Sometimes in the creative process good ideas take a back seat to reality. Sony’s latest PS3 exclusive, Puppeteer, feels like a game that looked great on whiteboards but just couldn’t quite connect all the dots before release.
The story takes place on the moon or more specifically in the Moon Kingdom which is recently under new management in the form of the evil Moon Bear King. We are quickly introduced to an unfortunate young boy named Kutaro whose soul is kidnapped from his home on earth and brought up to the moon where it is stuffed into the body of a puppet . After playing with Kutaro for a brief moment the king decapitates him and swallows his head. After his body is discarded Kutaro is awoken and tasked with restoring the Moon Goddess back to her rightful throne and getting his head back in the process.
It won’t take long for Kutaro to find his signature weapon, Calibrus, a pair of magical scissors. Calibrus is easily the best of the game’s mechanics. You can cut enemies with the scissors by pressing square, but you can also use them to navigate the world by snipping on cloth and other objects littering the stage. Once you start cutting into a piece of cloth you can manipulate Kutaro in any direction you like, when he runs out of cloth he’ll fall back to the ground like normal. This serves as a new and fun way to navigate stages and even towards the end of the game I was having a pretty good time using the item.
As you travel with Kutaro you will find a large number of replacement heads. Anything ranging from a skull, to a piece of cake, to a six-shooter is fair game for him to wear upon his decapitated body. You are able to equip up to three heads which drop randomly as you traverse the levels. If you get hit by an enemy’s attack your head will go flying off and you’ll have to chase it down before it disappears. Lose your head three times and you’ll have to use a continue.
Each head has a special ability that you can use by pressing down on the d-pad. Unfortunately most of the heads don’t really do anything when you use their ability. Occasionally you’ll find a shadow on the wall displaying an image of a head that the game wants you to equip. If you’ve got it, you can put it on and use its ability for a reward. Best case scenario you’ll get to play a bonus stage when you do this. Worst case scenario, a couple of Moonsparkles (the game’s equivalent of coins) will shoot out of the background and you can move on your way. It feels like the heads were probably meant to do more than just this but perhaps there wasn’t time as the game moved on.
To make matters worse you’ll frequently find “secret spots” where you could use a head but it will be one you haven’t even found yet. This means the developers are actually expecting you to go back and replay the levels to find all the bonus material. Unfortunately all the bonus levels do for the most part is net you more Moonsparkles. Although you can unlock some story books that flesh out the game’s world there’s really not much else by way of rewards.
Although most of the heads are useless Kutaro does gain some extra abilities as the game progresses. During your journey you will collect the abilities of four warriors who, long ago, rose against the evil moon king. There’s the knight’s head will grant you a magical shield which can both nullify attacks and reflect projectiles, the pirate’s head will let you latch onto hooks littered around the environment, the ninja’s head, that gives the ability to throw bombs, and the wrestler’s head which will give Kutaro the ability to push and pull designated blocks on the map as well as perform a ground pound.
At the start of his journey Kutaro will be joined by an accent-sporting cat named Ying Yang. Ying Yang is controlled by using either the Playstation Move remote or the right analog stick on the controller. If you have a second player they can control Ying Yang using another controller or Move remote. This is another feature that feels sparse, occasionally you’ll need to use Ying Yang to scour the environment and move forward but for the most part the second character can remain dormant. The co-op feels very much like Mario Galaxy where the second player can help but never hinders the progress of the first player.
Ying Yang may get on your nerves as he quips while you navigate the levels but it’s almost certain that you’ll be begging for him back when he’s replaced at the end of the first act by your permanent companion, Pikarina. Pikarina is the teenage daughter of the sun and in true teenage form she is insufferable to listen to. What was written as a sassy excitable attitude comes across as a bratty petulant child once animated and voice acted. And since Kutaro doesn’t speak you’re going to be listening to her and an unseen narrator yapping for almost the entire game.
“Are we there yet?” Pikarina whines as you traverse your way across a giant snake’s back. Unfortunately you may find yourself asking the same thing during your playthrough. Several levels (the giant snake for example) will re-use the exact same set pieces and force you through the same challenge with just the tiniest bit of variance. Even levels that have some variety are stymied by the fact that falling to your death will cause you to start over at the very beginning of the screen. You’re usually not set back more than a minute or two but it’s frustrating not being able to make a certain jump and having to repeat the entire segment over again, which, by the way includes listening to all of the dialogue over again until you nail the segment.
It’s impossible to play this game and not draw the comparison to Little Big Planet. The British narrator is there and though Stephen Greif does his best to keep things cheerful he’s also no Stephen Fry. A lot of the charm of Little Big Planet is missing here, subbed out for tired jokes and obnoxious characters, say what you will about Sackboy, at least he doesn’t ever talk.
If riffing off Little Big Planet wasn’t enough I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney shot off a few sternly worded letters as well. In the fourth act you’ll encounter the fearsome pirate, Captain Gaff, who looks and behaves remarkably like Jack Sparrow of Pirates Of The Caribbean. Later you’ll encounter the spitting image of King Triton under the sea, complete with missing trident. And don’t forget the menacing Moon Bear King whose stitched together cloth body looks remarkably like Oogie-Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I know that there’s not usually a lot of variety when depicting pirates and sea gods but these feel a little more blatant than they should.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I could swear some of these characters look familiar.
Puppeteer isn’t a bad game, it’s just not an exceptional one either. You do get plenty to play through for your forty dollars and the “no-fail” co-op means you could easily play it alongside a child without them interfering with your play. If you’ve got a little kid around and want to play some video games with them this could be just the ticket, otherwise it’s a bit harder to recommend. If this had come out a few months earlier I might not feel so harsh but if you want a great platformer you should shell out the extra twenty dollars for Rayman Legends.
