Sackboy: A Big Adventure

Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time

Every now and then there comes those games or franchises that strike your psyche at the oddest moments and leave you wondering; just what in the heck happened to that game? Perhaps it was an old favourite of yours, or just some niche title that you used to play, or some strange game that you used to binge around your cousin's house but never knew the name of and only discovered years later that it's the least loved of a critically adored series. (That was DMC 2, for anyone interested.) For pretty much this entire console generation that game for me was 'LittleBigPlanet' and it's mythical next entry which never seemed to materialise. I remember how much of a huge deal the original LBP was, with it's Stephen Fry narration and gameplay which championed creativity and personality. Whatever happened to that series?

I remember the first game very fondly, as the one game that I never got the chance to play myself because I was a pauper and all I ever owned was a PSP. Although that console's LBP game (which was also called 'LittleBigPlanet' for some reason) proved a suitable enough replacement. It was an enjoyable puzzle-based adventure that deployed a purposeful 'blank-slate' aesthetic in order to provide a suitable canvas for the light world manipulation/painting tools available to the player. Nowhere is this more perfectly realised than in the protagonist; Sackboy. He was quite literally just a cloth sack fashioned into the shape of a little doll, nothing particularly exotic or frilly about that. (Unless you count the sentient sack-doll as being 'exotic'; but come on, we see those everyday.) That plainness made him perfect fodder to play dress-up with various outfits and cosplay as some of the many memorable characters that Sony has a license for. (Although, the cosplays usually came at an additional premium. Mini DLC was getting pretty out-of-hand back then.)

Every newer entry of the game expanded on the core concepts of creativity and individualism and it was refreshing to have such a malleable creation-centric game get backing from a major games studio. Which was why it was such a shame that the last title, LBP 2, was so long ago and they never made a version for Playstat- what do you means there's a LittleBigPlanet 3? And it was cross platform with the PS3 and PS4? How didn't I know about this? And, more importantly, why didn't Sony market this at all? Now I think back to it, I vaguely remember a tie-in promotion between a LBP title (it may have been 3) and the 'Final Fantasy 7 Remake', which was likely before one of it's many delays. But that still pales in comparison to the frontlining treatment that the franchise used to enjoy at the height of it's popularity. It as though Sony grew bored of the 'creative darling' and wanted to move in more linear paths. (i.e. Ghost of Tsushima, LOU II, Days Gone and all those sorts of games.) The only such game to get any sort of press from Sony since was last year's 'Dreams', but you don't even really hear much about that anymore unless you're directly in it's community. (Oh, and 'Dreams' was made by the same team as LBP. Surprise, Surprise.) When, oh when, would our classically nondescript hero be making his way back to consoles?

Very soon, it would seem, as 'Sackboy: A Big Adventure' was announced for Playstation 5 and it looks to be taking the franchise firmly out of the 2.5D thing they had going on and into the glorious, over-saturated, 3D world. (Still with platforming. Okay, maybe it's a lot more platformer than adventurer) That's right, after all this time 'Sumo Digital' has taken a break from their busy schedule of... assisting IOI in making Hitman 2 by working on the Columbia and Isle of Sgail levels? Nani? (Guess I like these guys' work and I didn't even know it.) But is this truly a return to custom creation greatness? Especially when 'Dreams' is still relatively fresh off the presses and it would probably be poor form to directly compete with a game constructed my members of your old team? Well, it's actually hard to tell at this point but if the trailer is anything to go by then this might be the largest departure from what LittleBigPlanet was then we've seen from the franchise to date. (Which may explain the drastic name change.)

Now usually I like to approach these blogs with a healthy amount of breaking things down and picking out things I see, but here there's really no need for something so structured as the trailer is mostly just a hodgepodge of gameplay. (Something I do not, actually, bemoan.) If you want to get a decent idea of what this game is then you have the single most informative trailer possible right there at the tip of your fingers. In terms of marketing the highs and lows of the game in question, this is exactly what fans of these events have been asking for; a unbridled gameplay trailer with no pacing, story or anything substantial to justify it's existence beyond being an advert. So there you people go, your freakin' welcome. (Yeah, I'm a little bit salty. I like Story trailers, but apparently that makes me 'part of the problem' now...) But let us get back on track and, while we're at it, let me possibly save you some time by giving you the downlow; it basically just looks like your run-of-the-mill action/adventure platformer.

Now don't get wrong, that hurts just as much for me to say as it likely does for fans to accept. I am, afterall, someone who bought the promise of LittleBigPlanet and it's feeding of imagination at complete face value. I lauded it's unique approach to gameplay, puzzle solving and enemy encounters. And yet here I am watching this trailer for 'Sackboy: A Big Adventure' being entertained, but not impressed. But before I start moaning I will reiterate; I do like some of the things I'm seeing from this trailer. As far as action/adventure platformers go, LBP has a pleasing vibrant and vertical world that nicely fits into that genre without seeming anything like a departure from the norm. In fact, this probably looks like the game that everybody imagined when they were first told the bare minimum about LBP. It's such a natural progression for the games to take it seems almost right. But then, perhaps it's too natural of a progression, if you get what I mean.

LittleBigPlanet, as an institution, prided itself on being just that little bit oddball and off-the-wall in a manner that attempted to subvert your expectations. Instead of some cool, quippy main character you got a dead-eyed sackdoll as your protagonist for this world; anytime some encounter would be built up to make you expect a traditional one-on-one it would materialise as some crazy contraption that required active puzzling to defeat. These were the building blocks of LittleBigPlanet, and I don't see any of that in 'Sackboy: A Big Adventure'. I see an adventure with Sackboy beating up enemies in a traditional manner and hopping through very traditional hoops to reach his goal. None of it looks shoddy or badly done, not in the slightest, but it all just seems very safe and 'like a platformer should be', rather than what LittleBigPlanet wanted to be. So in a way I'm critiscing the game for looking too clean. (Does that make me the weirdo? It does, doesn't it.)

At the end of the day I suppose it comes down to a matter of taste and preference, and whilst I'm a man who likes a good platformer now and then, my palette was more attuned to the old LittleBigPlanet games over what I'm seeing here. Although if you're more open minded than me then I totally understand why this might be a title that's totally up your street! It looks great, with it's vibrancy, energy and pure thematic consistency. (the textile fabric world aesthetic always won me over) I wonder, yet again, how much this title desperately needs the power of the Playstation 5 to achieve it's wonders, but I won't deny that the game looks great. Unfortunately, it's just not what I'm looking for and thus it seems my wait for a true new LittleBigPlanet shall continue for a few years more.