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Digital Foundry: Sackboy: A Big Adventure - the Digital Foundry Tech Review - PS5 vs PS4 vs PS4 Pro!

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Serein

Serein

Member
Mar 7, 2018
2,346
Really enjoying this. My biggest gripes would be that it does feel a little slow after playing Astro and sometimes it can be tricky judging the spatial relationships between things due to the fixed camera angle and the grab mechanics occasionally letting you down leading to cheap deaths. As doing a level without dying is an objective this can be a little annoying but really these are minor complaints.

The visual style is so charming you constantly have a smile on your face. The game looks great with the lighting, extra details like the carpet and especially the reflections adding to the ambience and I'll take dynamic res with more effects like that over native 4k with less effects any day of the week. The real star though is the music. It's fantastic and covers such a wide range there's something for everyone. A particular highlight for me was the level featuring the Chemical Brothers' My Private Psychedelic Reel. Never would have expected that to be in there.

The loading is so damn fast too that it really does feel like a cartridge game as everything loads in game in a couple of seconds. I also timed loading into the overworld map directly from the PS Labo in Astro and it was under 12 seconds.
 
PLASTICA-MAN

PLASTICA-MAN

Member
Oct 26, 2017
23,612
The game doesn't have RT on PS5? Some speculated it has.
Also 1080p on PS4 Pro and 720p on PS4? What's going on? LBP3 didn't run like this.
 
VanWinkle

VanWinkle

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,094
PLASTICA-MAN said:
The game doesn't have RT on PS5? Some speculated it has.
Also 1080p on PS4 Pro and 720p on PS4? What's going on? LBP3 didn't run like this.
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It definitely doesn't. They've never mentioned RT so I don't know why people thought that.

It has really great and pravalent SSR. They're quite nice.

And 720 is the result of a super detailed 60fps UE4 game on a system with a bad CPU.
 
Bookman

Bookman

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,227
Really enjoy this video , especially at launch of a new system. It's really fun to see an unreal engine game that's been optimised for base ps4/pro/ps5. A little surprised by the base ps4 preformans at 720p but I'll guess the system is like 6 year old after all.

Biggest fan of digitalt foundry, they are the best.
 
PLASTICA-MAN

PLASTICA-MAN

Member
Oct 26, 2017
23,612
VanWinkle said:
It definitely doesn't. They've never mentioned RT so I don't know why people thought that.

It has really great and pravalent SSR. They're quite nice.

And 720 is the result of a super detailed 60fps UE4 game on a system with a bad CPU.
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DC5remy said:
I really thought it did also. Some of the lighting and reflections are incredible
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Cus of this:





So it's UE4? I wasn't aware. hmm. Yeah UE4 can be very taxing if not extremely optimised.
 
RayCharlizard

RayCharlizard

Member
Nov 2, 2017
2,959
The struggle is real keeping up with PS5's launch line up. I'm probably picking this up sooner rather than later. 😤
 
The Omega Man

The Omega Man

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,910
As completionist, can all costume pieces/ collectibles be gotten by 1 person?
I loved the previous entries but I had to juggle 2 or 3 controllers in previous games in order to get a few collectibles as they were in sections that required 2, 3 or 4 players coop.
 
bitcloudrzr

bitcloudrzr

Member
May 31, 2018
13,924
Jaypah

Jaypah

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,866
digitalrelic said:
This is the most surprising game of all the launch games for me. It's incredible.

I can't believe it's getting scores in the 7s. This feels like a legit 9/10 game to me.

Maybe it's because the only way I've played it is local coop, which is a freaking blast. It's the hit of my household.
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This is how I've been playing it too and so far (stopping for all of the orbs) it's easily a 9. Most fun I've had playing co-op in years.
 
Tora

Tora

The Enlightened Wise Ones
Member
Jun 17, 2018
8,639
The game itself is well designed and is great with another person, unsure how 4 people would be though.

Sackboy himself could control a little better though, it must be hard emulating something like Mario's moveset in Odyssey but in Sackboy it feels like he just needs a bit more speed between each transition.

Music/Graphics are delightful though, feels like one of Sumo's highest quality games.

Secretofmateria said:
Its strange they couldnt hit a full fat 4k on ps5, same with the lower resolutions of the pro and base model, i guess this game is visually More demanding than it initially looks
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It's not like you can really tell though, I remember trying to look for the res online, but just assumed that it was 1800p because it looked really sharp but not quite native 4k sharp
 
MrKlaw

MrKlaw

Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,053
sackboy looks great. Makes me itch looking at him with all his rough edges and loose fibres.

Dawn French's character is a disappointment in comparison - looks more like a flat sack texture.

