Little Big Planet was a very well beloved franchise on PlayStation. They took the User-Shared-Creation formula and brought it to PlayStation players in such a fun, colorful and creative way. Sharing your custom levels with other players online made for near-infinite replayability, and with each entry in the series, it just got easier and more expansive.

Little Big Planet 3 was easily one of the most impressive communities for level designers, and made for some of the best puzzle platforming in the genre, with countless levels uploaded every single day. People would share levels spanning across genre, across challenges, and prove that this community would be one to last for a long long time to come, as long as more entries in the series kept arriving.

Sadly, this series wouldn’t see much more support beyond the PlayStation 3, with its third entry releasing in 2014 and remaining dormant through the entire life of the Playstation 4. 

Players itched for more content from the series, but at least the third entry still remained active for years. We wouldn’t see the next evolution of the series until the year 2020 with the release of an original 3D platformer called Sackboy: A Big Adventure. (I personally think A LittleBig Adventure would have been a much better title.)

That’s right, the team behind the beloved series had been hard at work on an original title for Sackboy to run and jump around in, but it was lacking one huge feature. There would be zero user level creation, just a solid 3D platforming adventure with crafted worlds from the studio.

Now don’t get me wrong, this game is not lacking in content or gameplay. Quite the opposite. Sackboy takes the formula of a game like Super Mario 3D World and gives you tons of collectibles, thrilling levels, a killer soundtrack, and so many time trial challenges. You will be occupied for many many hours. However, you can’t help but ignore the glaringly obvious fact that this is a Little Big Planet style adventure with zero of the player built community that made the series popular in the first place. 

Now before I get into the lack of user-created content again, I do need to say just how good this game feels. This is an incredibly made 3D platformer, and everything about its gameplay just screams with joy. All of the mechanics from previous LBP games are here, but smoothed out for a more polished experience. The upgrades and abilities are also fun to play around with, especially in levels designed around a specific item or mechanic such as the grapple wires, blasters and boomerangs.

The visual aesthetic here is also on point, every item and creature looking like a hand-made craft. Every level is a beautiful combination of set pieces straight from your bed-side table or living room. It feels silly to say that random household objects and crafts are “beautiful” but it really does take a game like this to make it feel like a genuine world. These objects aren’t just “random”; it’s a whole world full of characters. It’s so genuine and cool. This isn’t the first game to nail this aesthetic either. Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Yoshi’s Woolly World are some of the first that come to mind, but it’s also visually comparable to Chibi-Robo and Katamari in some ways.

There are five worlds to adventure through, with some secret areas too, each with different themes. The Soaring Summit is full of grassy plains and buildings built from cardboard and felt. The Colossal Canopy is a jungle themed world, full of monkeys and ruins and running rivers. Crablantis is an underwater kingdom full of ribbon-woven fish and aquatic ripples shimmering on every wall. And the Interstellar Junction is a sci-fi haven made of bright lights and fast paced conveyor belts.

This all converges with the final world, where the main antagonist has crushed all of the previous themes together in an amalgamation of everything you’d encountered in Craft World previously. Your cozy journey all turning to a climactic final few stages that make up a really engaging final gauntlet.

This crazy world combo was created by our main antagonist, Vex, as he tried to take over Craft World and become its all-powerful god. I couldn’t really tell you exactly what his motivations are outside of the fact that he just… wants to be evil. But god damn, does he do it with flare and style. Vex is a seriously well designed character and at times feels genuinely intimidating. His voice actor did an incredible job bringing the character to life. However the same can’t really be said for his boss fight encounters.

Combat in this game is not challenging. Most enemies take only one or two hits to knock down and the methods for doing so are thoughtlessly simple throughout the entire journey. Jump on them or punch them until they’re gone. The only “challenge” is when hoards of enemies are thrown at you all at once and you must try to avoid their attacks, since you yourself only have 2 hits before you die. Health is refreshed at checkpoints, and lives are rare enough where if you die often enough, respawning might become a hassle, but as long as you’re paying attention to how many enemies you’re fighting, you’ll never be in too much danger.

Boss fights aren’t much to praise either, most of which just being a simple puzzle to solve over and over until their health bar depletes. Shockingly, Vex is the easiest boss of them all, and you will be fighting him a LOT. His boss fight happens multiple times across your adventure and is the same technique every single time. you’re on conveyer belts, he’ll toss bombs at you, you toss the bombs back. It feels like they ran out of ideas on how to make him more engaging, which sucks because he is the main villain you’re supposed to be ramping up to. He’s this all-powerful force and yet he’s the simplest to take down. Some times a cool character just doesn’t get the treatment it deserves I suppose.

This game is packed to the brim with cosmetics and ways to customize your Sackboy. Zomzom is back from Little Big Planet to outfit you with all of the coolest gear, including tons of outfits referencing other Playstation characters and games. You have clothes everywhere from Ellie in The Last of Us, to Ratchet and Clank, even to Astrobot. And with every item available in dozens of colors, your Sackboy can be entirely your own. The options are nearly limitless.

I want to sing the praises of this game so badly, with all of its charm oozing from every little fold and crevice, but there’s just something that stops me from being totally in love with the experience. Sure, the platforming is tight and well made, the characters are charming, the levels are beautiful and fun… but there’s something still missing. The community that LBP had in its prior iterations was huge and blossoming. To see all of that removed in favor of a borderline generic platformer, despite its charms, is almost heartbreaking. It feels like having your LEGO set glued together. It’s permanent now. You can’t break it down and make your own ideas anymore. Everything that this franchise was made for no longer exists.

Your game can be fun and engaging and well crafted, but to remove the fan-creations from a series all about fan interaction is one of the biggest downgrades this series could have had. I really enjoyed my time with this game, but I also feel empty towards it. I have no reason to come back. Sackboy’s Big Adventure could have been bigger. Maybe we’ll see a sequel in the coming years that brings back what made the series feel special, but I’m doubtful.

Score: 5/10