Push Rewind: Was Knack Really That Bad?

Liam Croft: "As a PS4 launch title, Knack was seen as a beacon of hope to many nostalgic PlayStation devotees prior to release. Continuously referred to as the new system’s Crash Bandicoot, director Mark Cerny had a mountain of expectation placed on his shoulders as fans expected a return to form within a genre that had long since died out. And so upon its release in November 2013, it was almost inevitable that some supporters would be left feeling disappointed, but in the years since then it has become the butt of most PlayStation jokes."

[PhoenixUp]

Now that PS4 actually has Crash Bandicoot, what place does Knack have and what can it provide to stand out

[bluefox755]

Crash is very different than Knack. Knack is like half beat-em-up, half platforming. Crash is mostly just platforming with a few endless run levels thrown in.

[NotanotherReboot]

more like 95% beat em up

[Gazondaily]

Knack was whack.

[Sono421]

If you ask me Knack had good gameplay but terrible story, the writing and acting were just pitiful, that is where the sequel needs to improve, storytelling.

[AspiringProGenji]

Knack is new IP with potential. Crash is a remaster of an old game. And they play very differently

[PhoenixUp]

@ blue

Yes but Knack's biggest selling point at the time was that it was a game in the style of the classic games that Mark Cerny worked on. Now with many of those titles resurging Knack has to do more to be more memorable.

[OB1Biker]

I don't know why some people always go for hyperbole. Kid loves game. I love playing fun coop with kid. Done

[ninsigma]

Nope. Just overpriced for what it was at launch.

[WePlayDirty]

The story was always unfocused

[thatguyhayat]

Wait am I the only one who liked it? I had so much fun with the first one

[AspiringProGenji]

No you are not. I enjoyed it as a launch title, and that's it. Nothing to brag about, just fun!

I'm hopeful that this sequel will correct many wrongs with the first one

[SuperRaccoon]

I had a ton of fun with it. I played it on the hardest difficulty my first time around and it was intense. You die within a couple of hits and dodging becomes the key to survival. Great game.

[CaptainObvious878]

I had a lot of fun with it. I honestly don't know where all the hate was coming from.

[AnubisG]

It was a fun little game and by no means a bad one. I really enjoyed it. It was a good launch game.

[Blastoise]

It was okay. Wasn't a good game but wasn't the abysmal game some people made it out to be

[bluefox755]

It was a bit goofy, but it wasn't too bad. Also, surprisingly challenging for what looked like a kid's game. I really enjoyed the Knack 2 demo. Felt more like a beat-em-up than a platformer, and you just don't see those kind of games that often anymore. Hopefully the platforming sections are just as fun.

[NotanotherReboot]

It felt uninspired and was really repetitive

[ziggurcat]

It's a good game. It's a shame it was dumped on for being more "family friendly."

[coolbeans]

You're looking at the wrong critical reviews if that's what you've gleaned from them.

[ziggurcat]

What, precisely, were those "critical reviews" panning the game for? Because there was nothing wrong with the gameplay, especially if you played it on the hardest difficulty, there was nothing particularly wrong with the story, and there wasn't anything wrong with the graphics.

[NotanotherReboot]

lol what

[-GreenRanger]

It was dumped on for a better reason than that and if you've read a single low scoring review on the game, you wouldn't have posted this nonsense.

[ziggurcat]

And what reason would that be?

[gangsta_red]

That's a new one, "family friendly"? Who are what dumped on it for that?

[coolbeans]

To answer your question above: http://www.metacritic.com/g...

Take a look for yourself at the harshest critics here. Story, gameplay, and graphics are all criticisms literally mentioned in some of those descriptions.

[ziggurcat]

404 page not found. And besides, there's nothing wrong with any of the things you cited that would have been mentioned in those "reviews."

Story is fine.
Gameplay is solid.
Graphics are what they are because of the art direction - criticism of that is just silly.

[coolbeans]

Sorry about that. This one shouldn't get that error message: http://www.metacritic.com/g...

-"there's nothing wrong with any of the things you cited that would have been mentioned in those "reviews."

I mean...you're literally just spouting your opinion against said "reviews" when that's not even the reason people have been responding to your initial comment. It totally contradicts your unjustified assumption that people dumped on it for being "family friendly." People dumped on it b/c of perceived flaws...like any other game.

-"Graphics are what they are because of the art direction - criticism of that is just silly."

What? Of course that's valid criticism. It's on the team for aping a bland art style you'd find from a third-rate Pixar-wannabe, not the reviewers for pointing it out.