They only mention SSR? No mention of ray tracing in the video (will watch later). Some of the reflections seem too accurate for SSR and I've tried running in front of the background objects. There are some odd smearing effects on some items but even like Zom Zom has reflections of sackboy in his tent - you can see it on his shiny face. If its all done with SSR its a damn fine effect.

game is a ton of fun - but I do wish you had three hits before you died - especially on boss and trials levels where two hits can be pretty harsh
 
plagiarize

plagiarize

Eating crackers
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
27,540
Cape Cod, MA
MrKlaw said:
sackboy looks great. Makes me itch looking at him with all his rough edges and loose fibres.

Dawn French's character is a disappointment in comparison - looks more like a flat sack texture.

They only mention SSR? No mention of ray tracing in the video (will watch later). Some of the reflections seem too accurate for SSR and I've tried running in front of the background objects. There are some odd smearing effects on some items but even like Zom Zom has reflections of sackboy in his tent - you can see it on his shiny face. If its all done with SSR its a damn fine effect.

game is a ton of fun - but I do wish you had three hits before you died - especially on boss and trials levels where two hits can be pretty harsh
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Notice how even when Sackboy has his back to the camera that you can only see Sackboy's shape not his face in reflections from things in front of him. A few games do some clever tricks with SSR to reflect your character back at you. Gears 5 is one. The giveaway is usually that the detail on the character is basically missing, though you get the general shape and colour. They take the side of the character you can see, and distort that for the reflection.
 
DieH@rd

DieH@rd

Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,567
Dark1x Thanks for the great tech breakdown, but can you please include at least minimal breakdowns of DualSense implementations for future PS5 games? Also, presence of in-game Activity cards and if the game supports jumping into the last quicksave straight from the PS5 menu?

Those two things could directly impact the gameplay [haptics/triggers] and convenience of identifying jumping in-point for play.
 
Timu

Timu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,555
Definitely getting this on PS5 whenever I get that console, this looks really good!
 
FFNB

FFNB

Associate Game Designer
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
6,111
Los Angeles, CA
Such a fun game! I love it. And it can be surprisingly challenging when you're trying to Ace a level. It's absolutely beautiful on the PS5, and it's as charming and delightful as the mainline LBP games.
 
AllChan7

AllChan7

Tries to be a positive role model
Member
Apr 30, 2019
3,670
This game is so damn underrated. It doesn't remotely feel like a 7.
 
foolishoptimist

foolishoptimist

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,844
Just played through the first 2 levels in co-op with my 4yo. Lots of fun. Incredible she can use such a big controller with her little hands.
 
Arta

Arta

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,445
foolishoptimist said:
Just played through the first 2 levels in co-op with my 4yo. Lots of fun. Incredible she can use such a big controller with her little hands.
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I bought this as an extra controller for the 5 year old (by Hori).

hori.0.png
 
Dictator

Dictator

Digital Foundry
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
4,930
Berlin, 'SCHLAND
PLASTICA-MAN said:
Cus of this:





So it's UE4? I wasn't aware. hmm. Yeah UE4 can be very taxing if not extremely optimised.
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Well this is wrong. You can see clearly in John's video how it is SSR.

Also - UE4's default RT reflections are so stupidly expensive even with a aggressive roughness cut off because they are extremely physically accurate. IF this game were running RT reflections, then it would not nearly run as well at such a high res if it did.
 
MrKlaw

MrKlaw

Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,053
well for highly distorted metallic objects like Sackboy uses a lot - I say more SSR please - assuming its a cheaper option than RT its barely distinguishable. Its all smoke and mirrors and these seem like good tricks to use effectively in this situations
 
KeRaSh

KeRaSh

I left my heart on Atropos
Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,254
Bought this on a whim last night. Might start this right now and bench Miles Morales for now. I just really crave a feel good platformer after playing Astrobot.
 
Samaritan

Samaritan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,696
Tacoma, Washington
God this game is just charming as hell, really incredible use of materials as well. I really didn't have any interest in playing Sackboy before watching this, but seeing it in motion has made me really want to give this a try.
 
Richietto

Richietto

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,979
North Carolina
The PS4 pro version seems really good considering all the added details on PS5. Really glad all the cross-Gen titles are doing more on the new hardware than how crossgen was last generation.
 
nampad

nampad

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,238
Game looks great.
Unfortunately, launch has already been stacked for me so I hope there is a sale soon.
 
VanWinkle

VanWinkle

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,094
Greatestjediever said:
Not that I recall. It really just felt like typical rumble game on the PS4. Triggers felt loose all game and they are used quite extensively for grabbing mechanic.
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Rumble is WAAAAY better than on PS4. I played them both and the difference was massive.

Adaptive triggers were not used much, though. Grabbing stuff had resistance in the bottom ~20% of the trigger push, and a click halfway for the hook shot, from what I remember.
 
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