Developer: Sumo Digital
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platforms: PS4, PS3
Tested on: PS4
LittleBigPlanet 3 – Review
If you’d take a survey and ask around what gamers thought the most cute, child friendly and creative game on the PlayStation was, there’s a 95% chance that LittleBigPlanet will come up on top. Back in the day, LittleBigPlanet was one of the system sellers for the PlayStation 3. The game offered so much freedom in building the most incredible levels that it didn’t take too long before thousands of players decided to bring their creativity online. This is the exact reason why people are still playing the very first LittleBigPlanet. Does the third game in this great series succeeds in justifying and upgrade from the previous games? Let’s take a look.
Story
You’ll meet Newton, a funny looking guy (but then again, everyone looks a bit funny in this game) who tells you the story of the Titans. The Titans were responsible for making all creativity disappear in the world of Bunkum and eventually they were locked up. Newton tricks you, Sackboy, in releasing the Titans but unforeseen, they take possession of Newton himself, turning him into a walking wizard/monster/weirdo. Of course, it’s your job to defeat Newton and save Bunkum! You won’t do it alone as there’s a way to revive the old heroes of the planet. OddSock (a kind of dog), Toggle (a buff Sackboy) and Swoop (a bird) won’t hesitate to get rid of the feared Titans.
In the past, the narrative wasn’t the most important thing in a LittleBigPlanet game. The story was often just a way to get a campaign mode working as best as it could. Everybody knew that the really beauty laid within the online portion of the game and not the singleplayer. Well, although the story isn’t exactly what you’d call a masterpiece, the makers really tried to bring an enjoyable and interesting plot. It gives the player a purpose for reviving the other characters instead of just giving them to the player for no apparent reason. As Newton is controlled by three Titans, he makes for a perfect nemesis and it’s fun to work your way through the story, obstructed by a lot of Newton’s tricks.
Graphics
Although this is the very first time for a LittleBigPlanet game to show itself on a next gen console, you wouldn’t say so by the graphics. The game looks very similar to past installments but remember that it’s not so evident to make a game like this look fabulous. The franchise has its own style and in the end, you can’t really upgrade the graphics much in these kinds of video games.
However, if we were to talk about the look of the different levels and characters, then rest assured! LBP 3 looks as colorful and bright as ever and not once will you become bored with the environments as they are very diverse and unique. One time, you’ll be roaming around in what looks like a kitchen, complete with attributes and chefs (and a huge monster which you need to feed), next up, you’re in a space level. Great job on this department Sumo Digital!
Sound
There’s a lot of music in this game. In the different levels, you’ll hear a song that tries to match as best as possible with the level. Sometimes a song feels a bit out of place but most of the time, the music is spot on. What’s even more fun is that quite of few popular songs made it to the game.
In the past, not all characters who spoke to you in the game had a real voice (no, I don’t mean that jabbering sound they made as they said something). Well, now, it seems that all major characters have been granted the gift of speech. The voice acting is balancing between good and average but there are some characters with a less enjoyable voice or accent. Then again, it’s fun to actually hear folks talking to you this time around.
Gameplay
As any LittleBigPlanet title, the game greets you with a joyful clip in which the well-known commentator gives you a hearty welcome in the world of LittleBigPlanet. After this, players will have to go through some tutorial levels to get an idea of the basic gameplay. For veterans of the games, this won’t be much of a problem. Newcomers too shouldn’t worry too much about complex controls as one of the main purposes of this franchise is to make everything as accessible as possible.
The controls are pretty much the same as in the previous games. You use the analog stick to move your character left, right, to the front or to the back. Pressing the “x” button gives you the ability to jump and the shoulder buttons are handy for grabbing onto stuff (or a fellow player). Although you’ll mostly be walking around, there’re some levels where you’ll be floating in the air (in the space levels) or even swimming around. Most of the campaign levels (and a lot of user created ones as well) use the area to provide clever puzzles which the player has to solve using objects in the game world or one of the new characters’ abilities. As said before, the game does its best to keep everything rather simple so the chance that frustration kicks in during a level is very slim.
LBP 3 plays pretty smooth and new power-ups help a lot in making the gameplay varied. Now, you’ll have the Blink Ball to teleport you across the screen. Or what do you think about Boost Boots which do exactly the thing you’re thinking of right now. Better yet, someone who creates his/her own level can invent home made power-ups on their own!
If you’re done with the campaign, there’s still a lot more to get out of your game copy. The Popit Academy teaches you in a very cool way how to make use of the tools which you use in the Creative Mode. As it might be a step too far to immediately start creating impressive levels on your own, this is a great way to get you familiar with all of LBP’s features.
Of course, it goes without mention that the real beauty of this game lays in the multiplayer section. Get ready to be thrown in a pool of thousands upon thousands of different levels, all creations of genius players. Like this, there’s just no end to LittleBigPlanet 3. Basically, the replay value is infinite.
Unfortunately, the game suffers from some technical issues. At first, I experienced a lot of crashes and errors while making my way through levels. Certainly the online multiplayer seems to be a bit sensitive to errors. Playing with more than 2 players often ends up with no one getting to play the actual game which is a shame. Luckily, there’s been a patch a couple of days ago, which seems to help a lot concerning game stability. The only thing that remains a continuous annoyance are the frequent and long loading times. Too often and too long are you staring at a white loading screen and we all hate to lose all that precious game time.
Another small remark is about the platforming itself. Sometimes the game feels a bit unfair concerning your running and jumping around. The fact that there’re so many layers in a level this time around only enhances this feeling. It doesn’t take much for you to land on another layer than you had in mind.
Conclusion
Sumo Digital has done a great job in giving us a new LittleBigPlanet experience. The story is worthy of your time, the new power-ups are a blast to use and the music is top-notch. Unfortunately, there’re some problems like occasional errors and frequent loading times which can break the game immersion quite abrupt. Overall though, this is about the best bang for your buck you can get thanks to the replay value in the multiplayer of LittleBigPlanet 3!
LittleBigPlanet 3 - Review,
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