Pure fun! This was my first Ratchet & Clank and I loved every minute of it.

I had a good time utilizing all the different weapon types in the simple but fluid combat system. There are a lot of fun elements packaged into this game -- for example, getting around on the hover boots.

Looking forward to picking this one up again later for a Challenge mode replay, and exploring some of the older entries in the series.

Am I the only one who thinks that the selling point of the game does more harm than good to the series' gameplay flow? Besides that, it follows the Ratchet formula, so it's enjoyable, but I found it inferior to the other games in the series. The game's hook isn't as enjoyable as the main focus, and the previous games seemed like more complete products with more interesting aspects overall.

There are some of the worst planets in the series, especially the one where the focus is constantly shifting between universes, making it particularly bad and difficult to navigate. On the other hand, the planet in Ratchet where you get the racing boots is very pleasant to explore and navigate. I hope that ability returns; it's somewhat like 3D Sonic done right.

I liked the new characters, the spider-hacker minigame is cool, and Kit and Rivet are very good additions. It's a shame that Rivet's gameplay doesn't change at all, with the same weapons and gameplay as Ratchet. It should be something different since they added a new character, or at least have the minimum to differentiate both. The Clank minigame is dull, but at least you can skip it.

I hope the next game focuses more on having an interesting set of planets and weapons (not that the weapons in this one are bad) rather than focusing on just one gimmick and neglecting the rest.

Also, the PC port, in particular, doesn't seem as well-optimized as Returnal. Should run better, probably.

An unfortunate theme of the Ratchet & Clank franchise is that of wasted potential. Across the PS2 and PS3 Insomniac pumped out 10 R&C titles in just 11 years, an insane workload (even more insane when you realize they were working on the Resistance series concurrently) that meant the studio just never had the time to implement and refine the many ideas it had for the series over the years. Fortunately, Insomniac put in the work to finally curb its culture of crunch and it has paid dividends with Rift Apart, a game which shows that even after 20 years there’s still a spark of creativity in this series, even if it never erupts into a full-on blaze.

To start with the obvious, Rift Apart is an unbelievably gorgeous game with some of the strongest art direction in the series and a smooth framerate. This smoothness extends to the gameplay, featuring the best combat in series history. Very early into the game a dash ability is added to your moveset and this is a great addition that is a boon to both traversal and combat. Enemies are faster and more aggressive than ever and you’ll need to make liberal use of the dash if you want to survive. The old way of circle-strafing, side-jumping, and backpedaling isn’t enough to make it through each enemy encounter anymore, and the addition of the dash makes combat flow much better. The combat is also where the DualSense gets to shine, with most of the game’s weapons making use of the variable triggers, with a half or full press of the triggers doing different things. A half-press of the trigger on your shotgun will fire one barrel while a full-press will fire both, for example. It feels really good and makes me appreciate the DualSense a lot more than I initially did. A Rift Apart is just a really smooth experience overall, the excellent technical performance and lack of loading screens means there’s no significant breaks in the game’s flow, and Insomniac has also made sure you’re never too far from the next firefight or setpiece.

The biggest disappointment here has to do with the dimension hopping, the game’s central gimmick. It most commonly comes into play with these small dimensional rifts which you grapple onto to either gain positional advantage in combat or traverse areas outside of it, but all this really amounts to is a more visually impressive version of the Swingshot, a series staple gadget. There’s also these optional pocket dimensions, which are just small platforming challenges that have very little interesting going. Outside of two planets and few setpieces, Rift Apart doesn’t really do all that much with its central gimmick, and it’s a shame. Another disappointment is just how linear this game is. Previous R&C games had planets with multiple different pathways to explore and find secrets and optional objectives. Here though, with the exception of two planets, each planet as a very obvious main path with a few rooms or hallways off to the side. One planet is so small it makes me wonder why they even bothered with it in the first place.

As for the story, Rift Apart is serviceable. It’s nice to see both Ratchet and Clank have some semblance of a personality again after their 2016 outing, though they’re outshone by their alternate universe counterparts Rivet and Kit, who are both great additions to the cast and it would be an absolute bummer if they didn’t show up in the next game.

Rift Apart has easily and quickly become one of my favorite Ratchet & Clank games of all time, meaning it’s now one of my favorite first-party PlayStation games ever, but even now, with Insomniac working with more powerful hardware than ever before and more dev time than ever before, it’s still haunted by the specter of wasted potential, and that’s just a real shame.

I've only played the two most recent Ratchet and Wank games so maybe the characters are different in the older ones, but I fucking despise both Ratchet and Clank (but especially Clank) as characters and think they are easily the worst part of these games.

