Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Little Big Planet 3 is a creative platform adventure game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4.

The critical acclaim and popularity of the Little Big Planet series is unquestionable as the franchise has sold millions of units and downloadable content since it began with its original release on PS3 in 2008 before a PSP version followed in 2009 and with a sequel to the PS3 game released in January 2011 in the form of Little Big Planet 2. The series returned to portable gaming with Little Big Planet PS Vita in September 2012 ahead of the release of Little Big Planet 3 on PS4.

There have also been a range of spin-off games including the PlayStation Move game Sackboy’s Prehistoric Adventures on PS3 in December 2010, Little Big Planet Karting on PS3 in November 2012 and a free-to-play endless runner called Run Sackboy Run on iOS in October 2014. The series has won many awards throughout its iterations such as Best Game, Best Innovation and Best Visual Design from Edge in 2008; Best New IP and Most Innovative Design from IGN in 2008 and the BAFTA Award for Artistic Achievement in 2009 for the first Little Big Planet and the awards for the Family and Game Innovation categories at the 2012 BAFTA Awards for Little Big Planet 2, while Little Big Planet PS Vita won IGN’s Vita Game of the Year Award; Gamescom’s Best Mobile Game of the Year Award and TIGA Game Industry Awards Game of the Year in 2012, amongst many more awards. However, with Media Molecule having passed the torch on while they seek new ventures with Tearaway and any further projects; will Sumo Digital be able to improve upon the quality foundations laid by Little Big Planet’s original innovators?

The story revolves around Sackboy believing he is doing the right thing, but in fact being betrayed and having to make up for his intentional sins by saving the town of Bunkum and along the way enlisting the help of new characters including OddSock, Toggle and Swoop to help him save the day, although Sackboy must find valuable objects that belong to each of the trio before being able to rely on their help.

The three new playable characters, alongside the much welcomed return of Sackboy, have their own abilities such as OddSock being able to wall jump, slide down walls and has a faster running speed resulting in longer jumps, while Toggle earns his name from being able to switch between his large and powerful persona to a smaller alter ego capable of accessing smaller spaces, running along the surface of water and moving at faster speeds than the larger version of Toggle, alongside Swoop who is a bird with the capabilities of flying, gliding and carrying objects. This is an excellent design choice as it maximises the potential of different playable characters regarding how they are capable of opening up new areas within levels rather than just having a variety of looks.

The Adventure Mode encapsulates the story with 4 sets of levels including a Prologue that introduces players to the basics of the game and story, followed by an ever intriguing story based adventure that is told over 3 chapters or books as they are referred to in-game with the prologue and 3 books consisting of 5 adventure levels totalling to 20 story based adventures, although there are a total of 15 quests spread throughout the 3 books which significantly increases the amount of gameplay on offer from the Adventure Mode.

Challenge Rooms provide an additional gameplay element with levels that include a certain objective that wonders off the beaten path of the story, such as a machine turning Sackboy into an entire group of around 10 of which at least 6 must unfortunately be lead to Matilda’s mouth for her to chew and feed on in order to help Irene as she does not want Matilda to trash her kitchen while she is busy feeding her diners, while a Contraption Challenge sees players attempting to build a car worthy of competing against a friendly mechanic on track and a further Challenge Room pits the wits against the clock with a strict time limit of 47 seconds to hit all of the purple pads and simultaneously turn them into green before the individual white time counter contained within the centre of each pad returns their colour to purple along with the added puzzle twist of some pads needing to be touched, so another pad can move position to enable you to reach it.

The Popit Puzzles comprises of two terms of Popit Academy with both terms totalling to 12 sets of lessons in how to use important features of the popit such as the goodies bag which can create and manipulate objects to build bridges and the tools bag to lethalise or unlethalise a variety of objects and materials in order to progress beyond multiple hazardous areas of a level, amongst many more lessons.

