It's really surprising that they made a sequel.
Yeah, it has combat. Basic so far, but reasonably fun. Knack 2 added much more like skill trees. You can also block now and parry projectiles back at enemies.
There are a lot of new attacks. The first game only had a 3 hit punch, jump attack and a dodge attack. Now there are new air attacks, ones where you hold the button down (and can be linked to your basic 3 hit), and two button attacks.
The dodge move is a dash and can be upgraded to add an attack on the end or to go through enemies and get behind them.
Almost all of Knack's attacks can be cancelled with a dodge or jump at ANY part of their animation which is super useful.
Attacks have upgrades that make them faster and stronger. There's also a grab attack from long range where his arm extends and pulls the enemy in for free hits. Doesn't work on armored enemies (but you can break armor and then it's fine) or huge robots.
They've made quite a few changes that I don't like though. The first game was actually quite hard at times and you'd take huge damage. On very hard, you were dead in one hit most of the time.
Now they've added in all these casual elements (though I'm playing on normal) like special moves are completely different now. In K1, you built meter by collecting sunstone crystals and defeating enemies, then you activated super mode and pressed the command for the move you wanted.
Now, sunstones do something else, and enemies give exp. There is no super meter anymore. Instead, in some battles that have huge amounts of enemies, a huge sunstone will be on the field and you have a limited time to hit it, which activates your super mode, THEN you can use special moves. Or at least this is what it looks like. I don't know any way to use them anytime like K1. I don't see the point of a huge, epic battle with tough enemies, only to have super mode pretty much forced on you so you can defeat them all easily. You don't have to touch the crystal though and can just let it break but it's super tough if you do.
There are modes like time attack and score attack if you like the game enough. I don't know what it is that attracts me to this game. It's got something to do with the vibrant colors, and how when you find a hidden treasure and get a gem or gadget part, a full 3D model of it pops up on screen, all shiny.
Outside of combat, you have platforming and some light puzzle solving, usually revolving around moving blocks, hitting switches, or using one of Knack's other forms. There's some cool stuff here, like his ice form can freeze timed switches, and his metal form and leave line of metal shards behind him which you connect to power sources, and trying to find a way to create a path because if you jump, the line breaks.
Metal Knack can also shed just the metal and it creates a statue used to activate weighted floor panels.
Another cool aspect is how at any time you can shed all relics and become Knack's original tiny form. You do this to climb small ledges a large Knack couldn't stand on, or to go through vents, gaps, etc.
I'm finding a lot of shortcuts and a few skips. Will be uploading a playlist this weekend.
Edit: So I'm near the end now and just found a nice skip that is incredibly easy to do.
They've made this game so much easier than the first. Health is now the regen type if you avoid damage for a few seconds. You get smaller because damage knocks off relic parts so the smaller you are, the less capability you have. In K1 you didn't have regen and would just have to deal with it.
If you die enough times during a platforming segment, the game will ask if you want to skip it.
One thing that's really weird is there are all these places where it wants you to change to little Knack, or some tricky platforming segments but a majority of the time you can double jump and hover (think Crash's spin attack) to cover huge distances. I've even found a trick where switching to little Knack during hover actually gives you more distance and ability to connect with higher ledges.
Sunstones fill a meter that generates a shield. Enemies have to break that before they can really hurt you.
I want to mention the special moves again and how stupid they are. The game has large forced battles but gives you a super crystal so you can just end it near instantly. You don't get much time but you become invincible and can blast special moves until the meter runs out. But whats the point if it forces this? K1 had a meter you built and could use a special any time. It depleted a large amount and refilling it took a while.
I've read complaints that the first one was quite hard and I guess it kind of was sometimes, but damn, they've gone overboard with dumbing it down.
Last edited by Birdman on Sun Sep 29, 2019 12:03 am; edited 1 time in total
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