A good family game should allow couch co-op and Knack is no exception. At any time a second player can join in as Robo Knack, an infinitely spawning side kick capable of attacking enemies and buffing Knack. Robo Knack falls prey to the same weakness as regular Knack, but there is no death penalty.
Playing as the second player and assisting the first player (because that's what Robo Knack is) has other frustrations. The game's camera is fairly limited, always focusing on player one, so as a second player will quickly find themselves out of view, a timed offscreen indicator letting you know when you'll be warped back into the main player's screen.
If you happen to own a PlayStation Vita you can join in using remote play. Oddly though, despite the other player having their own screen, they are still tied to the main camera. This was incredibly disappointing to see.
Knack just exudes disappointment all around, which is truly a shame because on the surface it's easy to be fooled by it's good graphics. The game looks and feels polished, it's graphically beautiful. There are no bugs or framerate issues. For the most part it feels like a cohesive game, not one that was simply cut together quickly to make the system's launch. But the core game mechanics in Knack are so deeply flawed that I don't even feel there's any redeeming value here. My daughter gave up after 10 minutes with the game, even with my help as a co-op partner. Knack might have wanted to be the good family game for the PlayStation 4's launch - but it needed to be a good game first.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Two players can play Knack together locally in shared-screen, with player two controlling a silver version of Knack. The silver Knack is intended to assist normal Knack by collecting parts for him and donating his parts when Knack's health is low.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.