A major new improvement for Little Big Planet 3 in comparison to previous incarnations is the inclusion of more layers in each level. There were previously up to three layers available, whereas there are now a maximum of 16 layers enabling players to move their character further forward or backward from the screen to provide more depth and less of an underused gimmick; it is actually used quite efficiently with a variety of adventure, platforming and puzzles to be solved as a direct result of having multiple layers in each level.

The popit is a very important feature in the game as it allows the player to customise their character with unlockable and downloadable costumes as well as changes to every area of the body, materials, accessories, clothes and colours; personal preferences such as objects that have been hearted; stickers and decorations to decorate any part of the environment with stickers collected within the game via prize bubbles that players will find positioned throughout the levels including such categories as animals, architecture, colours, doodles, foliage, signs, text and much more besides, while there are decorations for even more categories and the ability to use the PlayStation Camera to take a photo of anything the player desires to upload to the game and then include in the community created level is quite simply amazing, as is the ability to collect the community created prize bubbles from within their created and shared levels; alongside text chat with anyone playing the game alongside and the option to retry an area of the level if players have become stuck or made a mistake.

There is a range of power-ups including the Pumpinator which blows air towards or sucks away from a platform in order to access the area that a particular one was previously blocking entry to and the Blink Ball which works by allowing players to shoot a ball into pools of liquid that acts as a teleportation device for previously inaccessible areas of the level and is certainly at least partly inspired by Portal, amongst a further three power-ups that will progressively be unlocked as players continue their adventure.

The popularity of the level creator is unparalleled as there have been over nine million community created levels that have been produced and shared across the world and what makes this community spirit even better is that the full quota of the community created levels are immediately available to play regardless of whether they have been created from the previous games or the new release.

The level creator is so advanced that it provides players with the tools to create anything from wherever their imagination takes them and share their creations with the world therefore making for endless amounts of potential between the player and the rest of the world. All of the creation tools return from the previous Little Big Planet games with a further 70 brand new tools to let the imagination wander further than ever before, therefore allowing players to genuinely create customised costumes, stickers, decorations, prize bubbles, music sequences, sound effects, speech bubbles for stories, levels comprising of multiple layers to provide a greater sense of depth to the level design, entire game mode designs from players own original ideas and concepts or based upon source material that inspires them, while it is possible to even create individual power-ups by combining various elements, materials and logic, amongst many more creative features.

The creative tools have become so vast in scale and size that they will take a long time to fully grasp and learn to a professional level, although learning the creative tools has noticeably become more channelled to be aimed at having more fun rather than just having been given a series of exercises to find a way through due to the two valuable terms of Popit Academy.

There is something for everyone in the created levels whether racing cars is the thing that grabs you, in which there are a couple of excellently designed levels based upon Classic F1 Cars that even include historical facts within speech bubbles by SpeedyOlly or a variety of levels based upon favourite television series, films, music and games. Beyond Classic F1 Cars; standout levels include assault courses inspired by Total Wipeout, Takeshi’s Castle, Ninja Warrior and The Eliminator course from The Gladiators while there is an ambitious competitive racing level based upon the classic PS1 game WipEout 2097 with the level by Yoshi1996 and the amazing Cargo Plane level by Osvaldo_Sniper based upon the scene from the PS3 game Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. If players manage to find a subject matter that has not been covered yet, then it should be suggested to use that as motivation to create a level based upon it, enjoy playing it and share the level with the entire world.

The level and environment design has such a variety to it between the story, adventure, popit and community created levels that it must be applauded for such diversity and originality as there are many power-ups and character abilities that are specific to opening up new paths that lead to entire new areas of levels, while every level and environment remains unique.

The character design is as cute and cuddly as ever with fun and charming characters to encounter throughout the duration of the game which are constructed of real world materials and have their own unique skills and personalities; therefore elevating the character design quite significantly to a point in which every character is multi dimensional in regards to what they offer to the story and quality of the game.

