Game:

Knack II (2017)

Category:

Review

Duration: 12:09

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The original Knack was met with a decidedly lukewarm reception, and for good reason. It didn’t really know what it wanted to be – it was too punitive to be a kids game, but it lacked the sophistication or variety to be anything much more. The sequel isn’t without problems, but it’s much improved, with a solid mix of gameplay elements, anchored by fun combat and good pacing.Knack’s core abilities remain much the same. He’s able to gather relics to grow in size, gaining strength and resilience in the process, and allowing for some fun shifts in scale. These are still very much prescribed – there’s no player strategy associated with growing larger, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less entertaining to rampage through a city as a 20 foot leviathan, sweeping aside enemies that once offered a challenge with a single blow.Knack can also shed his relics in an instant to fit into small doorways, skirt under spinning blades or leap between little ledges, then reform on the other side. It’s an enjoyably dynamic ability and heavily factors into Knack 2’s platforming, puzzle solving and secrets.If you’ve ever played a platform game before you know what to expect here – elaborate gauntlets comprised of moving platforms, tricks, traps, steam vents and the like. The puzzle solving is similarly familiar – you’re shifting blocks around, weighing down pressure sensitive switches, bouncing lasers off mirrors to activate doohickies and so on. That’s not to say these sequences aren’t well-designed or satisfying, however – they are – they’re just staples of the genre.There are just enough ingredients to keep things fresh too. Like the last game, Knack can gain an armour-like shell made up of different materials like ice, metal or iron. Ice Knack can freeze enemies on the spot, for instance, but he can also lock gears in place. And if you shift back to small Knack from any of these forms you’ll leave behind a statue that can be used to weigh down switches. It’s simple stuff, and the game decides when and how you use these abilities, but they’re engaging nonetheless, and in line with what Knack 2 wants to be – a well-paced action platformer with puzzle elements, in which the player is always making progress.To that end, checkpointing is generous, so if you miss a jump or get killed in combat, you’re generally only moments away from where you died. That’s definitely appreciated, and means you’ll rarely get frustrated. On normal difficulty there are a few minor challenge spikes, but it’s pitched about right for average gamers, and combat encounters mix and match enemies to force you to prioritise and use different tactics. Electrical enemies need to be disabled before you can attack, for instance, while projectiles can be parried, shield-bearing foes can be opened up with a heavy attack, distance can be closed using a spinning overhead whip and groups of small, squishy enemies can be pummelled with a body slam.There are some neat touches that add additional layers to combat
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Source: http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/09/05/knack-2-review

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