The latest instalment in the formidable platformer series is the Vita's first 'essential' title, a side-scroller that's full to the brim with entertaining, nuanced and visually striking content.

There's a whopping sixty-seven tutorials in LittleBigPlanet Vita covering all manner of topics, from how to control your Sackperson's facial expressions to the creation of challenging puzzles in the game's incredibly complex Level Editor. That may seem a bit much out of context, but it's not surprising that a game about the act of creation should so comprehensively walk players through all the tools at their disposal.

Tarsier Studios and Double Eleven, taking over from series creators Media Molecule for this instalment, have devoted as much time to the development of a game as they have to the development of a marketplace of ideas, one only limited by the imagination of those taking part. The LittleBigPlanet Level Editor obviously makes good business sense - creating a free market for user-generated content keeps the game's servers alive and maintains a captive audience for far longer than might be possible by relying on the intermittent roll-out of studio-made DLC - but it's also one of the many ways that this more-than-worthy successor to the LittleBigPlanet name speaks to the series' overarching ideas - and ideals - about invention, innovation and imagination, and the way they interact with each other.

Images of ingenuity bleed into every element of LittleBigPlanet Vita; the game's arts-and-crafts aesthetic is only the most obvious manifestation. The production design embraces pin cushions and needles, hammers and nails, scrapbooks and wool craft in a fun and sweet way, reflecting on old kindergarten craft classes and Christmas knitwear in the same adoring way that Gran Turismo reflects on its cars or Portal reflects on physics.

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Join Sackboy as he ventures in to the world of the Carnivalia.

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