Knack 2 review: Smashing past the ruins

Knack is back and trying to prove that he’s learned lessons from his first appearance, but only some of those lessons are actually improvements.

Developer: Sony
Publisher: Sony
Platform: PS4
Release Date: September 5, 2017

Everyone has spent the last several months laughing at Knack 2, a plucky little sequel coming to salvage a series that disappointed on its first go-around. That’s not to say there was nothing to salvage. The basic concept of a size-changing protagonist stomping everything else into pieces showed promise in its first iteration, and Sony has seized upon this to bring a competent, co-op beat-em-up with Knack 2. Unfortunately, Knack’s dragging some heavy baggage on that piecemeal body of his, keeping this from being the triumphant salvation the franchise needed.

Knack is a strange, mystical creature composed of tiny pieces called “relics,” and can grow or shrink based on how many relics he has attached to him at a given time. Knack 2 sends him, accompanied by his human friend, Lucas, on an adventure across a broad range of eye-catching environments. Despite being mostly linear in terms of exploration, the attention to detail on each new map is clear, right down to the subtle, energizing music bouncing you along.

Having not played the original Knack, I didn’t think it too much to ask that its sequel provide me at least an iota of orientation as to what the heck was going on or who all these characters were. Most sequels provide either some kind of summary at the start of the game, if needed, or enough context as the plot goes on that newcomers can follow. But by the end of Knack 2, I was still completely unaware of who half the cast was or why they were important. There was a nice blond woman who seemed to care for Lucas–is she his mother, or just a friendly lady? Why was the Doctor fellow so rude to Lucas? Why does Rider keep creepily stalking this Katrina woman even though she has a whole security system specifically to keep him out?!

I have no idea what the hell Knack 2 is supposed to be about.

These are questions I wanted answers to, and while past game context might have helped, the god-awful story pacing, pell-mell themes, and abysmal writing made it impossible to parse what I ought to have known from what no one could have figured out ever. My list of issues with Knack 2’s attempt at plot could be written out and stretch from New Haven to the Monastery. There are gaping plot holes, such as the absence of anything resembling a military, government, police force, or similar on this entire planet, or the fact that characters just seem to magically find specific, plot-necessary locations that have been hidden for millennia the first time they fly a helicopter to a random desert. I could go on about how the main villain flips from “well-meaning, but misguided” to “full-blown, monomaniacal evil” in the space of two scenes with seemingly no obvious trigger.

I could even go on about the “themes” of the story, which are different in every scene. One minute we’re trying to have a serious conversation about pacifism and aggression in war, and the next we’re brutally slaughtering an entire city of goblins and knocking over their fruit stands just because we think they might have something we need at the center of it. There’s something in there about friendship, or trust, or growing up, probably, but it’s all so twisted and convoluted I couldn’t explain it to you. I could go on, but to summarize: I have no idea what the hell Knack 2 is supposed to be about. If they gutted the entire B-level Pixar script and left it as a game where you just indiscriminately smash stuff, Knack 2 would be infinitely improved.

Because when you’re not rolling your eyes incessantly at the cutscenes and dialogue, Knack 2 is damn fun to play, especially in co-op. As a single player adventure, Knack’s brief escapade is competent enough. You won’t find too much to sneeze at with its platforming challenges or exploration. Knack 2 makes good use of Knack’s size changing abilities throughout, giving you ample puzzles that use him at his smallest, tallest, and in three different forms: metal, ice, and stealth. I felt that they could have gone much farther with these options, though…and was admittedly a bit disappointed I didn’t get to spend more time as an enormous, 30-foot Knack, smashing things up.

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But the beat-em-up gameplay is another thing entirely. The satisfaction of punching, kicking, and body slamming your way through endless piles of boxes and rubble is compounded further when you bring in a friend for drop-in, drop-out at any time co-op. Knack 2 abandons the weak “little brother” style of its predecessor and gives each player a fully functional Knack, even going so far as to complicate certain puzzles so they require both characters to solve  Both players work together in quick time events, and enemy encounters seem to feature more enemies.

There are plenty of ways to use and abuse teamwork with Knack’s move pools to make these encounters even more fun, such as stunning enemies with one Knack while you use a slow, powerful attack with the other, or punching your friend into enemies for huge damage. The entire game was obviously designed around this co-op mode working well, as camera angles (for the most part) stayed friendly to both players, it’s easy to catch up if you fall behind, and either player can lead the way without sending someone off-screen.

Your ever-growing skill tree rises to meet each new challenge in the campaign, giving you a hefty toolbox by the end that you’ll know how to use effectively for each different encounter. Four different levels of difficulty and a New Game+ mode ensure that you get the most out of that skill tree, too, especially since its upper echelons are difficult, if not impossible, to reach in a single playthrough. Time Attack levels, scoring challenges, and and a battle mode with endless waves of enemies are available once you complete the game, allowing you to hone your skills and enjoy the benefits of completing some of Knack’s rarer crystal forms via collectibles.

I feel torn over whether or not I liked Knack 2. Its core, basic gameplay is solid and fun, but there are far too many caveats to enjoying it properly. You really need a friend on the couch with you to fully enjoy what it has to offer, and you have to be okay with groaning in exasperation any time the action stops, because almost every line of dialogue is agony. As far as improvement over the original, Sony has it half-right. Hopefully, they can get the plot straightened out for the hinted-at (and probably inevitable) debut of Knack 3.

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A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.