Physical EU version played on a PlayStation 3 Super Slim.
I think there are a lot of decent choices made in this game - the narrative change to focus on Ratchet's (& Clank's?) origins feel wonky and sometimes more than a little forced but it adds some decent drama and seriousness that the prior 2 games sorely lacked. While new characters of Talwyn and her robot companions feels redundant due to prior games having these exact same archetypal characters with different designs and names, Qwark at least shows signs of gaining a little pathos whilst the inclusion of the pirate robots made this game far more enjoyable during moments of dryness. The gameplay is a vast improvement over Up Your Arsenal's however, featuring a strong focus on actual platforming again and maintaining that balance that the first two games had, albeit building on the strength of the weapon levelling that was such a core focus of Arsenal and Deadlocked.
It does all start to feel stale in the mid game though; whilst character models and animation quality get a little bump not much is on display to demonstrate the power of a new console generation. Art direction and level design feels like remixes of prior games and the wholly uninspired score has me certain I've heard most of the soundtrack before, either in prior entries or from Pirates of the Carribean. The lack of subtitles during gameplay was frustrating since what I was able to hear seemed to flesh out the narrative and character motivations but I genuinely feel I was only able to make out a quarter of it, whilst nearly every cutscene had audio skips, causing the dialogue to fall behind the animations and run the risk of not even finishing before gameplay came back. The lighting in some levels also made playing a bit of a chore since there were plenty of areas in the late game I just couldn't see properly and the lack of an in-game brightness setting exacerbated my issues.
Tools of Destruction is the fifth game in as many years for the Ratchet & Clank series and you can tell. The game design as a whole feels tired and while Insomniac can still deliver hilsrious jokes and seems to take a fresh new direction with the story it feels like one that could make or break older fans' enjoyment of the series. We've had 4 games now of not knowing Ratchet's origin and the possibility of making him some sort of prophesied son of a god-like species (whilst potentially retconning Clank's origin entirely) has red flags all over it. Still, if you haven't played an action adenture platformer in a while you can do a whole lot worse than this game.
I think there are a lot of decent choices made in this game - the narrative change to focus on Ratchet's (& Clank's?) origins feel wonky and sometimes more than a little forced but it adds some decent drama and seriousness that the prior 2 games sorely lacked. While new characters of Talwyn and her robot companions feels redundant due to prior games having these exact same archetypal characters with different designs and names, Qwark at least shows signs of gaining a little pathos whilst the inclusion of the pirate robots made this game far more enjoyable during moments of dryness. The gameplay is a vast improvement over Up Your Arsenal's however, featuring a strong focus on actual platforming again and maintaining that balance that the first two games had, albeit building on the strength of the weapon levelling that was such a core focus of Arsenal and Deadlocked.
It does all start to feel stale in the mid game though; whilst character models and animation quality get a little bump not much is on display to demonstrate the power of a new console generation. Art direction and level design feels like remixes of prior games and the wholly uninspired score has me certain I've heard most of the soundtrack before, either in prior entries or from Pirates of the Carribean. The lack of subtitles during gameplay was frustrating since what I was able to hear seemed to flesh out the narrative and character motivations but I genuinely feel I was only able to make out a quarter of it, whilst nearly every cutscene had audio skips, causing the dialogue to fall behind the animations and run the risk of not even finishing before gameplay came back. The lighting in some levels also made playing a bit of a chore since there were plenty of areas in the late game I just couldn't see properly and the lack of an in-game brightness setting exacerbated my issues.
Tools of Destruction is the fifth game in as many years for the Ratchet & Clank series and you can tell. The game design as a whole feels tired and while Insomniac can still deliver hilsrious jokes and seems to take a fresh new direction with the story it feels like one that could make or break older fans' enjoyment of the series. We've had 4 games now of not knowing Ratchet's origin and the possibility of making him some sort of prophesied son of a god-like species (whilst potentially retconning Clank's origin entirely) has red flags all over it. Still, if you haven't played an action adenture platformer in a while you can do a whole lot worse than this game.