Rating of
3/5
Suckboy: A Bug Disaster
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/11/26
Back in 2008, the Britain-based Indie developer, Media Molecule, singlehandedly resurrected the 2D Platforming genre after a Generation-plus of silence. When the original “LittleBigPlanet” burst onto the scene, it won a butt-load of awards, garnered lavish praise from critics and Gamers alike, with many older members of the community appreciating the return of classic gameplay in a brand-new IP. Sony was so impressed with Media Molecule’s PlayStation exclusive inaugural game that they bought the studio a mere two years later, bringing forth a sequel.
However, not all was well in Craftworld or the Imagisphere, as, when it came time to make subsequent ‘LittleBigPlanet’ games after “LittleBigPlanet 2,” Sony gave the IP to Sumo Digital instead of letting Media Molecule continue to work on their own baby. And it’s not like Sony had other great designs for Media Molecule to focus on, as the studio was largely idle for the entire time Sumo Digital was pooping in their sandbox, releasing only the duds of “Tearaway” and “Dreams” in the meantime.
With ‘LittleBigPlanet’s’ last outing in 2014, and with typically 3 year development cycles, it seemed like Sackboy’s last stand was destined to be the cross-Generation “LittleBigPlanet 3,” which disappointed as one of the PlayStation 3’s last releases, and failed to generate much buzz on the PlayStation 4. Sony soon shut down the ‘LittleBigPlanet’ servers, destroying all of the user-generated content that made up half of the entire experience. Thus it appeared that the IP that made Media Molecule’s reputation was destined to die outside of its creators’ control.
Imagine my surprise, then, when one of the PlayStation 5’s launch titles was revealed to be none other than “Sackboy: A Big Adventure” (“SBA”), a 4th ‘LittleBigPlanet’ platformer in everything but name. It immediately went on my list of “possible reasons to buy a PlayStation 5,” but was never joined by anything else. Fortunately, Sony, in its infinite wisdom, decided to start porting first-party titles to Steam and GOG, and “SBA” was lucky enough to be one of them. Unfortunately, with Sumo Digital still in charge of the IP and Media Molecule in a deathlike torpor since the flop of “Dreams,” along with the transition from strictly 2D Platforming to 3D Platforming, I wasn’t sure exactly where to set my expectations, but I was able to convince the rest of the Crew to join me in another visit to Craftworld... perhaps for the final time.
Presentation
“SBA” doesn’t look all that different from the older ‘LittleBigPlanet’ games that came before it. Everything in the game is made to look like handicrafts, with characters made of realistic felt, fuzz, and yarn, along with environments made from simulated cardboard, tin cans, sponge, and the like. The look is very consistent, and the cutscenes are far higher quality than even the best that could be made in ‘LittleBigPlanet’s’ creation tools, and the screen tearing is FINALLY gone.
Audio is about on par with ‘LittleBigPlanet’ as well, featuring a variety of pop and (cringy) indie music. However, this time around, instead of spending big money to get Stephen Fry as the narrator, Sumo Digital obviously spent big money licensing modern music, complete with lyrics in most cases, in order to accompany a variety of ‘musical’ stages (which honestly pale in comparison to “Rayman Legends’” musical stages). Instead of the legendary Stephen Fry, the main vocal talent in “SBA” comes from two British comedians, Dawn French and Richard Grant... both of whom appear to have been around the block a few times, but never made much of a splash in America.
Based solely on its audio/visual prowess, I would like to give “SBA” a decent 4/5 score for presentation... but I can’t simply because the technical issues are so overbearing. Even immediately after starting the game, the intro cinematic chugs and frame skips (forcing DirectX11 instead of 12 via command line arguments seems to help). I couldn’t actually change the resolution or activate exclusive fullscreen without the game crashing into an unplayable state necessitating deletion of the config file. Then, all throughout the game, it pops up a little, pink notification on screen saying that “current frame rates may impact online play,” which, according to the community can apply to frame rates, Internet speed, both, or neither. Of course, even playing online at all requires linking up an Epic Games account, since Sumo Digital decided to let those clowns handle the game’s online connectivity instead of Steam, or simple, serverless P2P. As a result of the horrible networking, we were forced to deal with significant amounts of lag, teleporting players, and half-assed connection loss, where one player (usually Nick) would be stuck on a black screen while loading between areas, in spite of the character still appearing with the group. Even worse, simple things that should have been thoroughly polished by this point in the IP’s lifespan perform horribly in “SBA.” Specifically the camera is absolutely useless, frequently follows the wrong character, leaves some players off-screen when they shouldn’t be, and – in an online game – forces all of the players to stay clumped together as if they were playing locally on a single screen. Struggling through the entire game while dealing with these issues was more of a chore than any previous ‘LittleBigPlanet’ title – aside from, maybe, “LittleBigPlanet Karting” – and yet the final insult was that after defeating the final boss, instead of getting to enjoy the ending sequence together, every single one of us got a “fatal error” message and the game crashed.
Bra – EFFing – vo! The worst part of these technical issues is that they’re widely reported (and sometimes even more severe than what the MJ Crew experienced, yet Sumo Digital hasn’t bothered to fix them. Of course, based on my past experience with Sumo Digital games, I don’t think they’re capable of fixing their terrible code.
