The best Ratchet game since a Crack in Time and an absolutely stunning technical show piece to christen my new 3060 graphics card with with. The amount of things going on at screen at any one time while never dipping in framerate at 1440p was an absolute delight and the game was never not a looker at any point. I found myself staring at the environments and looking at every nook and cranny to appreciate all $81 million they spent on this game. The levels themselves tend to be bigger and stuffed with unique detail and npcs in a way that the series has never done before which makes the worlds feel a lot more lived in than previous games.
But outside of being a visual showcase the game delivers a great arsenal of weapons instead of relying on the set of weapons from the Future trilogy like the last two games. All of them tend to be a blast to use even if it feels like they aren't quite as unique or gimmicky as past weaponry and most guns feel useful which isn't always the case in these games. Sadly it keeps the Raritanium system first introduced in Tools of Destruction which makes the natural gun level ups incremental and boring while you have to specifically spend raritanium for more interesting and worthwhile upgrades. There is a reason Crack in Time dropped this system and I dont know why they keep bringing it back. But unlike Ratchet PS4 most guns feel pretty solid from a base state, too many guns in Ratchet PS4 required raritanium upgrades to be even somewhat usable. But the side effect of the final level 5 upgrade barely being noticeable stays, I struggle to even tell you what even changes with most of the guns at level 5. Its a real shame since the guns used to sometimes literally change beyond recognition and all of that creative spark is missing from the upgrades this time around.
Rift Apart also inherits some problems from Ratchet PS4, mainly changing the camera to be a third person shooter camera instead of a platfomer camera. This might seem like a smart change but aiming is a very unimportant part of the combat in Ratchet as its more about dodging and crowd control so always making the player aim stops the game from having unique camera behavior in combat sections. Combined with the fact that Rift Apart tends to have larger battle arenas and farther away enemies than the original PS2 games it makes getting hit by things you can't see a much more common occurrence. Changing the FOV is basically a must for a comfortable camera which I am not even sure you can do on the PS5, but it is way too close by default.
The combat flow also gets a shake up with the inclusion of the phantom dash which is a multipurpose invincible air dash that feels quite good to use. Its a fun addition to combat and platforming but it does feel a little bit overpowered. Often times after finishing a fight I would walk around and notice that the combat arena was filled with rifts and swingshot points and all sorts of things to encourage movement through the arena but 9 times out of 10 just hunkering down and unloading your huge arsenal of weapons and abusing your phantom dash will work out perfectly even on hard mode.
The dimensional rifts push the spectacle and set pieces of the game hard and are where a lot of the spark and joy of the game come from. The first time you go through the dimensional rifts and see how fast and effortlessly the game can swap between busy environments is a huge wow moment and the game finds lots of fun ways to use the rift gimmick. Enemies of different factions and environments will often disrupt combat through the rifts adding the chaos delightfully, while other times you will be tossed through dimensions to change the fighting arena rapidly. Even when there is no dimensional trickery, setpieces tend to be full of things going on that will delight and surprise you throughout the whole game. It makes the areas and events feel more thought out and helps elevate them above feeling like "video game levels".
The story though feels a little weak and a bit of a retread of a Crack in Time without the emotional core. The whole dimensional incident feels like something Clank would never do after spending a whole game learning about how the forces of the Universe need to be upheld and not to be played with. Revisiting Ratchet having the possibility of finally reuniting with the Lombaxes feels like they have run out of ideas, this story beat was explored thoroughly in the Future trilogy and it feels like they have run out of ideas. Rivet and Kit seemed to have potential and their relationship is obviously supposed to parallel Ratchet and Clank's rocky start but it all feels a bit rushed, all four main characters spend too much time not being together for them to really get the most out of the dynamic. And at this point I dont know why Insomniac has insisted on making Nefarious appear in every game but it really made the overall conflict and villain extremely boring. Villains used to actually have motivations and reasons in this series but now its just Nefarious being evil for evil's sake. With the rest of the story not being super strong it made me really notice and miss the "edge" that has been missing from the series for a long time. It wasn't as huge of an issue for the Future games since they made up for it with strong mystery and character writing, but everything is so over the top nice and wholesome in this game it almost feels like this game is in a different dimension than the PS2 originals which were full of sarcasm and wit. You can see how the capitalist critique that the early stories and settings were built off of has eroded into nothingness. The weapon vendor in this game is a character we are supposed to like instead of a faceless mega corporation that dubiously sells weapons to the people. The story is never actively bad or terrible but it feels flat, shallow, and like a lot of potential is unfulfilled throughout.
And as an extension to the story critiques maybe the aspect of the game that bothered me the most throughout the whole game is that the game never, and I mean never, shuts up. It is extremely impressive that almost every second of this game has unique dialogue attached to it in someway but oh my goodness is it too much. Its a shame because a lot of it does add to the game, story moments given throughout gameplay, jokes and little stories from npcs all around but the sheer volume of it distracts and the annoying gets mixed in with the important and good. A lot of games that have voiced dialogue throughout normal gameplay tend to have slower movement styles so its easier to time and control the pace of dialogues, but by the third level you are given hover boots and are already playing a fast paced shooter platformer hybrid so its super easy to move and shoot so fast that the game cant keep up and multiple dialogues interrupt each other. Its never really a good thing when annoying tutorial or enemy jokes interrupt actual good dialogue. Also I want to shove Zurkon Jr into the Sun, I dont know what Insomniac's fascination with the Zurkon family is but please retire them Mr Zurkon was a lot more charming when he was a weapon and his whole family werent main characters. The game would be significantly improved if about 40% of all gameplay dialogue was cut, I wont get bored I promise Insomniac please let me actually think and feel things on my own while I play.
