This isn’t just a perfect Ratchet and Clank game it’s a perfect game. Gameplay flawless, controls flawless, story funny yet moving and meaningful., the weapons the best yet, the characters the best yet, platforming excellent, runnin and gunnin top notch, you actually fly yourself from planet to planet with stuff to do in between instead of just warping from one to the next.

I honestly could gush about this game for hours, it is that special. There is more character building in Ratchet and in Clank than the 8 games that came before this combined. Ratchet is the complete opposite of what he was when we met him. Selfless, doing what’s right just because it’s right and not because it’s something that directly affects him, wanting the best for the people in this universe and mostly for his best friend Clank instead of himself. Clank has plenty of growth as well but Ratchet is legit a 180 from where we first found him. The ending actually made me get a little emotional which I would have never expect from this series.

This is one of my favorite games I have ever played and one of the few that I truely believe to be a complete and total masterpiece. I’m still excited to finish the series but I can’t imagine anything I have left comes close to this amazing game.

Like another game I played on my PS3, this one I also have a lot of nostalgia towards, but out of all the Ratchet & Clank games I've played, this is certainly my favourite.
Not only do they end the original Future trilogy on a great note, but the plot is also one of the best-constructed ones in the entire series, with great stakes and interesting characters.
The gameplay is divided between 3 styles: Ratchet, with the same gameplay style he had in Quest for Booty, with more weapons, both old and new; Clank, using his new Chronoscepter to solve puzzles and beat up enemies; and the Aphelion exploration, where you go around in each of the game's sectors, going on Moons to get goodies, facing off against other spaceships and get to new planets.
While the game's soundtrack isn't really that catchy, it does provide an atmosphere fitting of each planet, and to compensate, the Radio's music tracks are really good to jam out while you're travelling in space.
Not only that, but the game is probably one of the best looking game on the PS3, with some incredible environments to see and travel through.
Overall, I love this game, it provides great action and platforming, an interesting plot and a good amount of content to make players wanna come back to it.

After playing rift apart and going back to play some of the older games in the series, I was a little worried. Quest for Booty wasn’t terrible, but the controls and gameplay were not up to par with the ps4 remake and rift apart.

And then I picked up this game. I still give rift apart the slight edge of best game in the series, but that could just boil down to the new graphics and flawless controls. If Crack in Time came out today it would be tough for me to decide between the two. Good story, amazing controls, amazing weapon variety the series is known for, and so much more. This game is a great time through and through.

Okay, y'all weren't kidding, this is the best one in the series.

I know it's still a bit early to call it that, but come on. You don't even need to be a Ratchet & Clank fan to see how truly fantastic this game is in every conceivable way. From what I've read, this was supposed to be the finale for the whole series, not just the Future trilogy, but stellar sales figures caused Sony to pressure Insomniac to continue the series, a decision that would go on to benefit them anyway, at least from what I hear of Rift Apart specifically.

You can really tell this is their magnum opus too since pretty much every individual aspect of this game has been fine-tuned to such an impressive extent—it's the smoothest and most enjoyable to play that this series has ever felt.

Having said that, there are some qualms that hold it back a bit. Namely, the camera can be a real bastard to control correctly whenever you really need it. I'm mainly referring to the little platforming gauntlets on the spherical planets that you can attempt now and then. Usually these challenges involve heavy use of Ratchet's hoverboots, a new addition to the series, at least in this form, and an incredibly satisfying method of traversal. However, when you're moving fast and jumping between platforms on a spherical planet that's constantly rotating as you're moving across it, the camera can get a bit lost, resulting in quite a few retries.

It's not a huge deal, but I wasn't the biggest fan of the spaceflight segments themselves. They get the job done, and granted, they're one of the better iterations of it in the series, but I felt that only being able to move your ship on a horizontal axis made some boss fights more frustrating than appropriately challenging. Granted, you can get upgrades for your ship to make these parts smoother to handle, but it never really feels as worthwhile to play as the Ratchet and Clank sections of the game, respectively.

Problems aside, this game really delivers. Most impressive of all is its story. These games have dabbled in mature themes and storytelling before, but A Crack in Time's narrative takes it to the next level, delivering some truly compelling drama and emotional stakes alongside the standard wacky hijinks you've come to expect from the series. Both characters are set on their own odysseys built on themes of legacy and destiny in their own separate, equally engaging ways. These characters have never been written or portrayed better than they are here, and Insomniac's efforts have really paid off.