Story
The villainous Vex, a humanoid creature of sackcloth and yarn – yet with a distinct ‘evil jester’ or ‘Beetlejuice’ vibe – is intent on upsetting the idyllic atmosphere of Craftworld, and he plans to do so by harnessing a form of negative energy known as the Uproar. In service of this end, he proceeds to enslave most of the sackfolk into menial factory jobs assembling the great device that Vex plans to use to spread the Uproar to every corner of Craftworld. Our group of diligent sackfolk heroes, lead by, apparently, THE original Sackboy, manage to get their hands on Vex’s blueprints for his master plan and devious machine, then set about getting their hands on the necessary materials before Vex can.
Sackboy and friends are guided on their journey by a fat, old washed-up (and kinda dyke-y) female Knitted Knight named Scarlet (who is, unintuitively, not made of red yarn), who... mostly does nothing while cheering from the sidelines. Sackboy and company must run, jump, and fight their way through 5 distinct regions of Craftworld, optionally completing Knitted Knight trials along the way, in order to rise (or re-rise?) to the rank of heroes.
We only took about 10 hours to get through the main story in “SBA,” but it really felt longer, simply because the story is so weak, formulaic, and predictable. Neither Vex nor Scarlet is particularly endearing or memorable as supporting characters, while the whole knighthood angle feels like it’s just “there” in order to lean-in on some alliteration. But at least the story has a beginning, middle, end, and an attempted plot twist, so it’s still better than half of videogame stories.
Gameplay
Like the ‘LittleBigPlanet’ games before it, “SBA” is a cooperative multi-player platformer that sees its titular character running, jumping, rolling, and grabbing a handful of powerups across a variety of perilous stages filled with pitfalls, dangerous enemies, glitches, and friendly fire... and the latter two are definitely the most deadly. Unlike previous ‘LittleBigPlanet’ games, “SBA” is a 3D Platformer, so instead of viewing the action from a strict side-scrolling perspective, the player’s viewpoint is situated at a rough 3/4 view that changes dynamically when it feels like it, but is not adjustable by the player.
Sackboy’s stable of moves remains largely the same as before, but with the addition of a punch, a ground-slamming headbutt, rolling (to move slightly faster and fit into small openings), plus a couple of power-ups in the form of a grappling hook, boomerang, and hover boots. Unfortunately, the power-ups are restricted to specific levels... or maybe fortunately, since the chaos caused by the grappling-hook in particular makes the multi-player experience significantly worse.
Unfortunately, the multi-player experience isn’t all that great in the first place. While there are a handful of discrete coop levels that require at least 2 Sackboys to complete, the rest of the game is hindered by the fact that Sackboys can bump into each other, bounce off each other’s heads, throw (and grapple) each other, punch each other, and overall get in each others’ way at EVERY opportunity. Combined with a game camera that forces everyone to stay in a relatively small patch of real-estate and frequently fails to follow the lead character (to the detriment of the entire team), this is one game that just feels better alone. Indeed, between the weird perspective, terrible camera behavior, and hinderous coop, this game is like a less-polished version of “Super Mario 3D World.”
While the gameplay itself is serviceable, I was disappointed that it doesn’t really evolve the mechanics added in “LittleBigPlanet 3.” All Sackboys are the same, there are no special characters, and power-ups all being temporary and stage-locked means that, outside of a handful of bizarre one-off stages, the entire game feels very samey and drab. It’s simply 5 worlds of, enter a stage, run through it while searching for Blue Balls and cosmetics, reach the end, then move onto the next stage. Blue Balls are necessary to unlock the boss fights in each world, and are the main plot McGuffin, but there are enough of them that it doesn’t really take a lot of serious scrounging to have enough to complete the game. The 6th bonus world that unlocks after the final boss (and ending crash) DOES require a whole LOT of Blue Balls to proceed, and is much like the Star World in “Super Mario Bros. Wonder,” in that it is full of extra annoying stages designed for sweaty try-hards.
Of course, one of the mainstays of this IP has been the mantra of “Play, Create, Share.” “SBA” completely trashes 2/3 of that, leaving players only with “Play.” Create Mode is gone in this sequel – probably because Sony didn’t want to pay for server upkeep – and even the cosmetics and costume editor feel significantly pruned-down compared to the trilogy of PlayStation 3 games. While it is sad to see this chunk of the IP simply gone, on the other hand, the user-generated stages in ‘LittleBigPlanet’ were never actually... good, so I guess nothing of value was lost.
Overall
After 6 years of silence, fans of the ‘LittleBigPlanet’ series finally got another sequel... by the wrong development studio, missing half the mechanics the IP was known for, and with the jankiest cooperative gameplay yet seen in the series. “Sackboy: A Big Adventure” doesn’t do a whole lot to justify the continued existence of ‘LittleBigPlanet,’ as instead of a joyful and innocent celebration of creativity and friendship, it’s a buggy, unpolished exercise in frustration that only becomes more frustrating with the addition of extra players. Maybe if Sony gives the IP back to Media Molecule, I’ll be willing to give it one more chance, but as things are now, I’m not exactly pining for more.
Presentation: 2.5/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 3.5/5
Overall (not an average): 3/5
