Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart dares to ask a profound question: what if Tools of Destruction was good?

Fundamentally, this is the same approach taken by the PS3 and PS4 outings in the series: stripping out any pretence of social satire in favour of a modern Pixar/Dreamworks pastiche with almost overbearing earnestness, only executed with a degree of competence that those games sorely lacked. Rivet and Kit are cool characters who bring genuine pathos to the story through the discussions surrounding Rivet's prosthetic arm, though never enough to meaningfully put the brakes on this rollercoaster ride.

There's a few things holding Rift Apart back from greatness, and I think the lack of willingness to introduce friction of any kind into the experience is perhaps the major one. Drama amongst the cast is well-written and portrayed, but never lasts for long, and never affects the gameplay. Rivet and Ratchet both play identically to one another, and even play exactly the same with or without their robot buddies, making their partnership feel utterly superfluous in gameplay. You worked this out in the very first game, people!!! The shooting itself is fun and consistently pleasing, but one planet for each character aside, the dimension shifting gimmick never really evolves beyond a glorified grappling hook, and the arsenal all plays and feels very similalry, without any gun that makes me go "WOAH THIS IS SOME COOL SHIT" like the Visibomb did in the very first game.

Ultimately, Ratcher & Clank: Rift Apart is too determined to provide a smooth ride through it's extremely technically impressive worlds to really play with the interesting potential that's there, which is a shame, but it is also Gaming on the cutting edge. Ratcher & Clank is the ultimate showcase for the PlayStation 5: not just because it is jaw-droppingly pretty and silky smooth, but also because it represents the creative cost of a game with this much time and money behind it: all sharp edges sanded down into a completely smooth experience that leaves no mark on me.

This game's next gen graphics, visuals and performance just wasn't enough to keep me going. Rift Apart is devoid of any real personality. It's as formulaic as a Disney film without any of the charm.

The platforming is non-existent, with invisible walls and floors you can clip through present in every area. The music is nondescript and even weirder is that most areas once completed don't have any music, helping contribute to the lifeless energy the game gives off.

The writing and dialogue is completely inoffensive and stale, and the characters won't stop talking as you play. Rather than the music and sound effects taking center stage as you explore these alien lands, instead you have the main characters and enemies permanently jabbering and yelling. It seriously never stops.

The combat is serviceable but even on the hardest difficulty it's mindless. Almost 50% in I never had any trouble defeating an encounter or boss.

Given the visuals and the price, I tried my best to see this game the whole way through, but when booting up a game makes you go "ugh" out loud, it's probably time to stop.

This game is not very good. It says its a roguelike but you're not going to do a second run through because it's way too long and also because it's incredibly not fun. Characters are unlocked and you can't play as them unless you start a new game, it's a four player game and they only let you start with 2 characters, there are way too many splash damage attacks to also have friendly fire, your attacks do way more damage on friends than on enemies, the difficulty is extremely unbalanced (a random group of enemies will be WAY harder than the final boss in a level), etc.