Sackboy: A Big Adventure – Apkrig

Sackboy, one of the protagonists of the Little Big Planet series, has been the PlayStation mascot since the third console. And now that Playstation 5 is coming to light, Sackboy is once again taking the floor as one of the main starting titles, although at first glance it is a bit in the background compared to the greats Spider-Man and Demon’s Souls. But we say straight away that underestimating Sackboy: A Big Adventure would be a huge mistake.

Knitted knight!

The idea world, the homeland of our rag little man, is dashing to ruin. The wicked Vex wants to break down the boundaries of the imagination and create a new and scary Spoiler, where fear and nightmares play a leading role. Sackboy is one of the last heroes who can save the world and his friends from total destruction, so he embarks on a hitherto unknown adventure.

The primitive fairy tale is designed for younger viewers, which may not be completely detrimental. Just remember the boom around Super Mario and his Odyssey, who showed that even a game for younger audiences can be a worldwide hit. And it is with the Super Mario Odyssey that Sackboy has a lot in common.

Playful, imaginative and smiling

The developers from the Sumo Digital studio served us a jumping game that overflows with ideas. And their dosage is so ingenious that the whole content acts as an inexhaustible well of possibilities.

In a total of five territories, the knitted hero will visit locations in space, in the mountains or discover the oceanic Krablantida. All hopping takes place in 3D space, although in the vicinity very often there are 2D elements in the form of inhabitants of individual worlds. We do not mean opponents, but various paintings on the walls or cardboard creatures that react to your actions. Sometimes they rejoice, other times they are annoying and lose weight when you need to wake them up.

The whole world in each level looks beautiful, lively and playful. If we were to name one game that we would recommend to everyone to improve their mood, it would most likely be Sackboy. Cheerfulness in individual levels plays a key role and it doesn’t matter that Vex threatens you with the end of all Imagination.

Smart and comprehensive

The game is great not only because of the positive outlook on life, but also because of the design of the individual levels, which are ingenious and each mission offers an excellent ratio of clever gameplay, challenge and comprehensive fun. Jumping over obstacles and solving logical or environmental puzzles is simply pure joy.

Some levels are extensive and open, full of various secrets, although it is definitely not an open world, which we could see in the aforementioned Mario. Others are more straightforward in terms of knowledge, the newly-knitted knight in them runs away from a monster or travels by vehicle from place A to place B.

We also liked optional missions a lot, in which you try to achieve the best possible time. This is also due to the fact that the PS5 offers rankings among friends in individual levels and every first place is always quite pleasing.

The king of the genre?

Of course, you will also encounter the inevitable fights with the bosses, but in addition to them, there is another type of levels that we would not be afraid to call the absolute top. Some levels are designed directly for licensed popular music. When the song Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars rattles in your ears and the whole level dances to the beat in front of you, it is difficult for you to defend yourself and start wriggling too.

Sackboy is simply extremely diverse. In addition to jumping, our dear man can also do a few tweaks, such as slapping a disgusting troublemaker with a knitted paw or an evasive maneuver. Sometimes he gets some new equipment like a boomerang or rocket boots. However, they are not always available, only in certain levels. It’s not that when you get a new item at the beginning of the world, its use is the alpha and omega of passing in that world.

This seemed very refreshing to us compared to the competition. It’s unusual (but all the more enjoyable) for the game to show you a game element in a few levels at the beginning and then surprise you a few worlds further with the same element, even if you didn’t need it until then.

It is usually dark under the candlestick

In the first and second worlds, we thought the difficulty was set strictly for younger audiences, but the opposite is true. The difficulty increases over time and, above all, at the end it takes on brutal turns. Even due to the time pressure, we completely resigned ourselves to getting all the unnecessary content at the end, and the only goal was to get to the finish line with bare skin. And even that was a pretty complicated nut.

To open the individual worlds, you always need a few blue orbs that you collect in each level, but you certainly don’t need all of them to complete the game. But we add with one breath that the game won’t give you anything for free, and if you don’t have enough orbs, Sackboy has to go back to some level and collect orbs he hasn’t collected before.

Do you like a coat?

What a game from the world of Little Big Planet it would be if it did not offer all kinds of cosmetic modifications. The knitted doll will definitely not remain in its original form for anyone, and there are a number of costumes available. Some can be bought in a tent at Zum Zuma for bell currency (it falls normally in the game), other special suits or emotions exist as collector’s items that you come across during the game. Parts of the suits can be mixed with each other and you can dress your doll in really bizarre combinations. Our frog boy with butterfly wings and a hairstyle like Elvis could tell.

We would like to stop for a moment at the Czech localization. It is not missing in the picturesque story of Sackboy and is of very high quality. Above all, its creators were not afraid to play with the Czech language a bit and show its color in all its beauty. Translation is a very enjoyable part of a very enjoyable game and it was a pleasure to read some successful phrases.

Old-new generation

It is definitely visible on the game that this is an intergenerational title. Not that it wouldn’t be beautiful, it is, but more thanks to quality artwork than to the onset of new technology. The game looks almost the same on both the PS5 and PS4, and apart from the momentary shocks, we didn’t even get the much-used haptics of the new DualSense driver.

So no, Sackboy probably won’t show you the full possibilities of the new console, but it doesn’t really matter. If you want to try all the tricks of the new gamepad, have Astro’s Playroom, but if you “just need” an absolutely excellent, playful, beautiful and creative platformer, then you can’t reach out with this knitted doll.