These two characters being together is treated like it has some sort of godlike cosmic power, and that a universe in which they never meet becomes a literal miserable distopia. AND YET, there are sections where you play as Ratchet without Clank, AND THE GAME PLAYS THE EXACT SAME! The plot acts like it's the two of them working together that is the magical key for all happiness and joy in the world and yet in the gameplay Clank is completely fucking pointless and his only skill he adds (hovering) is done easily by a pair of shoes without any kind of explanation.

Ratchet is such a boring character in these games, he has no interesting character traits at all. Now this wouldn't necessarily be a problem, Crash Bandicoot isn't exactly a deep complex character, but he works fine for his games. The main difference being that Crash Bandicoot doesn't have HOURS OF CUTSCENES AND CONSTANT ANNOYING QUIPPY DIALOGUE. Ratchet really needs to shut the fuck up sometimes.

I haven't mentioned girl Ratchet and girl Clank in this review, mainly because they are the exact same as the main characters, only slightly less annoying because they have a bit more of a personality, and less grating voices.

Now onto the worst character, and unironically one of my least favourite fictional characters of all time, Clank. Clank is a pathetic loser who might as well not have any free will because he only exists to help other dipshits around him and seems to have no goals or ambitions of his own.

Now a character only existing to help the protagonist isn't automatically a bad thing. This may seem like a bit of an odd comparison but look at Wallace and Gromit. Gromit mostly helps out whatever Wallace is doing throughout most of his screentime. But he has disagremeents with Wallace, such as when Wallace links up with that bread hoe and Gromit has to sleep outside. And most importantly Gromit is actually essential to Wallace's success.

Clank is such a loser. He just sits on Ratchet or girl Ratchet's back and makes crappy sentimental statements while constantly saying 'oh dear' and doing his horrible creepy laugh. Piss off you weirdo.

I can only assume that these characters (and the game's writing in general) are written this way in order to appeal to children. Most of the conversations in this game come across as being written by a child psycologist trying to teach kids how to properly communicate in the most obvious least entertaining way possible. But do kids have any intrest in a Ratchet and Clank game? not only that, do kids even have any intrest in the PS5?

I have quite a few younger cousins, aged around 6-11, and all of them play videogames. The perfect audience for this game. And yet, not only have they not shown any intrest for this game, but for any game currently on the PS5. They want to play Roblox, Fortnite, Mario and for some reason this weird game involving different coloured gorillas. They want games on the Iphone, the PC and the Nintendo Switch. Not the vastly more expensive and non portable PS5. While i'm sure many children would have a great time playing this game, I'm certain they would quickly get bored of the cutscenes, get sick of the gameplay and probably never even finish the game.

Having never played a Ratchet & Clank game before, I didn't expect much of it, presuming it to be a fun but childish action game. And there is some truth to that sentiment, but what I got wrong was how incredibly fun it would really be and how likeable I would find the characters.

Ratchet himself I had for some reason presumed to be a manic snappy video game protagonist so I was much more interested in the considerably cooler looking Rivet (Ratchet's hat truly is silly), and she didn't fail to endear with her gung-ho attitude and pure coolness, but Ratchet (and Clank as well) surprised me with their depth of emotion and kindness. It was really when Ratchet met Kit and I could see what kind of a person he truly is that I fell in love with him and his cheery compassion. After that it didn’t matter anymore who I was playing, I was in it for the whole nine yards.

The story itself might be a bit silly still (especially the cartoony villain whose name I even feel silly writing), but it’s fun enough to keep one entertained and there’s enough depth to the relationships between the characters and their regrets and doubts that it manages to occasionally resonate. I won’t be singing praises for its story, but I’d love to spend more time with these characters. I might even go back to play some older Ratchet and Clank games, just to see how the guys hold up.

As for the gameplay, what starts a bit chaotic, stays chaotic, but in the best way where you’re not just button-mashing but using your various weapons to control the chaos. There were times when the screen was so filled with effects that if I had not been playing it myself, I wouldn't have understood what was going on. The weapons are all fun to use and even the most generic of them are drawn in a new fashion that adds novelty to them. The feeling of shooting a gun has been optimised to such an extent that there wasn’t any of the big selection that I didn’t like, only those I preferred over others.

I love it when a game surprises me like this. What started as trying out an acclaimed game that I expected to consider fine, turned into one of my all-time favourite games and a series I’m now looking forward to. So nice :)

A much more polished experience than the previous game.
The weapons are better and more practical and so much more fun to use.
The writing is good and it surprised me at times. The introduction of Emperor Nefarious was so cool.
The game was awesome from start to finish and the exploration was less tedious and the planets were so much more fun to explore thanks to the addition of the Hoverboots.
Looking for collectibles was easier due to being able to mark its location on the map, so it was a nice QoL improvement.
The added dash button made the combat more fun and engaging.
All in all, a pretty solid game and I'm looking forward to the next entry.

