If I say Playstation 3 what franchise comes to your mind first Uncharted? GTA? Call of Duty? Arkham? Well there's one series I don't hear people say that often. Where do I start with this? I guess there's no better place to start than at the beginning: A long time ago when I was very young. age probably like 5 to 7, I would always play all the random flipping demos my dad had downloaded on his PS3. Once he let me use it my whole life changed- no my whole life truly began when I opened a certain little game he had downloaded: LittleBigPlanet demo. I played and I was like, "Yeah... this game is pretty decent", and I saw a certain option exclusive to the full version. "I can build my own levels? DAAAAAAD! We need this game as soon as possible." Then he, crazily enough, informed me that we already had that game yeah apparently it was just hiding on our shelf the whole time. Flash forward to today and that game has taught me English, math, physics, programming, and game design all before my school ever did; while keeping me entertained for over ten years and literally as long as I can remember. I have played literally every game in the series as well as all of the developers' other games. What you are going to read will, eventually, be a review of Media Molecule as a whole. This series will cover (in order) LittleBigPlanet (the PS3 and PSP versions) LittleBigPlanet 2, Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves (in the LittleBigPlanet 2 Bonus Features Section), LittleBigPlanet PS Vita, LittleBigPlanet Karting, Tearaway (specifically the Unfolded Version Crafted Edition), LittleBigPlanet 3 Prototype, LittleBigPlanet 3, Dreams, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure. I will also have a section on attempts I have seen to replicate Media Molecule's unique style, such as Puppeteer, Little Nightmares, and Yoshi's Wooly World.
I will start the series off with tackling lbp1 on ps3 and psp.
So without further ado let's get into it. LittleBigPlanet begins with a live action cutscene of Stephen Fry himself explaining that here on earth we all have ideas, dreams, fantasies, and they all travel up to the sky and form a world called LittleBigPlanet. I absolutely love this idea because what they are saying is exactly right; because this whole game is made up of ideas somebody had to make this game and they had to put their own personality and vision into it. This review is made out of ideas, my ideas, that is very poetic. After LittleBigPlanet is shown forming for the first time guess what else forms, me, my character. Sackboy is the cutest little knitted doll you'll ever see, and throughout the levels I can collect my own costume pieces to make Sackboy into something greater: the greatest representation of me. We start out in this level, brilliantly named, Introduction, this level is pure eye candy and the atmosphere it tries to produce mixes perfectly with the vibe and nostalgia of the ENTIRE game. First Steps, This is where we are introduced to point bubbles and prize bubbles. The game's pickup point bubbles are your basic coin type pickup, but prize bubbles? Now these will give you items and in story mode you can hold as many items as you want, one of the most fun parts of the game is trying to build the best inventory. There are three item types: Costume Pieces, Stickers and decorations, and Create mode items. Stickers are just images that can be stuck anywhere in any level while decorations are like stickers but they are animated 3d models. Stickers and decorations can actually be stuck on your Sackperson so you can basically customise the already hundreds of combinations of outfits. making for one of the best character customization systems I've seen in any game and you can replicate the look of basically any person ever real or fictional. Oh yeah this level also teaches us how to walk. Get a grip, we actually start platforming now after a short tutorial. but there are still no obstacles that can kill us yet. Skate To Victory, Finally, some platforms that can kill us, and this level marks the end of world one and there are no boss battles yet strangely enough we finish world 1 by exiting in a submarine which is a weirdly specific detail. The reason is that there is an entire area in-between world one and two that was cut; it was called The Seaside Theme. Fortunately the world was brought back as a dlc. I will be reviewing those levels instead so I was a big fan of the characters and scenery in this level, but the story was lacking; nothing happened except exploring. Everything being said though seaside surprise is totally worth getting for the background alone it is one of my all time favorite lbp backgrounds it is really pretty. The intended main theme for english seaside is called Tea by the Sea. It is my favorite song from Seaside. It isn't your generic water level song, it actually tries to create a more exotic piratey feel with bizarre instruments such as organs and jaw harps. The next world is the savannah and we are FINALLY leaving England because this next area is based on Africa. The first level is called Swinging Safari, and this area is kind of awesome our submarine crashes into a statue breaking it to pieces but this statue was built for king zola the lionesque ruler of the savannah and we must meet with him to ask forgiveness now ahead we see some giraffe platforms that are really clever the heads move up and down and you must travel across the neck
After travelling to meet Zola he mentions the buffalo are troubled and we are sent to figure out what's going on.
So we move onto the next level and AAAAAHHHHHHOOOOOOHHHHH MY GOOOOSH! EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE! Apparently a fire started in the savannah and we have to platform about that. Apparently this fire ISN'T what terrified the buffalo SOMEHOW no it was FLIPPING CROCODILES this level is called burning forest and as you can see it is TERRIFYING
So anyways we figure out that the crocodiles are aggravated because one of their kind was accused of eating Meerkat Mum's son; Stripy Tail, thatś their actual names. Off to the meerkat kingdom we go to prove him wrong. At this level I must travel through the tunnel that’s literally the same height as me.