[ziggurcat]

I'm sure you've noticed the disparity between the critics vs. the user reviews. critics can be wrong, and the user reviews for this game in your cited link being overwhelmingly positive kind of shows that.

The game was dumped on for being a "kids" game by some people. that's dumping on it for being "family friendly."

No, it's not a valid criticism. Saying the graphics are "bad" just because you (and I'm using "you" in a general sense, here) don't like the art direction is idiotic. The graphics were good for the direction they had gone with - can you point out anything objectively bad about the graphics? Were the textures awful? Were they buggy? Was there anything wrong with the lighting? Was there anything wrong with the animation?

[coolbeans]

I mean...a disparity between 54 vs. 65 (critic/user) doesn't really strike me as that remarkable. It's of even less consequence to me when considering I give no credibility to metacritic user reviews. But if such an untrustworthy source as metacritic users is enough to determine a game's success to you, why wouldn't critics hold more weight in this instance too?

-"The game was dumped on for being a "kids" game by some people. that's dumping on it for being "family friendly."

1.) You're going to have to provide sources of said people dumping on it, hopefully from 'professional' game critics in order to make some case. Because the only negative ones I've personally seen went after story, game design, lackluster co-op, mechanics, unjust $60 price point, and on and on and on.

2.) Now you're moving the goalposts from your initial comment. Your first comment (which everyone responded to) presented the assumption of it being a kids game/family friendly as being the reason it was dumped on--presumably by the vast majority of those critical of it. Now we're stepping away from to argue about what 'some people' have said about it before. Are you willing to admit most critics/gamers who did dump on the game simply critiqued it like any other game, and not in some special category for being a kid game?

-"No, it's not a valid criticism. Saying the graphics are "bad" just because you (and I'm using "you" in a general sense, here) don't like the art direction is idiotic."

Why? Seriously, art style informs the way the game looks just as much as animations or textures. Sure, if it's simplistic to the point "I don't like art direction ='s bad" then fine, but that's not really the case here. It's an assessment of Knack's incredibly basic, uninspired art style which can inform how everything else looks: bland environments and all. Heck, at launch some reviewers' mentioned framerate issues when a lot of particles were on screen; in fact, particles is really the only one feature I can think of that even tough critics applauded at the time.

[ziggurcat]

"I mean...a disparity between 54 vs. 65 (critic/user) doesn't really strike me as that remarkable."

The disparity is in the positive numbers - 9 vs. 153 critic/user written reviews. And come on... you know that the number is going to mathematically even out when that 6.5 user rating score is based off of 1106 user ratings. And even then, if you click on that link: http://www.metacritic.com/g... the positive ratings slightly more than double the negative ones (I'm not counting the mixed reviews - just the negative vs. positive). Critics can be wrong.

"Why? Seriously, art style informs the way the game looks just as much as animations or textures."

Not liking the art style isn't a valid criticism of a game. It's just not. Of course it informs the way the game looks, but it doesn't determine whether the graphics are "bad." Even if you personally don't like the art style, the graphics in this game are far from being bad.

"... Heck, at launch some reviewers' mentioned framerate issues when a lot of particles were on screen..."

That's a performance issue, not really a bad graphics problem.

[coolbeans]

-"The disparity is in the positive numbers - 9 vs. 153 critic/user written reviews. And come on... you know that the number is going to mathematically even out when that 6.5 user rating score is based off of 1106 user ratings."

Well, what you wrote previously wasn't really made clear in respect to written reviews. And no...I don't rely on a user rating 'evening out' based off 1000+ user ratings b/c unreliable community averages can be sporadic on there to begin with. I've seen low-rated games net moderate scores too.

-"...if you click on that link: http://www.metacritic.com/g... the positive ratings slightly more than double the negative ones (I'm not counting the mixed reviews - just the negative vs. positive). Critics can be wrong."

So...why have the goalposts shifted in disregarding mixed reviews? Can those also not fit into being 'critical' of the game as well? And as I've already stated: you're literally using one of the most unreliable sources in order to prove critics being 'wrong' here. With the exception of angry fans blasting a game for a buggy launch, I put no trust in metacritic users. You're testing my patience with all this whittling down of inconvenient data and backpedaling.

-"Not liking the art style isn't a valid criticism of a game. It's just not. Of course it informs the way the game looks, but it doesn't determine whether the graphics are "bad."

1.) Presenting little else than "it's just not" as your counterargument holds little water. I can say "it just is" and we're on equal footing.

2.) Do you not see the contradictory nature in these two sentences back-to-back? If you acknowledge art style does inform a game's look (i.e. what's constantly brought up when discussing graphics), how can we not criticize a game for having bad graphics when it has such a bland art style? There's no better AAA-priced case study as Knack to assess that.

