THE CYBERBULLIES WEREN'T WRONG
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In a summer of swift backlog-clearing, this has to be the most mediocre game of them
all. Knack was a release title for the Playstation 4 all the way back in the fall of
2013. Much to the dismay of Sony and the game's designers, SCE Japan, it was met with an unenthused reception from players and lukewarm critic reviews. What a bummer.
Since then, the game, and its lead designer
Mark Cerny, has become like a running joke on the "influencer" side
of the industry. Not that I ever understood why. No-one's ever bothered to
explain what's so bad about it. "Just see for yourself, look how bad it is", they all said. But at a glance it always looked like a solid,
charming little 3D-platformer.
I effin' hate bullies - especially when they only bully to be hip and garner
views - so I booted the game up, hoping the Internet would be wrong about this
one. Sadly, I can't say that they are. After an entertaining first couple of
hours, Knack quickly degrades into a chore, repeating the same brawler combat
mechanics mercilessly for hour upon hour.
Or how do you like the sound of alternating between triple-square attack combos
and X-and-square jumping attacks? Oh, and for defensive play, try X-X double
jumps to avoid ground attacks, and the right analogue stick for dodging. Did I
forget anything? Oh yeah, the special attacks: Circle-square, circle-triangle
and circle-circle. You can unleash them after smashing enough of the yellow crystals you
find throughout an extremely humdrum level design.
Knack keeps circle-jerking these moves, repeated to absurdity, with hardly any
finesse required. The only sort of challenge is finding one of the wide gaps
in the enemy's attack pattern. If the enemy doesn't die in one hit, it'll most
likely die in the second, or at least the third. Knack is not a super-easy game in spite of that, because you can only take a couple of hits before going down yourself, and the checkpoints can be far apart.
The boss battles are tough,
but not in a fun, engaging way. They instead tend to infuriate me with their
tedious, unforgiving trial-and-error design. Some of them remind me more of the old,
interactive cartoon Dragon's Lair (which I despised) than a proper
bossfight.
Knack is no 3D platformer, although it looks like one and has a few jumping
and climbing segments. Instead, it's a typical brawler - and a very linear one
at that. Because of their repetitiveness, I've never liked brawlers much. The
only one I can remember finishing was Golden Axe on the
Amiga. At least that one had the decency to be short - it can be beaten in
half an hour.
Knack has the gameplay to support five hours, at the most, but goes on for at
least twice that long. Ten hours doesn't sound too bad, but it feels more like
twenty. Sure, it includes a bit of storytelling, but it's such a generic
storyline, with such predictable twists, that not even its own characters seem
too invested in the outcome.
It's about a fantasy realm with sci-fi elements, where goblins and humans find
themselves in an ongoing feud because of events in the past. Ancient relics
play a vital part in society, powering everything up with their magics to form
a sort of futuristic human society. But the hostile goblin civilization also
want their share and fights mankind for the valuable resource.
Enter a few heroes and scientists to stop the encroaching goblin threat. One
scientist presents a solution in the shape of Knack - the player character - who is a
being made of small relics held together by a central core. Knack acts as a lone
soldier, taking order from his creator, and has the power to rebuild himself
upon "death". Although his personality is so bland he doesn't even seem to
have one, the idea behind his visual design is great.
He consists of up to hundreds of tiny, geometric shapes, such as spheres,
boxes and cones (referencing, I assume, the Dualshock's face buttons), and consequently grows and shrinks in size throughout the
game to suit the situation at hand. And his size holds more than just
aesthetic significance. His maximum health, as
well as his strength, grows with his stature. At the end of the game, as he reaches his full
potential, he is the size of King Kong, and most enemies are the
relative size of small insects, powerless to stop him.
Too bad the designers don't accomplish very much with such a great concept.
Knack can absorb a few different element types - like ice, wood, and, eh...
stealth? - that alters the combat conditions in a few, minor ways. For
instance, if you catch fire while in the wooden state, your health begins to
dwindle, so you need to hurry and find more wood. These offshoots never last
long, and don't add enough to shake up the formulaic gameplay.
A game of such limited mechanics cannot sustain a full-feature-length story. It needs to be shorter, or contain more gameplay elements or skill
trees to spice it up. The only way to infuse some variation is by looking for secrets. Ever so often you can stumble upon one hidden behind a destructible wall. When combined, these relics or inventions slowly builds toward
some sort of character progression.
Too bad, then, that one playthrough isn't nearly
enough to unlock more than a couple. To get a full assortment you either need
to suffer multiple playthroughs, or connect with your PSN-friends and exchange them.
On my own I only managed to unlock two of these: the relic finder and an
increase in maximum "special attack"-juice. And according to game director
Mark Cerny, that's about as much as a single playthrough can generate. But I fail
to see how making the game easier would warrant subsequent playthroughs.
Imagine playing the same game again, only with even less challenge, investment
and excitement.
Since Knack was one of the first exclusive games of the generation, I was
curious to see what about it that the reviewers considered to be "next gen". Well, to
no-one's surprise, Knack had impressive visuals for the time. I found one
critic that expressed some awe in being able to see so much of the level ahead
of time, something I find surprising. Hadn't Dark Souls, and basically
every open world game since the PS2-era, already accomplished the same thing?
But the presentation is good. The clacking sound of sucking up and assembling
relics around Knack's core comes with the satisfaction of knowing that you're
growing. (Let's try to ignore the fact that the enemies tend to grow at the
same rate.) I shouldn't be surprised to see that Knack was "Sony-good" for the
time. The presentation holds up well, thanks to its Pixar-esque cinematics
and an overall clean, polished visual 3D design. The controls are also smooth
and responsive, and the experience feels competent throughout.
I cannot blame the execution, nor the fun concept of the dynamic character
design of Knack himself. The art department at SCE Japan gave it their best. I can only lament the fact that it's wrapped up in such a blasé game. I'd love to see Sony try to revive Knack and do better, because
there's potential in the heart of the creative idea. It likely won't happen,
because Knack never really took off - to no-one's surprise.
They gave it another shot with
Knack II, but they reportedly only tried to fool us again with the first game on repeat. If so -
shame on you, Sony. I personally won't bend over backwards to find out if the bullies were right again. I'm
not particularly eager to re-join such a choir of smirking
bastards. At least I won't pay money to do it - they should pay me...
[All screenshots are taken from www.mobygames.com]
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