Finished this last night, PSN says I've put about 40 hours into it but considering I leave it on pause for a bit during every session it's probably something like 35 hours. Absolutely loved it throughout but a bit of frustration did set in during Worlds 4 & 5.
You definitely see the games' teeth in the last couple of worlds, it was relatively straightforward difficulty-wise for the first 3 worlds but it definitely ramps up quite a bit in world 4 and 5. I do love a challenging platformer so these were a welcome treat, but I did find myself getting frustrated at times having to go through certain levels without dying to get the gold medal prize. These final two worlds don't have as much charm to them as the previous three, they're missing a certain something and the musical accompaniments aren't quite as good - aside from an awesome level set to Britney Spears' Toxic - which is why it ultimately dropped down a point for me in my scoring.
When I finished it it opened up a whole new bonus world so I'll make a start on that as soon as I've finished picking up a few more orbs from the World 5 levels. Speaking of World 5 levels I spent ages yesterday replaying the same level over and over again to get the high score for the Gold medal prize and finally managed it after about 90 minutes. Just before bed the missus fell asleep so I hopped on for an hour, managed to finish and gold medal 3 of the remaining 5 levels I have to do in World 5, crazy how easy these were compared to that other bloody stage, that's just the way it goes I guess.
I realised I neglected to speak about the Multiplayer side of this game in my previous post. It's bloody good! It's drop in, drop-out so you can either search for a game or just put yourself as a host, play a few levels and eventually someone will pop-in and join you. It's cross-platform as well so you can play with folks on PS4 also, it has led to a few bugs and disconnects though, a few times I've had to close the game down in the PS5 dashboard because it had just hung loading a level when in MP. But most of the time it works really well. It's just nice to jump in with a few people and run through a level with all the chaos another 1-3 Sackboy's brings, all hopping about collecting various bits and pieces, dying all over the shop, it's just good manic fun compared to when I'm on my own, concentrating, playing through a level seriously and picking up all the accoutrements. I've just been playing with randoms, but this would be such a fun game to go through with a friend or three.
Still undecided about whether to for the Plat in this. To be able to do so I have to finish another 8 levels without dying in Multiplayer - which seems a very difficult task - and to complete a amalgamation of all the different Time Trial courses patched together into one long course in under 10 minutes, with no checkpoints. Neither sound too appealing but I'll play through the bonus world, finish that and see how I feel from there.
Honestly such a fantastic game, it's a great value proposition with all the levels and MP shenanigans included as well, I don't think I would've had anywhere near as much fun with it at launch without the Online MP. Went to bed last night and couldn't stop thinking about it, the sign of a great game. This has honestly been the biggest surprise of the PS5 launch for me, I knew I'd love Miles and Demon's Souls but this has been a real treat.