Why are you suddenly specifically extrapolating minor objective measurements (buggy textures, etc.) as the only valid method of assessing a game's graphics when that's rarely how critic reviews operate? Reviewers don't focus on the Bioshock series' unbuggy textures when discussing graphics; instead, they're evaluating the environmental design, characters, enemy design, etc.

-"That's a performance issue, not really a bad graphics problem."

I suppose that's more of a grey area topic, as performance can indeed be more informative of gameplay. But in relation to graphics, I like to see in a graphics context too. A consistency to see those pretty images is just as important too.

[ziggurcat]

"Well, what you wrote previously wasn't really made clear in respect to written reviews."

Seeing as how there are two columns almost immediately visible, with stats above those columns showing the amount of positive/mixed/negative ratings, I thought that was fairly clear - I also said reviews, not scores.

"And no...I don't rely on a user rating 'evening out' based off 1000+ user ratings b/c unreliable community averages can be sporadic on there to begin with. I've seen low-rated games net moderate scores too."

Which is why I focused on the number of positive vs the number of negative rather than the scores themselves. The facts are there - users thought the game was good based on the positive vs. negative stats, which flies in the face of these critics' "reviews" telling everyone that the game is bad. Critics can be wrong, and this isn't the first game where this has happened, either.

"So...why have the goalposts shifted in disregarding mixed reviews?"

I never once mentioned mixed, I have only talked about positive vs. negative.

"... you're literally using one of the most unreliable sources in order to prove critics being 'wrong' here..."

Well, that's interesting... considering that you're using metacritic as an allegedly reliable source of information in order to prove critics are "right" in their assessment of it being a "bad" game, here... but you're dismissing 2/3 of the information (the user reviews, and user ratings are different stats). And I think before you call the user reviews unreliable, you should probably take a look at the positive/negative sites linked to those stats...

"Do you not see the contradictory nature in these two sentences back-to-back?"

There is nothing contradictory. The art direction doesn't determine whether the graphics are bad. What determines whether graphics are bad is, as I said before, if they're awful textures, bad animations, buggy, etc... those are objective methods of determination.

"how can we not criticize a game for having bad graphics when it has such a bland art style?"

... because whether you consider the art style to be "bland" doesn't mean the graphics are "bad."

"Why are you suddenly specifically extrapolating minor objective measurements (buggy textures, etc.) as the only valid method of assessing a game's graphics when that's rarely how critic reviews operate?"

... because that's what determines whether the graphics are bad... and I've not just "suddenly" extrapolated "minor" objective measurements - I said the same thing when people dumped on Fallout 4's graphics.

"I suppose that's more of a grey area topic..."

Well, no... frame rate doesn't have anything to do with the perceived quality of graphics.

[coolbeans]

-"Which is why I focused on the number of positive vs the number of negative rather than the scores themselves."

Okay. I've taken notice of that, which I still covered within an earlier response about giving no credence to metacritic users to begin with (ratings, reviews, stats, whatever) outside of a very specific context. And why relying on them as some gotcha for more critical reviewers being 'wrong' does nothing.

-"Well, that's interesting... considering that you're using metacritic as an allegedly reliable source of information in order to prove critics are "right" in their assessment of it being a "bad" game, here... but you're dismissing 2/3 of the information..."

...because your initial response back to me never require me to do such a thing. You're either being willfully ignorant or incredibly dishonest of what set off this entire thing in the first place:

1.) You: an assertion of Knack being dumped on for being more family friendly/kids game
2.) Me: a refutation to said disingenuous claim providing a link that showed what critical reviewers were ACTUALLY dumping on the game for.

That's it. That's literally all the conversation ought to be riding on, of which it's gone so far off course you didn't even bother addressing my direct question about this a couple comments ago.

The back-and-forth regarding graphics is really doing nothing for me other than to waste time at this point--of which you've already wasted enough already.

[Lightsbane]

I actually really liked the game. My main complaint (other than the frame-rate) would be that there was too much "smashing" and not enough platforming. But that got a little better towards the end.

If they can fix that, Knack 2 will probably be a great title.

[InMyOpinion]

Judging by the demo it's all about fighting. And it got repetitive real quick.

[DialgaMarine]

No. Knack was not a bad game. It wasn't an amazing game, but it was decent; certainly better than what most reviewers have it for a score. It didn't do anything special, but it looked pretty, ran like a dream, and had virtually no glitches or game-breaking issues. It was good simple fun.

