Sackboy: A Big Adventure (PlayStation 4) review "An entertaining diversion, even if it's not destined to be a classic."

While I wouldn’t call Sackboy: A Big Adventure one of the best platformers that I’ve played in modern times, I did have a lot of fun with it. Hell, for a while, I was even considering keeping it on my hard drive for a while after beating it in order to work on snagging all the collectibles I had missed. Sure, that didn’t happen, but that’s more about me and how I leap to the next thing I want to play before the credits of the previous one have finished rolling. With there being so much that I’d like to experience and only a limited amount of time to do so, it takes something truly special to make me want to at least put a real effort into accomplishing everything possible.

And Sackboy didn’t quite reach that level of excellence. But it was a fun game containing a lot of engaging levels and I found it enjoyable to pick up and play whenever I sat down with my PS4 controller. I might only have played a stage or two during many of those sessions, but the important thing was that I wanted to at least devote a bit of time to it on a regular basis until I’d finally put an end to the schemes of diabolical jester-thing Vex.

This game is a spin-off of the LittleBigPlanet series that eschews its usual perspective to go full 3D with its platforming action. It also removes the ability for players to make their own levels for public consumption. While I can make the educated guess that long-time fans of the series may not have been on board with these changes, they didn’t bother me. The only LittleBigPlanet game I’d previously experienced was the third. Its action apparently didn’t captivate me, as I abandoned it before completing more than a level or three. And I never really got into its fan-made levels due to the servers typically being down for some reason I can’t quite remember, but think involved a disgruntled former member of the community.

And, honestly, if a game has a good campaign to play through, fan-made stuff usually is little more than a distraction for me to dabble with on those days when I just can’t seem to make real progress. I mean, I love the Trials series and have played a number of fan-made tracks in its games, but I’ve never picked one of those games up because that’s the main attraction for me. I’m here to see what the pros created and with Sackboy, that is 40-50 levels scattered over five worlds, with a few more available after those credits have rolled.

The game opens with the aforementioned Vex storming Craftworld to subjugate the local populace, forcing them to help him complete a big machine he’ll use to create a force known as the Uproar in order to essentially transform reality into a nightmare realm. Series protagonist Sackboy is able to escape Vex and embarks on a quest to scour multiple worlds in order to foil those plans.

In each level, the main goal is simply to go from its beginning to the end, but there are several additional challenges Sackboy can attempt. Most important are the blue orbs. Most levels have either five or three of these things hidden throughout them and you’ll need to acquire a certain number of them to access each world’s boss stage. Early on, it’s quite easy to collect them, but as you progress throughout the game, they can be tricky to locate, let alone snag. There also are lots of point-scoring orbs, pieces of new outfits to change Sackboy’s appearance and currency used to purchase additional outfits. While you’ll mainly rely on slaps and jumps to dispatch enemies, a few levels give you some sort of power-up such as a boomerang, a rope to grapple onto certain surfaces to swing to new locations and levitation boots that also give you the ability to shoot at foes.

There are a decent number of objectives in levels to break up the whole “go from point A to point B” thing. Some of them have locked doors and you’ll have explore the stage to find the necessary keys. Others utilize things like auto-scrolling or deadly obstacles persistently advancing towards you in order to create some tension. By finding items hidden in certain levels, you’ll be able to access Knitted Knight Trial levels. In these, as well as the handful of time trial stages, your goal is to clear them as quickly as possible, with blue orbs being your reward for being fast.

For the most part, the game is fairly lenient with how many orbs it will take to progress past checkpoints, although you will need A LOT if you want to progress through those challenging post-game stages. The game also is fairly easy, with only a few late-game levels notably tricky to get through. Really, the main cause of difficulty in Sackboy is simply that you have limited lives to clear a stage. I mean, it’s easy to replace lost lives by scoring points via collecting stuff and stomping monsters, but that aspect of the game did take me aback a bit simply because so many modern games of this ilk that I’ve played give players unlimited lives, allowing them to persistently work on any tricky areas until they’ve made it through.

Overall, I had a very good time with Sackboy, but this game did fall a bit short of greatness. For me, the problem was simple: With very few exceptions, there wasn’t much in the way of truly notable stages. They tended to be fun to play through, but most didn’t grab my attention. You’d occasionally get something great, such as one where you ride a ship underwater, occasionally jumping off to find treasure to toss to the captain, while regularly being threatened by a fierce monstrosity. And then you’d have several that seemed taken from the Big Book of Standard Platformer Levels and, as a result, didn’t have that same creativity, even if a number of them are synced to the beats of various songs. This blends into boss fights, too. You’ll fight Vex repeatedly, with each of the first three confrontations playing out much the same way — only differing in that his attack patterns get more complex as you progress.

While a game having a lot of levels and confrontations that feel interchangeable isn’t the most exciting thing, it isn’t a true negative if that stuff is fun to play through and Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a lot of fun. It was a game that grabbed my attention with its light-hearted platforming vibe that reminded me of various series I’ve played off and on for much of my life and kept me invested the entire way through. It might not have had that special something that will inspire me to pick it up again to truly master it, but as a diversion, it was a really good one.

Staff review by Rob Hamilton (September 20, 2024) Rob Hamilton is the official drunken master of review writing for Honestgamers.