectible options are minimal and progression tied, but it’s still fun going through them trying to finish everything up. I will again mention that I don’t like progression being tied to the orbs, but it’s not the biggest deal in the world. I did also rather like the options for both local coop and online multiplayer coop too.

That was great to have included, I do feel they could have done some party type modes or something extra with the multiplayer as that would have been good for additional value. In general, a lengthy experience that’s filled with levels, challenges and goals to work towards. I think it hits the mark being a blast to play, and stuffed full of creatively unique level situations.

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Sackboy: A Big Adventure Review on Playstation 5
Review Code Provided by SIEC

Rating Overall: 8.4