Knack II is the sequel to the PlayStation 4 launch game, an action platformer. The original game wasn't that great; with below average level design, a tedious combat style and high difficulty, Knack II pretty much fixes all those problems. Most importantly, Knack II is fun to play.
The game retains the same style. The main gimmick being that the character you control, Knack, is comprised of many smaller pieces called relics. As a result of this, he can change size. Unlike the original game where you size is predetermined, Knack II gives you a bit more freedom. You can freely change between small and big sized Knack at the press of a button. This is required for platforming, solving puzzles, and finding hidden areas. As you progress through each chapter, you will eventually gain more and more pieces to get giant-sized.
Knack's main combat abilities in the beginning are a punch and kick. He can jump, block, dodge and reflect projectiles back to enemies. It's easy to pick up and the first level does a great job at being both a tutorial level and something to whet your appetite as it was exciting to complete. Knack has a skill tree and as you defeat enemies, you gain what is effectively experience. Using these points you can unlock further moves or boost Knack's power. Hidden through the levels are also chests which hide parts of gadgets. Getting all the parts of a gadget will allow you to equip it and use its ability which is very useful.
Furthermore, even if you miss the collectibles, Knack still gains additional moves via the story. This makes the game much more varied and keeps it interesting. Perhaps the best part is how enemies that had troubled you before now becomes easier. For example, you'll encounter enemies that moves and dodges pretty quickly, just as you're slowly finding your way around it (and getting annoyed), Knack gains the ability to pull them inwards from afar making ti so much easier.
Unlike the first game's uneven difficulty, Knack II is spot on. Yes, if you're going to play on Normal, it's generally quite easy but there are still sections where you'll be crowded by multiple enemies and need to dodge quite often in order to not get killed. Knack also gets regenerating health and there is less focus on combat and more on platforming. While you still do a fair bit of fighting against multiple enemies, it doesn't get overwhelming and Knack's hits feel much more satisfying. There are a total of four difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard.
Despite being a platformer, Knack II boasts plenty of story cutscenes. It starts off with a bang as the player is thrust right in the middle of an attack by giant robots. Knack plows ahead to defeat all the robots before, as expected, we are thrust back to six months ago to see how events got up to this point. The story actually takes place a few years after the first game. The returning characters are older although apart from a few references, Knack II is its own game. Goblin attacks are on the rise again and Lucas and Knack go and investigate. They find ruins and relics and things just escalate from there to the point of the world being threatened again. While there are plenty of cutscenes, the gameplay to story ratio is a lot better and you feel like you're always progressing. The story itself though doesn't draw you in too much.
The story attempts to put in surprising twists but they don't really work. Some of the characters have unlikable personalities which makes it really hard to care about them when they're in danger. The game starts to outstay its welcome towards the last few chapters as it felt like they were dragging it out. It starts to pit you against enemies that require certain gimmicks to defeat. On their own, it's fine but when the game puts three to four at once and then throws a couple of enemies with ranged attacks, it gets really annoying.
The game looks fantastic with colorful environments. If you have a PlayStation 4 Pro, then you can either opt for higher resolution or keep it at 1080p but boost the framerate to a near constant 60 FPS. It is somewhat annoying that the camera angles are fixed though. Knack II only takes around 10-12 hours to finish which is actually quite a decent length for a platformer. The final boss was interesting and can feel cheap in the beginning since there are no checkpoints. If you die, you have to restart from the beginning of the battle but it ends up being a very easy boss once you've seen its attacks a few times.
After you cleared the game, it unlocks five time trial levels and three coliseum levels. Furthermore, you can replay chapters to complete specific challenges and earn Knack Medals (which does nothing). You can also unlock New Game Plus which lets you keep all your unlocked abilities and powers, that said, it makes the game too easy. Overall, Knack II is a definite improvement over the original. It manages to fix all the flaws and ends up becoming an enjoyable blend of combat and platforming. The graphics are great, the level designs are solid and most importantly, it is actually fun, injecting a surprisingly large amount of variety into Knack's moves.
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