I've been behind on LBP games. I played 1 & 2, but never got around to playing the Vita game or LBP3. Right before the PS5 launch and Sackboy launch I was curious to see what to expect from a Sumo Digital LBP platformer. I like Sumo Digital and they're a good dev, but I mostly know them from their racers like Outrun 2 and Sonic Transformed.
I looked up the reviews for LBP3 before playing and they were generally about 8/10. Good, but nothing new or special for LBP.
I started playing LBP3 and right off the bat this game was incredibly charming. You can say LBP always has been, and you'd be right. But there was so much creativity on display from the start with the platforming, the puzzles, the abilities you get like teleporting or ROCKET SHOES, and then the new characters were excellent. Whether it's Tonk doing all kinds of fun puzzle platforming as you switch between big & small (which was really fun), or Swoop diving through levels or the dog doing fun wall bounce speedruns, the gameplay was incredibly varied, diverse and full of charm. It's just an extremely well designed game.
Now I stopped about midway through LBP3 when Sackboy came out and played through that and actively disliked that game. Just felt like Sumo Digital did not understand how to make a platformer on a very fundemental level. Sackboy is slow, clunky and both boring & frustrating at the same time. It's like they tried to make the most uninteresting simple platformer for their first attempt at 3d. It made me scared to go back to where I left off LBP3, because Sackboy gave a good first impression as well and got worse and worse as it went.
So I went back to LBP3 yesterday and just finished it and...it never gets bad? It continued to be an absolutely fantastic puzzle platformer and reminded me a lot of another underrated platformer, Puppeteer. The gadgets and playable characters in LBP3 puts this campaign way above the first two LBP games (though I still think Media Molecule is an incredible dev and love what they started with LBP and loved Tearaway and what I've played of their Dreams campaign). The variety in LBP3 really bring enough varied quality to put it this campaign up there with some really great platformers. Awesome music and art as well. And yes, it's still a physics platformer and the physics have float to them.
...and then it ended.
So LBP3's one (and only imo) crime is that it's an extremely good puzzle platformer campaign that is 3 worlds and a tutorial long. Maybe 4-5 hours total. I thought I was about halfway through when the final boss showed up. With the gadgets and new characters so good, it's a bit of a bummer they only get used for a stage or two (and are used very well), and then it's over. Like the rocket boots are really great and they get one main stage. They could have easily made double the length campaign with all the tools you get, but I guess they figured the online portion of LBP would carry the replay value of the game after that. I'm a little curious at what some of the better user levels are like with these new tools & character. There's so much possibility there.
I wish with Sackboy (which is over double LBP3's length), that Sumo Digital would have built from this incredible LBP3 campaign as a base and made a really amazing game like this again but longer similar controls and abilities. Sackboy is such an incredibly slow character in his game and his moveset is so limited. And Sackboy just lacks a lot of the charm and wonder of their LBP3 even if it has shinier better graphics. I gotta wonder how the team went from something so fantastic and ambitious to something so plain. I guess 3d is hard.
If you have a PS5 and have PS+ LBP3 is included in the PS+ collection and you own it and I'd highly recommend giving it a try! It might take a few minutes to adjust because it's locked 30fps (I have a feeling the framerate is tied to the physics), but once you do the game still looks and plays great and I had no issues playing the campaign through on PS5. I'd easily recommend it over Sackboy if you're looking for a platformer besides Astro's on your new system. Also for all PS4 players that still haven't played LBP3, easy recommendation as well. Pretty sure it's very cheap these days.
Even the costumes are better (and cheaper) in LBP3 compared to Sackboy. Costs like 5-15 bells a costume and can change costumes during stages, whereas Sackboy is like 1200-1500 bells and can only change in the shop :(