I was understandably starting to get a little burned out on these games before A Crack in Time came along and perfected the Ratchet & Clank formula. The combat is tight and satisfying, with a surprisingly deep customization system for select weapons that puts an exciting spin on the combat loop just as it was starting to get a bit stale. Clank's gameplay, in particular the timeloop puzzles, is really inspired, and I'd honestly take an entire game of just those sections. In fact, I kind of wish there were more, but I understand they probably didn't want to alienate people who weren't super into them.

So, yes, A Crack in Time delivered on the monumental hype going into it that, for once, wasn't rooted in nostalgia biases or hyperbole. It really is peak Ratchet & Clank.

9/10

until the day the stars and moons align and i finally get my hands on a ps5 and rift apart, this is hands down the best R&C game i've played. yes, even moreso than the ps2 games.

while tools of destruction felt like ratchet's bumbling first steps as a cinematic disney-tier epic, crack in time manages to get a better handle on its new identity. yes, clank basically being the son of a time god is still stupid to me no matter how you slice it, but i was still more invested in the story than i was with TOD. lot of funny and heartfelt moments, just generally had a great time even with my grievances on post-ps2 ratchet's direction.

also dr nefarious is back and he's great. i don't care how many people want to whine about him being "overused"; this is like. the second time in the franchise he's been an antag and he's a blast in this game, quit yer whining.

guns are a ton of fun and insomniac managed to do the impossible and make clank's gameplay not entirely suck this time around. i think my only gripes are that i wish there were more full planets to play around in, but i guess having the little side moons balances things out. still a super fun time all around and definitely worth playing regardless of what you think about the ps3 games.

also alister is a manipulative asshole, i don't care how much sadboy headcanons you want to project onto him just because he's a lombax

A Crack in Time is a prime example of money being poured on a skeleton that is yet unformed. There is no level design. Combat was hilariously, tediously boring even on Hard. The story is nonsensical, retcon-y ameature-hour drivel. But the generic level concepts are rendered with incredible detail, the character animations are the best in the series so far, and the comedic timing with Dr. Nefarious has been honed to greatness. Controlling Ratchet feels smooth and satisfying, and his rocket boots are a great addition to the series. There’s just no substance to support all the elements that are real works of love, a truth that makes me laugh in frustration.

Trying to describe the frustrations of A Crack in Time are akin to when Amazon asks you to provide photo evidence of a package not being delivered. The Ratchet Wiki has lists of planets, hidden trinkets, and side missions, just like many other Ratchet games. But unlike other Ratchet games, where you needed to prod and explore levels to find secrets and rewards, aCiT puts its trinkets out in the open. It puts checklists on map menus and tells you what you’ll find on a planetoid before you land there. The story-critical planets are incredibly linear experiences, but filled with bombastic NPC pyrotechnic displays meant to hide how little the game is asking the player to do.

It feels like a war is happening within the soul of A Crack in Time, as if it doesn’t want to be a Ratchet and Clank game. First off, it splits the two up immediately, meaning Ratchet cannot high jump, long jump, or glide, meaning Ratchet’s platforming levels can only require use of a basic jump. Clank’s moveset is even more limited, but also becomes the primary vector of aCiT’s platforming half of its shooter-platformer genre designation. As a result, both halves feel like watered-down experiences. I expected this split was a tutorial mechanic to ease players into the full Ratchet & Clank moveset, but by the time they reunited, it was time for the final boss.

During the third time the game made me fight a hydra tank, (but this time two at once! Without re-balancing their moveset from their being fought one at a time!), upon Ratchet’s dramatic death animation, I said, out-loud, “This is so boring!” with a sincere laugh. Because the idea that I was bored, contrasted with the visuals on-screen, was absurd. A war between cartoon aliens was happening around me! Space vikings and robot dragons were dancing underneath an exploding disco ball! I had a gun that opened a portal to a tentacle monster named Fred!

But none of Ratchet’s weapons made enemies react in different ways, so all of them were equally useless, their utility externally decided by how much they depleted an on-screen enemy health bar. Enemy shots could reach Ratchet from across the map, far beyond what could be shown on screen, so the level’s layout didn’t matter. There was nothing for my brain to do but jump when it saw a flashing light, and hold down the shoot button.

