Knack[a] is a beat 'em up platform game developed by Japan Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 4.

Knack utilizes jumping, dodging, punching, and using enhanced energy-based powers, in order to progress through the colourful environments, which are populated with enemies.

Locations visited in the game include mineshafts, forests, factories, mansions, gardens, mountains, cities, laboratories, castles, rock formations, and caves.

[2][5] In a futuristic society, humanity has progressed in technological advances by harvesting the energy from Relics, physical remnants of a lost civilization.

After a force of Goblins commandeering tanks overrun a human outpost, the city of Newhaven organizes an expedition to discover how the weaponry was acquired.

Returning to his palace, Viktor unveils one of many giant relics to Vargas, Knack, and Lucas, intending to use them to usher the world into a new technological revolution.

Knack enters an ancient cavern where he is ejected by creatures known as Guardians and reaches a nearby castle owned by Viktor.

She had been found by Gundahar and nursed back to health; in return, she created arms for him to combat rival goblin factions.

Inside Obelisk Mountain, the group are caught by Viktor and Katrina, having bugged Lucas, but Knack blocks them off with a cave-in.

Lucas reminds them of the warnings and persuades them to destroy the key, but Katrina takes it using a mech, triggering a volcanic eruption.

Viktor succeeds in opening the door in Trogdo Mine, revealing an ancient chamber containing an orb, which disintegrates him.

Sony Computer Entertainment decided to do this because they wanted to prove that the PS4's launch lineup did not exclusively consist of big-budget first-person shooters.

[6] The initial idea for Knack was that of a character that could find items and add them to his body thus causing him to grow with Cerny explaining "Our initial concept was that Knack would maybe break down a building or a wall, and he’d incorporate the resulting bricks into his body," This, in practice, however did not work well resulting in " a giant amorphous blob of a character.

Despite this Cerny realized that audience expectations were different from when the Crash games were developed and that Knack had to be more "complex" adding " Even if the vision is to be in that sort of genre, to try to speak to the nostalgia that people have for the experiences of years gone by, it turns out you need to do five or 10 times as much today.

Cerny initially envisioned himself as taking a more hands off approach intending himself to merely be a producer but as the game grew he found himself becoming more involved eventually becoming the director.

[12] Steve Butts of IGN praised the concept and the hero but criticized the gameplay and the story by saying "Knack's shifting size is a great idea that never really grows into anything substantial".

[23] Tom McShea of GameSpot praised some elements of the game, such as the environments, but also criticized the story, gameplay, and "surprisingly high" difficulty.

"[31] GameZone's Lance Liebl also gave it a score of 7.5 out of 10 and said that the multiplayer "makes Knack the best game for kids and the family to enjoy on the PlayStation 4 at the moment.

"[32] Peter Nowak of The Globe and Mail gave it an average review and called it "a solid initial effort, despite it being a little long and rather hard.

"[27] Paul Goodman of The Escapist similarly gave it three stars out of five and said it was "a colorful, but mediocre platformer that has issues with repetitive gameplay on top of being frustratingly difficult at times.

"[28] Steve Boxer of The Guardian likewise gave it three stars out of five and said, "Knack isn't a bad game: there is satisfaction to be derived from it, some of the gameplay is genuinely good fun (at its best moments, it does begin to acquire an air reminiscent of a more ponderous Crash Bandicoot), and it's one of the longer games to emerge in recent years, so will at least keep youngsters occupied for decent periods of time.

From the outside looking in, if they'd spent half as much time on any other part of the game as they did animating the bits and bobs, maybe Knack would've contained something worth caring about.

"[35] James Marshall of The Digital Fix likewise gave it 5 out of 10 and said it was "something constructed of relics – from the basic gameplay to the poor characterisation, nearly everything feels like something from two console generations ago.

"[36] David Jenkins of Metro gave it 3 out of 10 and called it "A poor quality video game by any measure, but what this joyless throwback is doing being a key launch title for the PlayStation 4 Sony only knows.

"[37] Sony's Shuhei Yoshida expressed disappointment at Knack's critical reception, hoping the game would receive scores in the mid-70s.