A Question Of Scale

User Rating: 8 | Knack PS4

Most artificial beings are but mere automatons designed by humans to execute the tasks they are unwilling or unable to do themselves, but Knack stands out: he has soul. And whilst the common robot simply serves who smears its gears, he is cognizantly devoted to the human cause, in particular to his creator, the Doctor. Doctor Vargas, a world-renown inventor, has spent decades figuring out how to bring to consciousness the mysterious ancient relics their society is based on as a perpetual source of energy. The result is Knack, a “Relic Golem,” who can breathe, think by himself, the hence ingenuous hero of an eponymous action-adventure with platforming and puzzle elements.

A Relic Golem called Knack
A Relic Golem called Knack

Besides “life” the Doctor instilled Knack also a sort of Disneyan ethical code that lets him easily tell good from bad—such as vengeance or greed which drive the main antagonists, the goblin Gundahar and the billionaire industrialist Viktor, respectively. Initially Viktor is to help the other human volunteers—the Doctor and his assistant, Lucas, plus whose uncle, the adventurer Ryder—against the menacing goblins but soon he favors his own interest in the resourceful relics over the question where the green, blue, and yellow goblins got their equally colorful weapons and tanks from (which causally hints at the Doctor's own love-hurt past). Once both enemy parties taken care of, it is the ancient relics and their golem-ish guardians themselves that regain life after puzzling out the way into their vault, namely the petulant Giant Orb—through the evoked “great transformation”—that resembles in large scale what Knack has as his “heart.”

Unlock the secret of the orb
Unlock the secret of the orb

In fact, the relics that seem remotely inspired by Aztec mosaics are Knack's central element, both narratively and gameplay-wise: as common with “natural” resources, the hyperdense relics are vital to both goblin and human societies and as such source of conflicting interests, in particular those of Viktor (and Katrina, his mischievous Security Chief) who fancies the giant relics as “the next step of human evolution,” and Gundahar striving to “take revenge on humans for the Crystal Wars” that sent the goblins back to the wastelands. But the arcane force of Knack's chest orb can also draw something beyond raw energy from the relics: life, materialized in exponential growth, and dynamics, manifest in jumping moves and powerful punches. Both, in consequence, define the gameplay mechanics which basically require collecting Lego-like relics in every environment of the thirteen chapter long story in order to increase Knack's size and with it, his combative power.

Chilly abominable Knack
Chilly abominable Knack

No doubt, there are lots of enemies for which this latter is needed: bots, bats, and beetles; soldiers, scorpions, and spiders; metal mechs, tricky tanks, and grim guardians. And armored goblins of all sizes, all equipped with their particular weapon using a different attack type each, so that Knack might occasionally need to recur to more elemental materials such as glass crystals, broken icicles, scrap metal, wood logs to add an ephemeral quality or armor, plus corresponding hazards. So whereas “Stealth Knack” can sneak undetected through laser beams, his transparent crystals are easy to break; scrap metal, icicles, or wood logs, on the other hand, may temporarily increase armor and fist power but are sensible to magnetism or sun and fire exposure, thus making Knack “bleed out” comparably to Katrina's Poison Relic or else the unlockable Vampire Knack. It is a nice visual detail that icicles or crystals mix in appropriately when using one of the colored upgraded Knacks, giving him a temporarily green-icy blue (Emerald) or red-silver gray (Ruby) appearance, albeit in every cutscene he switches back to his original form.

Shrink down, for once
Shrink down, for once

Of course also Knack's health bar varies with his size—ranging from tiny when smallish to large when massive—as does stunningly the tessitura of his voice. Being easy to annihilate as bantam, a medium-sized Knack might be most gratifying to manage, whereas the jumbo form results in a very reduced scale (it's not really the buildings that become smaller). Yet upsizing isn't gratuitous but justified by ever huger enemies, from the potted bots at the begin to the giant guardians at the end, and thus Knack's opponents are almost always a match.

As they get bigger, enemies don't necessarily become fewer, though, yet Knack purposefully disposes also of three Super Moves—shockwave, storm of relics, and blast attack—that complement his basic jump-smash combos but are powered by the juicy sunstones, another ubiquitous resource otherwise supplying zinc yellow electricity.