Little Big Planet 3 supports the share feature that allows players to upload a video clip or screen shot to Facebook or Twitter; and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as the game is being experienced with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores the most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so players still have the chance to decide if they would like to share something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between the game footage and the players reaction from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future. The Share Play feature provides a platform for a gamer that does not own the game to take control of the game started and invited that person to play, although it only lasts for one hour; it is a great service as it effectively presents a one hour demo of the game to anyone invited who does not own it, while being an excellent sociable feature too.

Little Big Planet 3 supports the remote play feature that allows play on almost any PS4 game on the PlayStation Vita via a Wi-Fi internet connection by pairing up and configuring the settings on the PS4 and Vita, then entering the code provided from the settings menu on the Vita’s PS4 Link application with the initial setup taking around only two minutes. The performance during remote play is stunning as the graphical textures, audio and general performance are all of the same standard as the PS4 version, while the controls have been appropriately optimised as the core controls remaining the same with the touch pad mapped to the touch screen for popit related features, alongside the L2 and R2 buttons being mapped to the top left and top right of the touch screen which is the only downfall of the remote play control scheme as it makes moving the left or right arm while simultaneously changing the direction of the left or right analogue stick quite unnatural and perhaps they should have been mapped to the bottom left and bottom right of the touch screen or to the rear touch pad, but that is a minor criticism in an otherwise flawless transition to remote play functionality.

The downloadable content includes a diverse selection of creation tools, costumes and level packs ranging from the seasons and events of the year to official licenses such as Metal Gear Solid, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles, Marvel, Toy Story, The Muppets, The Nightmare Before Christmas and D.C. Comics, amongst others with more to follow and the positive decision to allow players to access DLC they have already purchased from previous games for free.

The controls are appropriately mapped to the DualShock 4 controller given how many abilities there are between each of the characters and Sackboy’s popit with the control scheme consisting of pressing X to jump or perform an action; holding O to display the sackpocket; holding triangle to access the quest log; pressing square to open the popit; pressing R1 to climb or grab onto an object; pressing left on the d-pad to rewind; pressing up on the d-pad to pause or play; pressing L2 or R2 followed by changing the direction of the left or right analogue sticks to move the left or right arm respectively; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to aim a power-up; pressing the share button takes you to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu.

Touch pad implementation has been fully utilised to open and navigate the popit, while also being able to use all of the popit features such as resizing and rotating the orientation with multi-touch, moving by swiping and placing stickers by tapping the touch pad, alongside gyroscopic motion sensing functionality for moving the character’s head up or down and left or right. The light bar implementation produces a light tone of yellow, although does not change colour regardless of the expression of the character, health or high score, while the DualShock 4 controller vibrates when the character is hurt or as the result of a heavy fall or when the environment is noticeably changing.

The graphical improvements in comparison to the prequels are clear to see with greater detail on the stitching of Sackboy, OddSock, Toggle and Swoop as well as the real world materials such as cardboard, wood, screws and everything else that players come across and the noticeably improved lighting really combine together to create a game that genuinely looks far superior to what has went before.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, pod, adventure level selection, community level selection, popit puzzles, store selection, me, options and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons with some support for the touch pad during gameplay menus such as the popit features despite not fully supporting the touch pad during menus, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick. The background of the menu screens revolves around whatever stickers or decorations that have been positioned on the walls of the pod, although there are always quite accessible shortcuts that will take players to the area of choice within a short period of time such as the store, play, me, last played community and recent activity icons that are carefully spread across the pod menu.

