As an entry in a series, All 4 One is completely different in tempo, tone, and genre. Taken as a stand-alone game, All 4 One is solid, and for me, captures the spirit of what I want from a Ratchet & Clank game. I can play as Dr. Nefarious and throw Captain Qwark down bottomless ravines! That alone puts it in the top 5 Ratchet & Clank games.
As a multiplayer 3D platformer, I’ll say it - All 4 One has more thought and commitment put into its multiplayer elements than Super Mario 3D World, and a full two years earlier! Rather than being a single player game that your little brother can tag into, All 4 One is designed around at least two players. Consequently, as a single player experience, it sucks. Basic level transversal becomes a tedious chore. But if you have at least one friend, it’s good! If you have at least two friends, it becomes awesome.
All 4 One’s focus on co-op multiplayer is evident in how small touches in its game design nudge you toward communicating with your playmates. There is no camera control, and all aiming is automatic. However, there is a damage multiplier bonus for multiple players attacking the same target with the same weapon at the same time. This mechanic discourages single players striking out on their own, because they will likely be overrun by enemies faster than the players cooperatively shooting targets down one at a time. Weapons can be selected without pausing gameplay, but in multiplayer chaos, this can be hard to read. If every player opens their inventory at once, gameplay pauses. This makes pausing to strategize targets and weapon choice a necessarily cooperative process. I like it!
In some regards, All 4 One felt sloppier than Super Mario 3D World, until I honed in on how its aims differed. Super Mario 3D World is focused on solid platforming challenges, where individual movement and jumping are also combat and progression. It is inherently skill based, which stratifies players within a play session. It is entirely possible for a single skilled player to carry a session, and leave the other players with little to do in their wake.
In All 4 One, every type of gameplay is a pretext for hanging out with your friends. The level design is easy, but you need to work together to cross gaps. Even if one player gets annoyingly far ahead, every player can immediately tether to any other player’s location. (I like this feature because it makes it easy to go back and help friends who have found collectibles as much as help lagging players catch up to the current leader.) There are group quick-time events, which sound evil on paper, but are so generous in their success windows they serve as little more than mini-games to ensure every player is paying attention before the next section starts.
Speaking of mini-games, All 4 One is surprisingly full of them. One level has players fight for collaborative control over a raft by vacuuming paddles. Another plays like Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, where one player must move a basket of shiny rocks while others fight off thieving bats. An extended set piece put all players on the back of a giant robot for an auto-scrolling arcade shooter level. For anyone expecting a traditional Ratchet & Clank experience, this might sound gimmicky. And it is. But the logic behind the gimmicks makes sense to me - they all create opportunities for every player to contribute to the session in slightly different gameplay modes, in the way Mario Party’s variety keeps attention spans from wandering too far afield.
That said, All 4 One has some pacing issues that hold it back from greatness. Individual levels are long in a way that would be satisfying in a single-player experience. But that same novelty wears thin when you must sit through not only your failures, but everyone else’s. Additionally, new weapons and upgrades are unlocked via purchase per playable character. This means one jerk friend can rush to collect more money than anyone else, creating a cascading effect as they hoard the means to buy new weapons at least one cycle faster than others. Would have been much cleaner to have weapon unlocks tied to story progression, given that simultaneous attacks are a core gameplay mechanic.
As for the presentation, the animation is lovely and the story is who cares. On paper, it seems like the kind of delightful cartoon stupid I want out of this franchise, but my god does it have too many cutscenes and get too much dialog. All 4 One proves it is a true Ratchet & Clank game with the series’ signature god-awful audio mixing. In a game where up to four people can be shooting lasers at once, you cannot have off-screen NPCs lore-dumping without subtitles. Either commit to a cutscene or scrap it - you cannot expect anyone to care what some ugly, keyboard-smashed named NPC has to say about their off-screen life story when I have bombs in my hand and things to throw them at.
I am resigning myself to the fact that Captain Qwark is sticking around. At this point, the series has wall-papered over his complacency in a couple of genocides for long enough that fans joining the series in the PS3 era will not share my hatred for him. But also, Dr. Nefarious finally gets Bowser-ized as both the default iconic villain for the series, and someone who’s fun enough to get invited go-kart racing. His flamboyant outrage was absurd enough to keep me entertained my whole time playing as him. Which was the whole game.
In my review system, 2 stars represents an average, C rank game, and 3 stars represents a fun, B rank game. My score is awarded having played through the whole campaign with a buddy, as God intended. If you’re sniffing at this game single player, expect more of a C- experience. All 4 One surprised me by incorporating gadget and weapon utility into level and enemy design more than some of the mainline games, and adapted to a completely different genre and playstyle. I wish it had a sequel to learn from itself and Super Mario 3D World, tightening some of its mechanics and better pacing itself to a multiplayer experience. Hell, even a re-release on PS4 with improved netcode would have been awesome!