It's a pity that one super move needs always a full charge to be executed—95% won't be enough—but luckily several of the 8 assemblable Gadgets, namely Sunstone Battery (one more ring), Double Battery (store twice the energy), and Harvester (get sunstones from defeated foes), allow to use sunstone more efficiently. There are other useful gadgets such as the Transmuter (sunstones release relics when health is low) and the Relic Detector while the Combo Meter and the Time Dilator boost above all Knack's combo attacks and slow-mo finishers, yet nothing like the Secret Detector that signals when close to a secret room, making finding the 68 hidden chests so much easier.

A question of scale
A question of scale

There are in total 40 Gadget parts plus a limited amount of each of the six different Crystal Relics—Aqua, Ruby, Emerald, Amethyst, Sunstone, Diamond, for the corresponding red, green, purple, yellow upgraded Knacks featuring altered stats—with a rarity ranging from 1 to 5 that can randomly be found in the chests, which albeit every item can be swapped for that of a PSN friend (except diamonds) does make several playthroughs necessary, and missed ones cannot be retrieved when using Chapter select after finishing the game.

Whether super move or jump combo, timing is all in Knack's attacks in tune with his dodging and has to continuously be adapted due to the enemies' different weapons and techniques. Throughout the game it usually is the foes of three or four area or time stages Knack has to deal with until reaching the next checkpoint (though progress is not saved when leaving the game before finishing an entire section). However, the on-the-spot groups of up to eight are usually composed of different kinds of enemies sporting another weapon and attack type each, which is what gives the game its actual difficulty and challenge, more than the few multiphase end-level bosses (The Chieftain's Mech, Gundahar's Robot, Katrina's Mech, The Giant Orb) and the generally easy platforming sections and puzzles. For instance, Knack might simultaneously face one goblin with a longsword, another one with (infinite) dynamite, and a third one with a sharp boomerang; so unless sunstone battery is available for a single super move he has to dodge-attack every one of them using a different timing that matches each attack type and speed (at once melee and ranged), with boomerangs requiring to jump twice while able to kill, alike the explosives, even posthumously. Where one might add that, depending on difficulty level and state of health, about one third of the enemies faced along the story can finish Knack off with a single blow.

A lost fight
A lost fight

Whereas the health bar gets fully restored after every death (but not when resting), the sunstone batteries don't if used right before dying, so even upgraded it is wise to conserve them for the bigger and final foes in a row. Jumping and above all, double jumping is as important to Knack as are his punches and thusly part of his main combos such as dive-attack and air-dodging, allowing to tackle an enemy from above or behind in order to avoid their shield as well as poisonous or explosive area effects. Yet though one might eventually get the knack of well-timed attacks, thoroughly playing the game considering the trophies' requirements might still be a question of perseverance rather than skill, with the exception perhaps of the speedrun Time Attack and ten-round Coliseum Attack Challenges. Moreover, Diamond Knack offers maxed out Attack, Defense, and Sunstone stats for the toughest tasks—if only the ten required diamond crystals weren't so frustratingly seldom to find, as more as only playthroughs using the same difficulty-tied save game permit to hoard the precious stones.

The polished graphics are as good as they may get to still appear those of an animation game, ranging from functional (Viktor's Palace) to fantastical (The Legendary Land) with chiefly bright colors; the camera angle, however, can be annoyingly rigid at times as an enemy might not yet cease aggression when being in a blind spot or offscreen.

The Legendary Land
The Legendary Land

Knack's not-as-simple story and its appealing protagonists weren't probably that enjoyable wouldn't the excellent voice acting (Ikechukwu Prince Amadi, JB Blanc, Mark Deakins, Jennifer Hale) so fittingly well complement the characters' Pixar-like animation, and also its chorally enriched symphonic soundtrack (Jim Dooley) is not merely formulaic but gives cinematic tension to the important moments of the game (e.g., the final Chapter 13-4).

Whether one does play this about twelve hour long game various times for its challenge, the collectibles, or to kick ass together with a metallic buddy (Robo Knack, local co-op only), Knack is a charming old-school adventure with much replay value: “I get big, I break things, I can't help it.”