Ratchet and Clank continues to be the pizza of video games where even when its not at its best its still pretty darn good. It probably should've ended with a Crack in Time, but even with its flaws still a game that is a good time and flows well and is one of the best looking games ever made.
But outside of being a visual showcase the game delivers a great arsenal of weapons instead of relying on the set of weapons from the Future trilogy like the last two games. All of them tend to be a blast to use even if it feels like they aren't quite as unique or gimmicky as past weaponry and most guns feel useful which isn't always the case in these games. Sadly it keeps the Raritanium system first introduced in Tools of Destruction which makes the natural gun level ups incremental and boring while you have to specifically spend raritanium for more interesting and worthwhile upgrades. There is a reason Crack in Time dropped this system and I dont know why they keep bringing it back. But unlike Ratchet PS4 most guns feel pretty solid from a base state, too many guns in Ratchet PS4 required raritanium upgrades to be even somewhat usable. But the side effect of the final level 5 upgrade barely being noticeable stays, I struggle to even tell you what even changes with most of the guns at level 5. Its a real shame since the guns used to sometimes literally change beyond recognition and all of that creative spark is missing from the upgrades this time around.
Rift Apart also inherits some problems from Ratchet PS4, mainly changing the camera to be a third person shooter camera instead of a platfomer camera. This might seem like a smart change but aiming is a very unimportant part of the combat in Ratchet as its more about dodging and crowd control so always making the player aim stops the game from having unique camera behavior in combat sections. Combined with the fact that Rift Apart tends to have larger battle arenas and farther away enemies than the original PS2 games it makes getting hit by things you can't see a much more common occurrence. Changing the FOV is basically a must for a comfortable camera which I am not even sure you can do on the PS5, but it is way too close by default.
The combat flow also gets a shake up with the inclusion of the phantom dash which is a multipurpose invincible air dash that feels quite good to use. Its a fun addition to combat and platforming but it does feel a little bit overpowered. Often times after finishing a fight I would walk around and notice that the combat arena was filled with rifts and swingshot points and all sorts of things to encourage movement through the arena but 9 times out of 10 just hunkering down and unloading your huge arsenal of weapons and abusing your phantom dash will work out perfectly even on hard mode.
The dimensional rifts push the spectacle and set pieces of the game hard and are where a lot of the spark and joy of the game come from. The first time you go through the dimensional rifts and see how fast and effortlessly the game can swap between busy environments is a huge wow moment and the game finds lots of fun ways to use the rift gimmick. Enemies of different factions and environments will often disrupt combat through the rifts adding the chaos delightfully, while other times you will be tossed through dimensions to change the fighting arena rapidly. Even when there is no dimensional trickery, setpieces tend to be full of things going on that will delight and surprise you throughout the whole game. It makes the areas and events feel more thought out and helps elevate them above feeling like "video game levels".
The story though feels a little weak and a bit of a retread of a Crack in Time without the emotional core. The whole dimensional incident feels like something Clank would never do after spending a whole game learning about how the forces of the Universe need to be upheld and not to be played with. Revisiting Ratchet having the possibility of finally reuniting with the Lombaxes feels like they have run out of ideas, this story beat was explored thoroughly in the Future trilogy and it feels like they have run out of ideas. Rivet and Kit seemed to have potential and their relationship is obviously supposed to parallel Ratchet and Clank's rocky start but it all feels a bit rushed, all four main characters spend too much time not being together for them to really get the most out of the dynamic. And at this point I dont know why Insomniac has insisted on making Nefarious appear in every game but it really made the overall conflict and villain extremely boring. Villains used to actually have motivations and reasons in this series but now its just Nefarious being evil for evil's sake. With the rest of the story not being super strong it made me really notice and miss the "edge" that has been missing from the series for a long time. It wasn't as huge of an issue for the Future games since they made up for it with strong mystery and character writing, but everything is so over the top nice and wholesome in this game it almost feels like this game is in a different dimension than the PS2 originals which were full of sarcasm and wit. You can see how the capitalist critique that the early stories and settings were built off of has eroded into nothingness. The weapon vendor in this game is a character we are supposed to like instead of a faceless mega corporation that dubiously sells weapons to the people. The story is never actively bad or terrible but it feels flat, shallow, and like a lot of potential is unfulfilled throughout.
And as an extension to the story critiques maybe the aspect of the game that bothered me the most throughout the whole game is that the game never, and I mean never, shuts up. It is extremely impressive that almost every second of this game has unique dialogue attached to it in someway but oh my goodness is it too much. Its a shame because a lot of it does add to the game, story moments given throughout gameplay, jokes and little stories from npcs all around but the sheer volume of it distracts and the annoying gets mixed in with the important and good. A lot of games that have voiced dialogue throughout normal gameplay tend to have slower movement styles so its easier to time and control the pace of dialogues, but by the third level you are given hover boots and are already playing a fast paced shooter platformer hybrid so its super easy to move and shoot so fast that the game cant keep up and multiple dialogues interrupt each other. Its never really a good thing when annoying tutorial or enemy jokes interrupt actual good dialogue. Also I want to shove Zurkon Jr into the Sun, I dont know what Insomniac's fascination with the Zurkon family is but please retire them Mr Zurkon was a lot more charming when he was a weapon and his whole family werent main characters. The game would be significantly improved if about 40% of all gameplay dialogue was cut, I wont get bored I promise Insomniac please let me actually think and feel things on my own while I play.
Ratchet and Clank continues to be the pizza of video games where even when its not at its best its still pretty darn good. It probably should've ended with a Crack in Time, but even with its flaws still a game that is a good time and flows well and is one of the best looking games ever made.