[sk8ofmnd]

Knack really wasnt that bad when considering it was a year 1 ps4 game. It was kind of bland but so were most games released at this time. Knack did become much more challenging in the later rounds and the 2nd 1 looks to improve on the 1st one in almost every aspect, which is all a gamer like myself could ever ask.

[jokerisalive]

It was a fun solid game and something different from all the typical shooters we get nowadays. I can't wait for knack 2.

[badboyz09]

No knack was a 6.9/10

[ApocalypseShadow]

It's subjective. Whatever the case, Sony isn't abandoning the IP and giving it another shot. Just like crash was good but got better in the sequels that followed, knack should be allowed to make up for its shortcomings. And, since Mark Cerny built the runaway train that is PS4, that is capable of doing VR today, I think he's allowed some leeway.

Now Sony, can I get a sequel to The Order 1886? Please and thank you.

[TheRealHeisenberg]

It was a bucket of suck!!! I have nothing more to add.

[kevinsheeks]

do you know where we are? anything but a "it wasn't that bad" would get you thumbs down

[Lightsbane]

Then why do I only have disagrees?
The thing is, I actually finished the game and have some constructive criticism to make.

The cut-scenes were choppy as hell, no idea what was going on there.
There was too much fighting and not enough platforming, during the first half of the game at least.
Dodging with the right stick wasn't responsive enough. It worked, but only barely.
There were obvious frame dips (into the 20s, I assume), especially when you used your powers. Then it just straight-up lagged most of the time.
The story was all over the place. One minute you're chasing goblins, the other you're looking for a key... or rescuing a damsel in distress... or saving the world... bit of a mess, really.

The people who just come here and say "it's shit"... well, I find it hard to take them seriously.
I paid 10 bucks for the game and it was money well spent. I wonder if most of these guys even played the damned thing, or are just parroting some reviewer's opinion.

[Kribwalker]

I bought it in the $5 January or February flash sale, as well as the order, it was quite a meh game, but worth $5. If I paid full retail I'd have been pretty mad

[Timesplitter14]

My biggest problem with Knack is that the character's design is very unappealing due to pretty much just being a technical showcase for the PS4 (and not such an impressive one either)

[343_Guilty_Spark]

It was decent

[Platformgamer]

Knack isn't a bad game, au contraire is a very good game:
nice story, challenging at higher difficulties, the collectibles social-idea is very nice, knack is a fantastic protagonist, growing/srinking is cool, co-protagonists are not bland, good post game modes (arena and time attack), grafically stunning for 2014 standards, beat-em up enemies is basic, yes, but satisfing (and repetitive only if you don't like the game) and the platforming is good, even if there's not much platforming tbh... Ah yes, it's fun in co-op :)
For me is a 8/10.
Knack 2 seems even better, balancing beat-em up and platforming a little more, adding nice things like QTEs and FP sections, giving knack more moves and focusing more on the co-op side for "family" purposes.
As i said years ago, if on the knack game was written nintendo, 8-9/10 popped up like fireworks ;)

[Elda]

Nope I enjoyed it & hopefully I will enjoy Knack 2.

[Retroman]

Knack was wack Good . but after downloading Knack 2 demo for 3 hours gameplay was short. few punches , Super-hyper stretch punch ,back-flip jump few times demo over.
i'm like Whud?? 3 hour download for 5/half minutes gameplay .
hope the full game better.

[-GreenRanger]

It's a bad game. Nothing wrong with liking it though. There are many bad titles that I had fun with, but at the same time agreed to the scores. Unfortunately Knack isn't one of them. At best it's a tech demo. The game felt very bland, very boring, and served as a distraction from the lack of exclusive games on PS4 at the time of launch... Knack 2 doesn't look any better. It's really surprising the game is actually real.

[SharnOfTheDEAD]

People forget there's people under the age of 14 that enjoy video games, the amount of parents that struggle finding age appropriate games is more than you'd think, least on PlayStation there's a few good child friendly games like Tearaway, Crash, Knack, Little big planet and everybody's Golf. I think a lot of adult reviewers forget this.

[chris235]

Knack is hands down a very modern "Mario Jumper", just with shitty character design.

[Tross]

Nope, I don't think it's that bad a game. Unremarkable maybe. It would have flown under the radar and gone unnoticed if it wasn't a launch title for the PS4. As such, it was unfairly expected to be a system seller for the PS4 when it was really just meant to be a fun little game that harkened back to eras past. Of course, the negative press probably benefitted Knack as it was talked about a lot rather than simply going unnoticed.

[andibandit]

Wasn't bad, just wasn't particularly good either.

[Starman69]

Its for kids lol. My 5 year old (at the time) loved the first game. Cant wait to play co-op with him in the sequel. 😊