Knack Reviews
Knack does have that one good idea — the character gets bigger, the character gets smaller — which is enhanced by the idea of making him big with other materials like wood and ice. But it's never really explored. You're constantly being forced to shed all of your collected relics to activate an elevator, or something, or receive a large cache of relics before a big fight. Size is controlled by the situation, not the other way around, and so this system never feels as fluid as it could.
A poor quality video game by any measure, but what this joyless throwback is doing being a key launch title for the PlayStation 4 Sony only knows.
Knack is not only a miserably boring action game, but it features one of the worst heroes ever made. Knack is easy to kill, stupid looking and part of an adventure that will never end. This PlayStation 4 game is too difficult for kids and too generic for adults. It's a disappointing failure on just about every level.
How did it come to this? Knack is basically a risible film tie-in without a film to recommend it.
Knack's basic gameplay foundation is a solid one, but with extremely poor, numbingly repetitive level design and an absolutely absurd difficulty level, it is mostly an exercise in frustration, and one of the unfortunate low points of the PS4 launch lineup.
"I couldn't get through it. I wound up frustrated, bored and tired far too quickly for my own liking."
It's an average effort with an interesting concept for a protagonist and a game that lasts for several days only because it's unnecessarily padded and punitive to a fault. Knack may be built on the blocks of charm and difficulty, but by the fourth level, those blocks topple over into a pile of excess tedium.
Knack is little more than a tedious slog.
Dull combat with little diversity banishes Knack to a dark realm normally reserved for the likes of foul goblins.
Towards the end, at least, there are a couple of levels where the checkpoint balancing isn't quite so bad, and this also coincides with some better level design. By this stage you may also have unlocked a couple of gadgets that allow you to do things like slow down time or increase your damage multiplier. The rest of the game may be shallow, bland and repetitive, but here you get a sense of the kind of game Knack could have been if it had only dared to be a bit more complex in every respect.
Knack is not at all indicative of the PlayStation 4's potential. The gameplay and the storytelling are banal even by last-gen standards.
Knack, while conceptually interesting, never rises above being an OK platformer without any real positive memorable aspects, but plenty of frustrating ones. If you've ever wondered what a tech demo turned into a full-fledged game would be like, Knack is—or very much feels—like that.
Knack would have been a passable game twenty years ago, but now it just feels tired and uninspired. It's a bland, boring adventure, made only more frustrating by its sheer difficulty curve and questionable design choices. There's a soul somewhere in this golem, but it's buried under a pile of ancient video game dreck.
Knack has a few good ideas scattered throughout, but it is never able to pick up the pieces.
New IPs can be a risky proposition. Add a new console into the mix and the idea becomes even more daunting. Although I applaud the developers of Japan Studio for taking this risk, 'Knack' simply was unable to live up to expectations, and its difficulty negates its possibilities as a great family title. The story was less than exciting, the gameplay was repetitive, and the entire experience felt like one big missed opportunity as a flagship game for the PlayStation 4. 'Knack' has some interesting moments, but they were short lived and never fully realized. Gamers picking up a PlayStation 4 shouldn't cross 'Knack' off their list, but they may want to start with a different title.
Knack is certainly not a game you'd want to introduce your brand new console purchase with, and though it's playable enough, it's not exactly something you'll want to.
Knack seems to have no ambition beyond wowing you with rendering lots of objects, making it feel like an overlong tech demo. If parents are looking for some cartoon fun to keep the children occupied... well... the PlayStation 4 has a knack for playing blurays, too.
That's "Knack's" bottom line. It's a solid concept with horrible execution. I can't recommend paying $60 for this bare-boned experience, when it feels more like a $20 digital download title. If "Knack" does well enough to warrant a sequel, lets hope they rebuild him.
Knack is one of the launch titles for the long-awaited PlayStation 4. Being a launch title, there's some pressure for it to perform well and become a sort of benchmark for future console-exclusive games. With Mark Cerny and SCE Japan Studios at the hem, Knack's got the kind of backing and developer pedigree that should make it a hit. But, as with Knack's size, our enjoyment proved to grow and diminish with each minute spent in the game.