THE CYBERBULLIES WEREN'T WRONG
In a summer of aggressive backlog-clearing, this might be the most mediocre game of the bunch. Knack was a launch title for the PlayStation 4 back in the fall of 2013, and much to the dismay of Sony and developer SCE Japan, it was met with a largely unenthusiastic reception from players and lukewarm reviews from critics. A real bummer.
Since then, both the game and its lead designer, Mark Cerny, have become something of a running joke among influencers and online commentators. I never quite understood why. No one ever bothers to articulate what’s actually wrong with it. “Just play it—look how bad it is,” they say. But at a glance, Knack always looked like a solid, charming little 3D platformer.
I effing hate bullies—especially the kind that pile on just to be trendy and rack up views—so I booted the game up, hoping the internet had this one wrong. Sadly, it doesn’t. After an entertaining first couple of hours, Knack quickly devolves into a chore, repeating the same brawler mechanics mercilessly for hour upon hour.
So what does that repetition look like? You alternate between triple-square attack combos and X-plus-square jumping attacks. For defense, you rely on double-jumping (X-X) to avoid ground attacks and flicking the right analogue stick to dodge. That’s about it. Oh, and the special attacks: circle-square, circle-triangle, and circle-circle—unleashed once you’ve smashed enough yellow crystals scattered throughout the bland, lifeless levels.
These moves are recycled to absurdity, with barely any finesse required. The only real challenge lies in identifying a brief opening in an enemy’s attack pattern. If an enemy doesn’t die in one hit, it’ll usually go down in the second—or at worst the third. Despite this, Knack isn’t a cakewalk, because you can only take a couple of hits yourself, and checkpoints are often spaced uncomfortably far apart.
Boss fights are difficult, but not in a satisfying way. They rely heavily on tedious, unforgiving trial-and-error design, and more than once they reminded me of Dragon’s Lair—that old interactive cartoon I always loathed—rather than a proper action-game boss encounter.
Despite appearances, Knack isn’t really a 3D platformer. It merely borrows the aesthetic trappings. In practice, it’s a very linear brawler. I’ve never been fond of brawlers to begin with; the only one I recall finishing was Golden Axe on the Amiga—and that game had the decency to be over in half an hour.
Knack has mechanics that might sustain five hours of play. Instead, it drags on for at least twice that long. Ten hours doesn’t sound excessive on paper, but it feels closer to twenty. The game does attempt to tell a story, but it’s so generic and filled with such predictable twists that even its own characters seem barely invested in the outcome.
The setting is a fantasy world with sci-fi elements, where humans and goblins are locked in a long-standing feud rooted in ancient history. Relics power society, fueling a vaguely futuristic human civilization, while goblins fight to claim their share of the resource. A group of heroes and scientists attempt to stop the conflict, one of whom creates Knack—a being composed of relic fragments bound together by a central core.
Knack himself is a visual triumph. He’s built from hundreds of small geometric shapes—spheres, cubes, cones—that grow and shrink depending on the situation. His size directly affects his strength and health, and by the end of the game he towers like King Kong, swatting aside enemies that now feel insect-small. It’s a fantastic idea.
Unfortunately, the designers do very little with it. Knack can temporarily absorb elemental states—ice, wood, and… stealth—that slightly alter combat behavior. Catch fire while wooden, for instance, and your health drains until you find more wood. These variations are brief and shallow, never meaningfully disrupting the rigid gameplay loop.
A game with mechanics this limited simply cannot support a full-length campaign. It either needed to be shorter or far more complex. The only real variation comes from hunting secrets hidden behind destructible walls, which slowly contribute to character progression. But one playthrough barely unlocks anything worthwhile.
In my case, I unlocked just two upgrades: a relic finder and a slightly larger special-attack meter. According to Mark Cerny himself, that’s about what a single playthrough is expected to yield. I fail to see the incentive. Why would I replay the same game with even less challenge and engagement?
As a launch title, I was curious what reviewers considered “next-gen” about Knack. Unsurprisingly, the visuals were impressive for the time. One critic marveled at being able to see large portions of the level ahead of you—a claim I find puzzling, given that Dark Souls and countless PS2-era open-world games had already accomplished this.
Still, presentation is one of Knack’s strengths. The clacking sound of relics snapping into place around Knack’s core is oddly satisfying, reinforcing the sense of growth—even if enemies scale right along with you. The Pixar-esque cutscenes, clean art direction, and responsive controls all reflect Sony’s usual level of polish. On a technical level, the game is undeniably competent.
I don’t blame the execution, nor the core concept behind Knack himself. The art department at SCE Japan did solid work. What I lament is that all of it is wrapped in such a profoundly bland game. There’s real potential here, and I’d love to see Sony revive the concept and actually do it justice.
They did try again with Knack II, but reports suggest it merely repeated the first game with minor tweaks. If that’s true—shame on you, Sony. I won’t bend over backwards to find out. I’m not eager to rejoin that choir of smirking cyberbullying bastards. And I certainly won’t pay money to do it.
They should pay me.
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