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.
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.