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LittleBigPlanet 3
PlayStation 3
LittleBugPlanet
4/5 stars
“LittleBigPlanet 3” is the fourth game based on Media Molecule’s 7th Gen Play/Create/Share IP, and the second, after the dismal “LittleBigPlanet Karting,” that was developed by an outside group, with Media Molecule serving only in a consulting capacity. In the case of “LittleBigPlanet 3,” the new developer is Sumo Digital, a developer better known for their forays into mascot-based kart racing for Sega. After the first two games in the ‘LittleBigPlanet’ franchise launched to lavish praise, the fact that this third non-spinoff title launched to the chirp of crickets was disconcerting, but that tends to happen when an IP gets micromanaged to death and designed by committee.
Presentation
“LittleBigPlanet 3” has both a PS3 and PS4 version available. I finally bit the bullet and picked up the PS3 version, as the if/when of my deigning to purchase a PS4 is looking further and further off, if ever. The PS3 version looks and acts very similarly to the PS3-only “LittleBigPlanet” and “LittleBigPlanet 2.” The polygon engine looks vibrant and sharp, the real-world materials that make-up the game’s ‘imagisphere’ look just like they ought to, and there’s still a horrific amount of screen tearing.
Audio is likewise indistinguishable from the first two ‘LittleBigPlanet’ platformers, with Stephen Fry returning as the narrator, and a decently capable cast to voice the single-player mode’s cast of non-player characters.
Where “LittleBigPlanet 3” falls from grace is in the amount of technical issues it launched with, and the number of technical issues it STILL HAS years after release. The load times are completely unimproved from the original game, which is to be expected, but the spit and polish applied to the single-player campaign just isn’t there. The ‘LittleBigPlanet’ engine originally had 3 layers – a foreground, midground, and background – for gameplay, with thin non-gameplay layers between them. Sumo Digital revised the original engine to the point of having a massive 16 layers, and sometimes Sackboy has difficulty fully switching between them. I have gotten stuck outside the playable space a handful of times without trying. “LittleBigPlanet 3” also seems to struggle with memory issues, and tends to load stage assets as the player approaches them, rather than loading the whole stage at once, which can result in huge frame rate drops at times. The most annoying bugs are the ones that can completely screw over a player’s ability to complete the game. I was fortunate that the only killer bug I ran into was one that made one of the uncollected prize bubbles in the final hub map disappear.
“LittleBigPlanet 3” is also an incomplete game. While it is true that the series has always had an immense amount of DLC, most of it was themed, stand-alone level packs or character costumes. “LittleBigPlanet 3,” however, takes the extra step of chopping off its own epilogue to sell as ON-DISC DLC for an extra $6.
Story
Picking up after Sackboy’s victory over the Negativitron at the end of “LittleBigPlanet 2,” “LittleBigPlanet 3” sees our mute sackcloth hero abducted from craftworld and taken to a remote corner of the imagisphere called Bunkum. His abductor is the lightbulb-headed, third-rate inventor, Newton, who observed Sackboy’s victory in Craftworld and begs his help in dealing with Bunkum’s own sleeping boogeymen, the Titans.
Newton explains that the three Titans were sealed away in a tea tin by three long-gone heroes. This tin is kept in the decrepit mansion of an old cat lady, whom Newton fears will do something terrible with the Titans. Of course, at the end of the prologue, we learn that the old cat lady is Newton’s mother and that it was actually Newton who wished to harness the Titans’ powers to rebuild Bunkum to its former glory. As these things tend to go, Newton can’t handle the powers the Titans infuse in him, and thereafter goes on a destructive spree across Bunkum which he has deluded himself into thinking is for the positive.
Newton’s mother sends Sackboy on a quest to re-awaken the three lost heroes of Bunkum, a doglike creature named Oddsock, a size-changing dwarf/giant named Toggle, and a sackbird named Swoop. Along the way, Sackboy meets a number of new friends and has the kind of quirky arts-and-crafts adventures one would expect from this series.
Gameplay
“LittleBigPlanet 3” is guilty of false advertising. The primary feature of this final(?) entry in the franchise is supposed to be the ability for the four heroes – Sackboy, Oddsock, Toggle, and Swoop – to play together in order to overcome the obstacles in each stage. This, however, is NOT how the game works in practice. Presumably in order to keep the slight powers of Swoop from ruining everything and making most obstacles trivial, each stage only allows a specific character at any given time, regardless of the number of players. Most stages limit all players to being Sackboys, but other stages limit all players to Oddsock, Toggle, or Swoop. This limitation is a huge disappointment.
The new characters are very diverse, however, and the stages designed specifically for them are rather clever. Oddsock can run faster, jump further, and perform walljumps. Toggle’s small form can walk on water and jump very high, while his giant form can break through certain surfaces and weigh things down. Finally, Swoop has unlimited flight. The final two stages of the game are designed in chunks, with each character getting a chance to do their thing within the same stage. This would be a nice way to manage the diversity of the cast’s capabilities if not for the fact that the resultant stages are WAAAAAY too long, especially when going for the Aces (no-death runs). I am not going to waste my time trying to Ace a 30 minute stage when a single physics/layer-shift glitch 15 minutes in causes a cheap death.
Other than the three new characters, Sackboy has a new bag of tricks of his own, called the Sack Pocket. The Sack Pocket allows Sackboy to collect 5 different power-ups over the course of the game and use them whenever he wants. These power-ups include a suction gun that both sucks and blows air, a blink ball that can activate certain teleport pads or serve as an enemy-crushing projectile, a flashlight that uncovers specific secrets, a hook helmet that allows Sackboy to hang from rails and slide across them, and rocket boots that enable a much-needed double-jump.
Level structure is laid-out differently in “LittleBigPlanet 3” from the previous games. Instead of just showing a map with a trail of different stages, each chapter of “LittleBigPlanet 3” focuses around a hub stage with portals to all of the other stages. In order to access a stage from the traditional map interface, the player must find its entrance within the chapter’s hub stage first. Unfortunately, the addition of hub stages is accompanied by a reduction in the overall number of stages. “LittleBigPlanet 3” only has a prologue and three chapters, with each chapter revolving around a hub and between 3 and 5 main stages/boss battles. As such, the game feels incredibly short. The epilogue, which also features a meager 3 main stages (and 3 co-op only stages) was blatantly chopped off for sale as on-disc DLC, as it is only a 100KB download on PSN.
Sure, ‘LittleBigPlanet’ is supposed to be all about endless creativity and user-generated content, but I learned with the original game that user-generated content is generally garbage, so the fact that “LittleBigPlanet 3” doesn’t have very many professionally-made stages in its story mode is a major disappointment. Perhaps in an effort to make-up for the short story mode, Create Mode has a two-term Poppit Academy, with each term featuring 7 stages where the player has access to an exclusive power-up that allows them to use certain Create Mode tools in Play Mode. I found the Poppit Academy much more interesting and engaging than the lame Create Mode tutorials from the previous games, but this small bit of padding is no substitute for more story stages.
Overall
If “LittleBigPlanet 3” had twice the number of stages in its story mode and half the number of bugs and glitches, it would easily be the best of the series, with its trio of new playable characters and the addition of Sack Pocket power-ups. As it is, though, it’s still a decent mouthful of fun, but tinged with the bitterness of disappointment.
Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 4/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Overall (not an average): 4/5
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