Though the PlayStation 4’s LittleBigPlanet game fell short of Sony’s other PS4 exclusives, it gave players a chance to experience another heartwarming adventure with Sackboy, even giving the option for online players to enjoy user-created levels online. With thousands of ways to play, create, and share content, LittleBigPlanet has an expensive community.
PlayStation players have finally gotten their hands on Sackboy: A Big Adventure as of November 12. This continuation of the popular family-franchise introduces a more story-driven experience. Without an online creation component, the campaign stands front and center in this entry. And some plot points are a bit confusing.
10 Time Trials Rubik’s Cubes
This retro puzzle box serves as the catalyst for the game’s most difficult levels, the Knitted Knight Trials. Originally introduced to the player with the aid of Scarlet, she informs Sackboy that they’re scattered throughout Craftworld. Scarlet claims that only the best can complete these challenges, and doing so would prove Sackboy to be a Knitted Knight. What she doesn’t share is how these cubes scattered and why she knows what’s within them. Do Knitted Knights collect and complete these trials before fragmenting and replacing them in the overworld?
9 Vex Using The Sack People For Menial Tasks
When Vex comes to Craftworld, he claims he wants to engulf the Imagosphere in an era of nightmares. He then captures every Sack person besides Sackboy to realize this goal. Later on in the story, he reveals that the torture he’s submitting the sack people to is. . . menial labor. They help Vex put together his Topsy Turver, a machine he wants to use to flood the Imagosphere with nightmares. So he makes them work at a reasonable pace, gently prodding them if they move a bit slow, and then he lets them rest. It seems strange that his idea of evil is the Imagosphere equivalent of a 9-5 job.
8 Zom Zom Using The Crisis To Sell Costumes
With the whole of Craftworld seemingly falling apart, it’d be assumed that every able-bodied resident of the Imagisphere would do everything in their power to help Sackboy save the day. That assumption would be wrong, as the shop owner Zom Zom uses the chance to expand his costume selling business.
In each world that Sackboy visits, Zom Zom sets up shop and entices the little hero to spend the game’s currency, Collectabells, on customization items. While the ability to dress Sackboy however the player likes is a handy one, it just seems a bit opportunistic of Zom Zom to profit off of this crisis.
7 Sackboy Escaping Vex Via Rocketship
At the beginning of the game, Vex arrives and vacuums up the majority of the sack people in Craftworld. Sackboy is the lone escapee from the villain’s efforts. How he escapes is a bit suspect, however. Just before being sucked into the Vex vacuum, Sackboy slides safely into his conveniently placed rocket ship. The rocket ship has been a recurring item in the LittleBigPlanet franchise, but it is a bit odd that Vex overlooks the one piece of equipment that would allow Sackboy to evade capture. Sackboy may live to save the day, but only because the Vex’s incompetence as a villain thwarts his own plan.
6 Choreographed Music Levels
Several levels of the game are entirely built around famous music tracks. Each inhabitant and fixture within the level seems to be beholden to the songs within them. While music levels seem like a love letter to fans of pop culture, how they are incorporated into the story is left unexplained. Why are enemies and residents alike bobbing along to hit songs like Toxic by Britney Spears and Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars? It seems unlikely that music is the key ingredient to harmony between Vex’s forces and the residents of the Imagisphere. These additions are adorable, but nonsensical all the same.
5 Scarlet Not Helping Save The Sack People
While Sackboy is the protagonist of this adventure, he meets a few friendly residents of Craftworld that aid him on his quest to save his friends from Vex. One of these friendly faces is Scarlet, who serves as a mentor to the felt-covered hero. She shares stories of her time as a Knitted Knight, the realm’s most illustrious warriors. While she does seem a bit older, she finds a way through the same trials Sackboy does, only lagging behind a bit. What stops her from fully committing to saving the sack people beyond moral support is a mystery.
4 Victory Pictures At The End Of Levels
When players reach the end of a level in Sackboy: A Big Adventure, a large TV screen awaits them. Level completion is tallied up on the screen for players to see. Depending on how much of the level was completed, and how many points were obtained, Sackboy will be awarded a bronze, silver, or gold trophy. Once the reward is given, Sackboy is told to pose for a picture that then appears on the screen. Where these trophies and photo ops come from is a story beat left completely unexplained. With the fate of an entire race in the Imagisphere at stake, it seems strange that Sackboy would prioritize pictures each time he makes progress in his adventure.
3 Outfits Hidden In Levels
Each level in the game contains costume pieces scattered throughout them. Are they remnants from the Sack people who were taken or do they represent a sliver of Zom Zom’s ever-expanding costume collection? Since Zom Zom is selling the pieces of his collection for currency, it seems unlikely that he would litter freebies that can comprise complete outfits in every area he visits.
The only conclusion in this scenario is that some other party has scattered outfit pieces across each and every level, sometimes wrapping them up in egg-shaped containers. Whoever it was decided that in a time of peril, Sackboy should really make sure to look his best.
2 Sackboy Reviving After Death
In Sackboy’s freshman PlayStation 5 outing, a recurring feature of the LittleBigPlanet franchise returns. If Sackboy crosses a checkpoint within a level, it ensures his swift revival should he perish at the hands of enemies or fall to his demise. What isn’t explained is how Sackboy has received the ability to return to life almost indefinitely. This felt-covered character only needs to acquire life tokens which can be collected from enemies. Once defeated, his dwindling inventory of lives is replenished by the monsters he eliminates.
1 Certain Levels Needed Multiple Sack People
One of the few missteps with this family-friendly platformer is the decision to gate off content behind. If players don’t have more than Sack person, certain levels cannot even be attempted, let alone completed. While the story itself is centered around the idea that Sackboy is the last bastion of hope within the Imagisphere, each world contains at least one restricted area where multiple players are necessary. Unless Vex himself decided to gate off sections of the game, this design choice does seem a bit silly, especially when online multiplayer has not yet been released for this platformer.
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