Knack (PS4)

One of the video game titles that Santa brought for my son is a game called Knack. Co-incidentally, I'd played this very game at a PS4 demo station at Target in early December, and liked it. Having now played about three quarters of the game, I'm still reasonably happy with it.

In some ways, it feels a little like a tech demo that turned into a game. Knack, the story's protagonist, is made of a bunch of objects held together the force the "arcane energy" that animates him. I can imagine someone testing the limits of a graphics card or game engine by seeing how many objects they could animate at once, and then thinking to themselves, "Hey, this would make an interesting game character."

Game Mechanics

The game plays with the character concept throughout, making for some interesting game mechanics as you go along:

Can Knack animate other objects or only relics?
Do the relics need to remain part of the body?
What are the properties Knack might have if he were made up of different materials?
What would the world be like if Knack took on a lot of material and got very big?
What's it like to go back to being small after being big?

But they leave lots of questions unexplored, like:

If Knack is made of little objects, why are there so many fences with wide bars that he can't simply walk through?
If he can reduce his size to become 'stealth knack' when he has crystals at his core, why can't he do that to fit through tight spaces when he doesn't?

Knack isn't a tour de force, but it's fun. The story isn't tremendously deep or tremendously surprising, but it's engaging and supports the extended action sequences which are the game well enough. It's full of lots of the kind of game tropes are fun to play through but that would surprise someone unfamiliar with level design in other games:

"Hey, why are there a bunch of nearly-impenetrable crates that make great cover right beside every armoured turrent, but that other room with no aggressors in it had no crates at all?"
"Why can I take that elevator up, but I can't go back down on it?"
"Why does this barrier made of planks always fall over after I defeat the last enemy?"
"Why can I climb this wall but not that wall?"

Combat

Knack's combat is pretty solid, which is nice since, like most games, combat is a big part of the game. It's mostly a matter of pattern and timing, which means that when you've facing a new enemy, particularly a formidable one, you're likely to take a beating, but after you've faced that enemy type a bunch of times, you're likely to have a pretty good idea about when to dodge and when to attack. This ends up feeling pretty satisfying, because you are able to beat people who once gave you trouble not just because Knack has gotten more powerful, but because you've mastered attacking that kind of creature.

There's also an enjoyable choice when you're about to land your final hit on an enemy, the game engine sometimes shifts into a slow-motion view so that you can see the final hit as if it were some kind of movie action sequence. It's simple, but pleasing.

Progression

The story progression happens with an autosave, if-you-die-you-return-to-the-last-savepoint mechanism that's not uncommon in modern games. There's also chapter progression wherein if you shut down the game (or put the PS4 in standby), you'll return to the beginning of the latest chapter, which is usually much farther back than the savepoint. This encourages you to play through to the end of a chapter before calling it quits. Fortunately, most of the chapters are reasonably short, so that doesn't tend to get in the way very much.

The cut-scenes can't usually be skipped, which is irritating when you're passing through a second time (say, after shutting down the PS4 before finishing a chapter).

I've just arrived at the Barren Wastes (Chapter 10 of 13), so I haven't finished it but I'm enjoying exploring the levels and the game storyline thus far. I've been playing it once by myself and once with my son (easy mode) and isn't painfully repetitive, although it does have a few quirks. Once I've finished, I might try again if the replay opportunities are interesting, or I might not.

Multi-Player

There are some odd two-player dynamics. Knack (Player 1) is the primary character and Player 2 is relegated to Robo-Knack who:

is not the focus of the camera; wander off screen and you won't know what you're doing
will simply reappear near Knack if it is offscreen too long
can die without causing progress to be lost

This will irritate two players who are of similiar skill, age, mindset -- one of you will clearly be the 'supporting castmember'. But when I'm playing with my son, it works well enough. I think he takes a little bit of pride in being the protagonist while I 'assist', and it allows me to do things like clear a dangerous room when he (Knack) is low on health without needing to worry about my (robo-knack's) health.

I started the game with his PSN account as Knack and mine as Robo-Knack, and near as I can tell, when he reloads the game, if anyone other than me signs on the second controller, they can't join the game. It seems like the game remembers which PSN account was the second player and will not let anyone else fill that role. That might have merit in some scenario, but it doesn't work well with, say, two parents and a child. Fortunately, my wife has decided she doesn't like Knack, and doesn't want to play it with my son, so I suppose that problem has a natural solution.

Summary

Basically, it's a fun enough game, good graphics, good combat, diverting game mechanics, decent (if predictable) story, and I'd be happy to recommend it on that basis. If you take a look at it or play the demo and have fun, I'm willing to bet that you'd also have fun playing the game.

But if it doesn't appeal to you on a quick look and/or demo, then I'm not going to say it's a must-have, can't-miss sort of game. Still, I'm happy that Santa brought it.