It's action, it's adventure, it's gorgeous and it feel so good to have a following of such a cult series who is as good as the memories I have of the original game!

The game is also short but in a good way for me. It's manageable, the collectible feel are not everywhere like in other game, so the hunt to get them all never get tedious. And revisiting previous level is still fun !

Finally, the weapons are REALLY fun. With a good skill tree for each, it's really cool to try them all. In my opinion, we might have too much, making it sometimes hard to switch between them, but the game encourage to just take your favorite one and play with them.

A super cool game in fine!

This is my first entry to the series, I immediately felt the insomniac games style, which came from the spider man games, and it's good. Cinematics, the story, the gameplay is fulfilling, but it's just a bit off my liking. was impressed but wasn't hooked to it. that's the reason it's 4/5. The more I play different games I start to realize that galaxy/dimensions game types are maybe just not for me. And the more I play of these I get more and more critical over them which could be the reason my ratings for games drop quite a bit.

Man, I really wanted to LOVE this game. Don’t get me wrong, by the end I DID like it, but I wanted to adore it and I didn’t.

There were just a bunch of small little things that annoyed me.

You know the phrase ‘too much of a good thing’? That’s how I feel about the visuals. They’re no doubt very impressive… but MAN is it a visually noisy and annoying game. Even in just the opening. It’s a big celebration for Ratchet and Clank. And there’s hundreds of people in the audience all animated and moving around, then there’s confetti and particle effects everywhere, and then they throw all these enemies at me and there’s so much debris and bolts flying around and I get hit by enemy bullets because there’s too much fucking shit on the screen!

Oh, and in the second part, there’s a city being attacked, and the citizens are EVERYWHERE. There’s so many people that it was hard to focus on the Goon-4-Less (love those Gooners) guys attacking me and I’d just get hit by them because I can’t FOCUS on them. The lighting doesn’t help either. It’s very impressive, but I think it usually makes the colors stand out less and everything blends together a bit.

It’s just too much. I think about how simple the original PS2 games are. Sure they’re less impressive and detailed, but everything reads a whole lot better.

And the writing. It’s the main thing I like about the Ratchet series. Not that the stories are incredible, but the characters usually had such strong, over the top personalities. But by this point, R&C has just lost a lot of the bite it had before. Everyone’s just so… NICE to one another all the time. It feels like anytime Ratchet talks to Clank, it’s like “don’t worry bestest friend of mine, I got your back, because you are THE most heckin important dude in the world to me :)” and it’s just…. Not funny anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s SOME good jokes, and it’s not like it’s AWFUL, but man, what happened? I felt the same way about the 2016 remake, but at least that had a horrible movie to blame. Rift Apart doesn’t really have that.

There’s other small things here and there, but what DID I like? Well the gameplay is still just so super solid, just runnin’ and gunnin’. By the end it was really fun seeing what weapons worked best together. Throwing out the Topiary Sprinkler and a Mr. Fungi while I took out anyone else was fun, as was combining the Cold Snap and the Warmonger to just absolutely tear through bosses.

I think the levels are kind of a mixed bag, I was a little annoyed at what seemed like multiple desert or barren stages in a row with no real unique ideas to them. But stages like the Scarstu Debris Field or the WONDERFUL pirate level Ardolis, there’s still some really good stuff in there.

And while I ragged on the writing earlier, it’s still a world I want to be in with characters I enjoy. Rivet and Kit are both likable, Emperor Nefarious made for an interesting, new take on the good doctor, and while at first I was a little annoyed that I was just meeting up with alternate universe versions of characters (if it’s gonna take 5 years to get another Ratchet game, I want to meet up with the REAL Skidd McMarx, god DAMN YOU), by the end I thought it was pretty neat the way they handled some of them.

So yeah, I wanted to really adore this game, and I didn’t. But I DID still enjoy my time with it by the end. Ratchet and Clank has changed a lot from the series I once adored, but hey, as long as I can still have a good time with em, that’s good enough.

1a vez que jogo um da franquia e não esperava que fosse gostar tanto, é uma ventura bem divertida com personagens muito carismáticos e cenários incríveis, fiquei surpreso com o level designe e direção de arte do jogo,não é nada inovador mas é muito bem feito e bonito. O combate do jogo também é excelente com a grande variedade de armas e podendo fazer combinações deixa bem dinâmico ele, muitas vezes eu me senti em doom com a velocidade e ter que toda hora trocar de arma rápido pra não apanhar. Ele tem um ritmo bom na progressão que não faz cansar e te mantém engajado no jogo, esse sendo dúvida é o jogo que deixa claro o potencial da nova geração( o único até agora) os visuais são absurdos e a dinâmica de gameplay com os portais demonstra isso, enfim um espetáculo do sonysmo.