Four years ago, Knack bombed. With poor reviews across the board and a fandom that seemed content to use the game as a punchline, no one expected it to birth a sequel. 

But it did. Knack 2 is out today, and people are surprised to find that it’s getting decent reviews.

Polygon‘s Colin Campbell wrote that the combat and platforming sections (the bulk of the game) were well-polished. Kotaku‘s Stephen Totilo wrote that Knack 2 fixes all the problems that made Knack tedious and boring. IGN‘s Cam Shea wrote about how much fun the game’s co-op mode is.

Everyone is confused.

Knack was over-hyped and bad, and it quickly became a joke to say that it was actually the best game ever, fueled by the satirical “History of Gaming” video by YouTuber VideoGameDunkey. The number of people that make fun of Knack is higher than the number of people who have actually played Knack.

People were quick to assume that Knack‘s sequel would be just as poorly received as the original game.

At one game store, people were making jokes about Knack 2 preorders, as if the idea of preordering that game is such a ridiculous idea that no one could possibly do such a thing.

Of course, some people actually did like Knack, but that legitimate optimism for the franchise is overshadowed by the ironic love for the series that’s developed over the years.

Despite Knack‘s reputation as one of the most boring, major modern releases, people were able to set that aside and recognize that Knack 2 has made a handful of improvements on the original, earning it generally positive reviews across the board.

Almost everyone seems to agree that the story and secondary characters suck though, so we can still hate on Knack a little bit.

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