Luckily the shallowness of the gameplay gives me some room to comment on the story, which is weird. I was going to say it is entirely without women, since none of Ratchet’s females from previous games return, but then I remembered it introduced a whole species of Valkeries that Ratchet kind of genocides. Like, villains from previous games have had ambiguous cartoon deaths to come back later, but the dialog of aCiT says that Ratchet just straight-up killed these ladies. It’s very weird.

Women are so absent from aCiT that it ends up actually feeling kinda gay? We meet a friend of Ratchet’s dad who is real sad that Ratchet's parents are dead. He really loved Ratchet’s dad. Carries around a locket with a picture of them together. But we never learn Ratchet’s mother’s name?! Googling “Ratchet’s mom” brought me to the most hilariously depressing wiki entry I’ve ever seen, where the only thing we know about this woman is she was shot dead in front of her husband? And Ratchet never shows an ounce of curiosity in learning anything about her?? Like her name???

Dr. Nefarious and Lawrence are both excellent cartoon villains, but come from that great Disney tradition of queer-coding their love of evil theatrics and drama. So much so that my head tilted when an in-game news report referred to them as “partners.” Maybe that word didn’t have that connotation in the year of this game’s release. Or maybe it did, and the makers of this game just had no idea what they were doing with queer representation. Like, there’s an armor vendor who looks like James Stephanie Sterling and is very queer-coded, wearing pink, and having an affectation associated with gay fashionistas. But since his role is so minor, no other characters interact with him, (even Ratchet!), so his inclusion almost wraps back around into unironic positive queer representation? I’m sure he was meant to be a joke, but then the only joke could have been “lol a gay alien.” But, since there’s no mockery, no punchline besides a faithful recreation of a fat gay alien, it’s not a joke, just inclusion. This hurts my brain.

I guess it had to have been meant as a joke because Captain Quark is back and spends a good third of the game in terrible drag. I hate him so much and there is no space for him in any of these games past the first. He bloats and worsens every game he appears in. As I’ve said before, I will give 5/5 stars to the first Ratchet game that lets me permanently kill him.

In my rating system, 2 stars represents an average, C rank game, and although I enjoyed parts of it, A Crack in Time is a solid C-. The art direction has aged amazingly, and Dr. Nefarious is wonderful. I did not have zero fun playing this game. But my god, it would have been possibly an improved experience if all the gameplay was stripped and turned into a walking simulator GRIS-style. At least then its shallowness wouldn’t distract me from its strengths.

This is the best of the modern R&C games after the PS2 titles, no contest. I might actually like this one more than the PS2 titles frankly, for how much of the progression that I had found tedious in those titles was completely resolved in this game. Weapons all feel good and I can't think of a single dud in the entire arsenal when I previously could for all the other games. This tells the best story of all the modern games too, even if I miss the sharp wit of the PS2 titles. Incredibly ambitious in the new stuff it adds compared to the other entries; chilling out flying through space and going to random small planets to grab collectibles and upgrades is just incredibly chill and fun, and feels more like a shame to me that Into the Nexus and more recently Rift Apart didn't come back to. Clank's gameplay finally feels polished and refined, with puzzles that were genuinely really fun to figure out (even if it feels a lot like somebody at the office had just finished Portal that day). Fantastic all around.

The greatest game ever made, bar none.

I adore this game and while I don't actually think it's perfect it was such an improvement on everything and felt like an actual evolution of the formula. Traversing space was great, the hoover boots added extra mobility, the constructo weapons were a great feature, Clanks puzzles were the best the series has ever had and it's probably the best story the series has ever had.

Plus the innuendo was great.

This is the best Ratch and Clank game hands down. Everything in this is just amazing, The combat is smooth and fantastic, the space ship hubs are reminiscent of the Gummie ship parts in KH but this time their actually good, the Clank levels are really fun with their time manipulating puzzles, and that story is pretty good; it's not fantastic like everything else in the game but you know what it's still pretty good.

As of right now this is now my favorite Ratchet and Clank game. Now I wait for Rift Apart.

(1 year later) OOOOOOFFFFFFF

What a massive upgrade over Tools of Destruction. Controls don't feel stiff and lifeless; Ratchet moves like a dream. The addition of the hover boots makes fast travel between long expanses so much fun and even when it controlled a bit strange at points, it was still exilerating to zoom across planets. The graphics are so much better too, everything is so full of life and doesn't just feel like a HD upres of a PS2 game like Tools of Destruction did. Easily the best story from a Ratchet game I've played so far. It's surprisingly genuine and doesn't take the piss on itself with cynical undertones with Azimuth's motivation deal which I appreciate.