The LittleBigPlanet series has had quite a journey from its humble 2008 beginnings. What began as a 2D puzzle-platformer with charming narration and a robust level creation suite turned into a showcase for the power of the PlayStation 3. Sackboy as character, with his fine stitching and expressive face, allowed the platform to shine in ways that it hadn’t until that point for a side-scrolling platformer. The 2011 sequel saw the addition of more creation tools – including being able to make more kinds of games than just those rooted in side-scrolling platforming. LBP 3 brought new characters to the mix and expanded the creation suite to an even greater degree, while integrating all of the created content in both prior games. It’s been almost six years since we’ve seen a Sackboy adventure and now he’s starring in a solo game that plays completely differently from any LBP game yet.
Sackboy: A Big Adventureis the first 3D platforming entry in the series yet and winds up essentially feeling a lot like a Sackboy-based Super Mario 3D World. That may seem like an odd combination and a strange piece of Mario history to look to for inspiration for a new Sackboy game, but it works well and turns the LBP series from a good platformer that’s a top-notch game creation suite into a top-notch 3D platformer. Despite having three games to work with, the mainline games never hit the mark in terms of feeling like top-tier 2D platformers. They were good at what they tried to do – which was a bit too much at times. Even the main campaigns would mix in a lot of different gameplay elements to try and teach you the basics of a genre as a prelude to maybe tinkering with making your own game.
The downside of that approach, however, is that the campaigns became less about providing a platformer that could stand on its own and more of something that felt at times like a playable tutorial for a robust creation suite. It wasn’t a bad approach and it’s one that allowed the creation side of the series to shine brighter, but it hurt the core platforming elements. Now, there are no creation tools to worry about and the focus is on platforming and collecting – with large 3D stages to explore. Exploration in a 3D platformer can be done in a few ways – part of an organic flow of the level, things can be hidden away in hard to find places making stages a scavenger hunt, or you can leave things in plain sight and offer the illusion of exploration without actually putting any challenge into the endeavor.
A Big Adventure goes for the first approach and uses the lure of collectables to encourage players to get everything – which is its own reward in a way because that will also lead to you tackling bonus stages. Those are something we haven’t seen a lot of in 3D platformers in a long time and it’s neat to see them return to form here. Some are simple “beat all of the enemies in the room” challenges while others have you solving puzzles to unlock a goodie. The series has never had a shortage of things to collect and getting a lot of stuff in the stages helps you to buy things at the shop to help visually customize Sackboy. If you’ve ever wanted to play through a game as a punk-rock version of Sackboy, a bit of exploration is all you need to do to accomplish that and it’s rewarding.
Sackboy makes finding all the doodads and bonus stages fun since you will encounter some of them on your own – but then find more just by moving the camera and seeing that there’s a whole new area you just didn’t see before. You’re always gently nudged in the right direction to finish a stage, but have a lot of freedom to do whatever you want within a level. You also have a fair amount of options for traversal, so you may jump around if you want or dash around with the Circle button’s pounce and cover ground faster at the expense of precision in your movements. It’s a welcome change of pace from LBP’s more rigid game design in the past where you could move around a stage a bit thanks to its backgrounds being explorable, but it was still far more linear. Sackboy’s approach is a lot more open and makes exploration more fun than it’s ever been before in this series.
PS4 and PS5 users can enjoy a similar experience overall. Sackboy looks better on PS5 and doesn’t have texture loading issues like it does for brief instances on the PS4, but the real game-changer on the PS5 is the Dual Sense controller. While the PS4 features rumble for things like falling off of a ledge, you hear a little Sackboy scream on PS5 and you’ll feel the tension on the PS5’s triggers when doing things like holding a button to unlock something in a stage. Playing on the PS4 is fine and the game is still top-notch, but it’s more immersive on the PS5 – although it’s impressive to see just how much of the core experience is the same between the two platforms.
Sackboy: A Big Adventure retains the same core look and feel of prior LBP games, with joyful narration to tell its tale. Sadly, you don’t get Stephen Fry in this game, but you do get the Knitted Knight Scarlet – who offers a similarly pleasing, friendly tone and offers Sackboy sage-like advice throughout his journey. The evil Vex has kidnapped many of Sackboy’s friends and she’s got to train him up and ensure that Sackboy can take on Vex and vanquish him so he can’t destroy Craftworld. It’s a simple story, but one that remains fun and the voice work is well-done and right in line with what we’ve seen from prior LBP games.
Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a sharp departure from what prior LittleBigPlanet games offered, and depending on what you wanted out of the mainline games, you will likely either love it or be left wanting more. If you loved the creation suite of LBP and not the gameplay, but liked the world, you may wind up liking this game a lot. It keeps the lore, but revamps the gameplay to allow this to be a far better 3D platformer than any LBP game has been as a 2D platformer. If you loved the 2D action of the prior games, then you may be disappointed. As someone who falls into the first category, Sackboy: A Big Adventure is the most fun I’ve had yet with an LBP game’s campaign to date.
The 3D platforming is among the best we’ve seen in some time and feels like a natural evolution for the series. One issue that has plagued the LBP games has been their strict formula for the main campaign, and here that’s all mixed up because you have so much gameplay variety within the 3D platforming framework. It plays wonderfully on either a PS4 or PS5, looks fantastic on either – with no texture pop-in and more-detailed texture work on the PS5, and has neat Dual Sense additions that help aid with immersion ever so slightly. Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a must-buy game for anyone who loved 3D platforming.