So we travel further and come acros- what in the devil a literal strip club I sure hope stripy tail is old enough to be here the song they have playing is called My Patch by Jim Noir and it is the first song we’ve come across that has had lyrics. Not very creative lyrics but still we found Stripy Tail we just got to take him back to meerkat mum and voila we saved the savannah. Next up we have a world called “The Wedding” remember how adding Seaside back in made England go on for two worlds straight? It was bizarre wasn’t it? Good thing something like that doesn't happen in the final game right?... Right…? So next up is Mexico… for two worlds straight so we get here and it looks like this skeleton: Frida got separated from her groom Don Lu. They were supposed to get married tonight, we gotta find Don Lu fast!
Oh wow this first level is filled with all kinds of cool stuff my favorite being these awesome skulls who open their jaws when you get close, but that's not what I like most about this level, you see this level has another of those licensed songs we've been seeing so much up until now, and this one is called Volver a Comenzar by the famous Spanish band Cafe Tacuba. Now, I could go on and on about how this song is really good and really deep but this isn't a song review, this is a game review, and I really want to tell you about this awesome next level. The Darkness… this level terrified so many younger players and many of them stopped playing and never got any farther in the story than this. Now I want to say this level specifically never actually terrified me but there was a part of this series that was so terrifying I still get scared of it every now and then to this day, now keep it in the back of your mind because I will be really excited to talk about it when I get to the lbp section of this review. We find Don Lu's unnamed pet dog who can hold a candle up to guide us through this really dark creepy hallway that Don Lu got lost in. Which is going smoothly until the dog gets kidnapped by a mysterious character in a spaceship. Who could this mystery man be we're left here to wonder… without a dog… without a light… without comfort… Now it's getting really creepy. Luckily there's some conveniently placed candles up ahead and after travelling alone for a bit we finally find Don Lu, the presence of another life in this creepy dangerous darkness, is very comforting… Until he's too fat to fit through the door and we need to leave him behind for a bit to find another way through. But anyways we meet up with Frida to go tell her about finding Don Lu aaaannnnd. The Skulldozer, yeah without having her groom with her for so long Frida started being driven to insanity and is now chasing everyone around with her crazy huge, crazy dangerous vehicle, the Skulldozer, it's a bulldozer, made out of bones, that is awesome. Now this is a LittleBigPlanet game which means that world 3 has to end with a runner boss. We literally just run away from Frida until she stops going all Jack Torrance on us and she comes across Don Lu. In utter happiness the couple gives us proud thanks as Don Lu offers to give a free vacation to meet with his uncle: Jalapeno.
Looks like this next world is ALSO based on Mexico without further ado we have, Boom Town. Remember how I said that millions of kids got stuck on The Darkness? Well, millions of kids also got stuck on Boom Town. This time though it was because of the difficulty. This level has a lot of flinging bombs around and it is VERY ANNOYING me along with a ton of other players got stuck here for almost ever and as a result everybody hates this level. There is one fairly decent aspect of this level though, the background song Cornman by Kinky, another spanish song, but it's not nearly as good as Volver a Comenzar. So, we go to see Uncle Jalapeno but he was kidnapped by the evil Sheriff Zapata and in a totally awesome scene we have to use literal giant bombs to blow up the prison to smithereens as a thanks he teaches us how to use impact explosives. The developers must have been high when they made some of these platforms. It's insane. But eventually we get through and ride a minecart to the next level. The Mines. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH…. Okay our minecart crashed and Zapata is, OH MY GOSH HE'S HIDING IN THE MINES WE GOTTA CHASE AFTER HIM! I must note here, that the music isn't exactly my style, but somehow I still like it. That's the magic of the music in this game. The bombs are done way better in this level then they were in boom town there's this part where a bomb blows a platform and flips it through the air where somehow it sticks the landing. You can tell the level designer was pretty proud of that flip. The level ends with horrifying sequence with a giant ball of fire rolling after you that probably makes for great trailer footage.
We just have to get past this giant shrine to get to Zapata. Serpent shrine. This level sees you going through a bunch of tubes with snakes crawling through them. Culminating in an epic boss battle against the evil Zapata that will absolutely ruin you. This level is insanely hard and good luck quitting your job if you want to do it all in one live. You will need all the time you can get. Honestly I didn't have much fun with this level it seemed kind of gimmicky and boring and I hate to leave the canyons on a negative note but that's just how I felt. Anyways this cute lil' skeleton dude is gonna take us on a trip to see his friend in the metropolis. Unfortunately, with that we have reached an end point for now. I have held this up long enough and I really want to review some other games here soon so I have decided I will be reviewing HALF of a game in each part of this series, which fortunately means this series has twice as many parts. So, to end this part off now I will be introducing how I score games. Instead of having one score for how good the game is, I will give a separate score for each of the three most important aspects making up a game. These being the hameplay, the story, and the atmosphere. Just remember though that compared to all the different thoughts on the game I spent so much time on above, the score feels like it couldn't tell you nearly as much, remember in a review the score is, contrary to popular belief, one of the least important elements. This game gets a score of 10/10 for gameplay, 7/10 for story, and 8/10 for atmosphere.