I actually did manage to connect to a couple matches in the year 2022! It was a struggle, with terrible lag and no means of communication, but the earnest cooperative spirit from the lone souls I encountered was touching.
As a multiplayer 3D platformer, I’ll say it - All 4 One has more thought and commitment put into its multiplayer elements than Super Mario 3D World, and a full two years earlier! Rather than being a single player game that your little brother can tag into, All 4 One is designed around at least two players. Consequently, as a single player experience, it sucks. Basic level transversal becomes a tedious chore. But if you have at least one friend, it’s good! If you have at least two friends, it becomes awesome.
All 4 One’s focus on co-op multiplayer is evident in how small touches in its game design nudge you toward communicating with your playmates. There is no camera control, and all aiming is automatic. However, there is a damage multiplier bonus for multiple players attacking the same target with the same weapon at the same time. This mechanic discourages single players striking out on their own, because they will likely be overrun by enemies faster than the players cooperatively shooting targets down one at a time. Weapons can be selected without pausing gameplay, but in multiplayer chaos, this can be hard to read. If every player opens their inventory at once, gameplay pauses. This makes pausing to strategize targets and weapon choice a necessarily cooperative process. I like it!
In some regards, All 4 One felt sloppier than Super Mario 3D World, until I honed in on how its aims differed. Super Mario 3D World is focused on solid platforming challenges, where individual movement and jumping are also combat and progression. It is inherently skill based, which stratifies players within a play session. It is entirely possible for a single skilled player to carry a session, and leave the other players with little to do in their wake.
In All 4 One, every type of gameplay is a pretext for hanging out with your friends. The level design is easy, but you need to work together to cross gaps. Even if one player gets annoyingly far ahead, every player can immediately tether to any other player’s location. (I like this feature because it makes it easy to go back and help friends who have found collectibles as much as help lagging players catch up to the current leader.) There are group quick-time events, which sound evil on paper, but are so generous in their success windows they serve as little more than mini-games to ensure every player is paying attention before the next section starts.
Speaking of mini-games, All 4 One is surprisingly full of them. One level has players fight for collaborative control over a raft by vacuuming paddles. Another plays like Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, where one player must move a basket of shiny rocks while others fight off thieving bats. An extended set piece put all players on the back of a giant robot for an auto-scrolling arcade shooter level. For anyone expecting a traditional Ratchet & Clank experience, this might sound gimmicky. And it is. But the logic behind the gimmicks makes sense to me - they all create opportunities for every player to contribute to the session in slightly different gameplay modes, in the way Mario Party’s variety keeps attention spans from wandering too far afield.
That said, All 4 One has some pacing issues that hold it back from greatness. Individual levels are long in a way that would be satisfying in a single-player experience. But that same novelty wears thin when you must sit through not only your failures, but everyone else’s. Additionally, new weapons and upgrades are unlocked via purchase per playable character. This means one jerk friend can rush to collect more money than anyone else, creating a cascading effect as they hoard the means to buy new weapons at least one cycle faster than others. Would have been much cleaner to have weapon unlocks tied to story progression, given that simultaneous attacks are a core gameplay mechanic.
As for the presentation, the animation is lovely and the story is who cares. On paper, it seems like the kind of delightful cartoon stupid I want out of this franchise, but my god does it have too many cutscenes and get too much dialog. All 4 One proves it is a true Ratchet & Clank game with the series’ signature god-awful audio mixing. In a game where up to four people can be shooting lasers at once, you cannot have off-screen NPCs lore-dumping without subtitles. Either commit to a cutscene or scrap it - you cannot expect anyone to care what some ugly, keyboard-smashed named NPC has to say about their off-screen life story when I have bombs in my hand and things to throw them at.
I am resigning myself to the fact that Captain Qwark is sticking around. At this point, the series has wall-papered over his complacency in a couple of genocides for long enough that fans joining the series in the PS3 era will not share my hatred for him. But also, Dr. Nefarious finally gets Bowser-ized as both the default iconic villain for the series, and someone who’s fun enough to get invited go-kart racing. His flamboyant outrage was absurd enough to keep me entertained my whole time playing as him. Which was the whole game.
In my review system, 2 stars represents an average, C rank game, and 3 stars represents a fun, B rank game. My score is awarded having played through the whole campaign with a buddy, as God intended. If you’re sniffing at this game single player, expect more of a C- experience. All 4 One surprised me by incorporating gadget and weapon utility into level and enemy design more than some of the mainline games, and adapted to a completely different genre and playstyle. I wish it had a sequel to learn from itself and Super Mario 3D World, tightening some of its mechanics and better pacing itself to a multiplayer experience. Hell, even a re-release on PS4 with improved netcode would have been awesome!
I actually did manage to connect to a couple matches in the year 2022! It was a struggle, with terrible lag and no means of communication, but the earnest cooperative spirit from the lone souls I encountered was touching.