Little Big Planet 3 possesses an experienced voice-over cast which collectively provides a charming story together with narration from the returning series regular Stephen Fry, while reuniting with Hugh Laurie who voices Newton who have shared the screen together many times in Alfresco, Jeeves and Wooster and most notably in various seasons of Black Adder. Nolan North is one of the videogames industry’s most renowned voice-over and performance capture artists who voices Mystery has provided his voice and acting to one of the most iconic PlayStation characters all of all time in the form of Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series as well as voicing Oswald Cobblepot and The Penguin in three Batman games including Arkham City and Arkham Knight along with a variety of characters in LEGO Batman 2 and 3 amongst plenty more comic book related projects in both television and videogames such as Alistair Smythe in multiple Spider-Man games, Deadpool, General Zod in Injustice: Gods Among Us and retaining his Batman roles for Batman: Assault on Arkham cartoon and overlooked videogame gems Dark Void and Spec Ops: The Line. Peter Serafinowicz who has had success in videogames with Dark Souls II, LEGO City Undercover and Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior and in films with his starring role as Denarian Saal in Guardians of the Galaxy and even voiced Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. There are multiple layers of sound effects from character related sounds such as jumping, screaming in frustration when committing to retry a puzzle from the popit menu and using power-ups to the incidental sound effects of opening and navigating the popit menu, alongside the ambience of the environments such as animals and insects amongst any machinery, while the music is hugely satisfying in the sense that it is so varied and is supremely fitting to each individual level. The lack of DualShock 4 speaker implementation is quite surprising as it would have been used at its best if it had produced the voice-overs, while other possibilities include the sound effects and music.

The trophy list includes 32 trophies with 17 bronze, 8 silver, 6 gold and 1 platinum trophy. There are some easier trophies that will naturally be earned as players progress through the story such as the One Odd Sock bronze trophy for changing into OddSock; the Biggy and Smalls bronze trophy for changing into Toggle; and the Flapper bronze trophy for changing into Swoop, while the Old School bronze trophy for using a power-up from Little Big Planet 2 does not require players to own or have a save file from the previous game as the Grappling Hook, Grabinator and Creatinator power-ups are included as standard in the create mode. There are harder trophies such as the Freshman Creator silver trophy for acing Popit Academy Term 1; the Senior Creator silver trophy for acing Popit Academy Term 2; and the Ace Adventurer gold trophy for acing all of the Adventure levels amongst other trophies. It is estimated that depending upon skill, a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips and that it would take between 15 to 25 hours to platinum the trophy list.

There are no difficulty levels, although the difficulty curve naturally increases as players have to learn new abilities and power-ups as progression through the game is made, although the introduction of new gameplay elements is appropriately paced and does not overwhelm the player by throwing everything at them simultaneously, which is certainly a positive design choice that the gameplay benefits from.

The local and online multiplayer supports two to four players with competitive races in some story and community created levels and mostly co-operative fun gameplay throughout the story and community created levels, while there are particular areas of levels that contain prize bubbles which are only unlockable by having at least a second player involved in co-operative multiplayer, although all of these gameplay elements are available locally and online, alongside a further element of competitiveness even during co-operative multiplayer as players can compete for which player has the largest points tally.

The online leaderboards are focused on global rankings for every story and community created level with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); and their total amount of points accumulated with the positioning of each player based upon their score for that particular level.

The format of the story and layout of the levels combine in perfect harmony as the three new characters and Sackboy each have their own abilities that enable players to access different areas of a level, therefore providing a reason to revisit certain ones to find the rest of the prize bubbles. The co-operative and competitive multiplayer for two tofour players as well as the online leaderboards will have players coming back for different gameplay experiences with friends and family, although above all else the highlight has to be the limitless amounts of levels to play and explore from the user created content from across the entire world.

Overall, Little Big Planet 3 continues to embrace the mantra of “Play, Create, Share” which makes the game the closest players will ever come to having a virtual playground extravaganza while playing a videogame. Despite the glitches such as online multiplayer problems that launched with the game which will be patched out in upcoming updates; it is impossible to not be amazed by the amount of ambition the game possesses, especially from a creative, design and community perspective, so if you are a fan of platform games or creating and sharing something individually and uniquely built with the entire world, then look no further than the best creative toolset to date.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Little Big Planet 3
• Developer: Sumo Digital
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE)
• System: PS4
• Format: Retail/PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1-4 (Local and Online Co-Operative and Competitive Multiplayer)/Online Leaderboards
• Hard Drive Space Required: 12.33GB (Version 1.03)