Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart is currently the best looking next-gen title and also one of the only games that uses the PS5 hardware as a whole with its fast SSD, the dual sense features and offers high graphical fidelity. If you own a PS5 then this will be the best tech demonstration you can get for your system right now. The question is just, how remarkable will this game be in a few years?
If you put the visuals aside, rift apart ends up being a very bland experience. I pretty much have the same criticism here as with Insomniacs previously released titles. While they definitely nail the controls of their games, everything else from level structure to enemy types remains very repetitive throughout the entire game. Aside from one single enemy type with a shield, which pushes the player to get a bit creative, everything else is just “use everything you currently have freely”. The game doesn’t want you to push into a playstyle, but if the game doesn’t push the player into any challenge whatsoever, the game just feels forgettable and mindless. All boss fights in the game are sharing similar mechanics, mostly there is a laser beam you need to dodge with a side-jump or something similar. It doesn’t matter if you are fighting against a robot with laser beams or a dinosaur which throughs rocks at you, both are sharing the same mechanics gameplay-wise. Even the final boss of the game is doing nothing new.
Level design is also pretty bad, especially in the second world, where a lot of paths are getting blocked by invisible walls. The game also doesn’t implement further obtained upgrades into its level design. There is an upgrade in the game which lets you ramp up a lot of speed to traverse faster through the map and jump further. The upgrade is only really used in the level the upgrade itself gets introduced, afterwards its just an optional thing for combat. There was a lot of situations where I reached a place with the mentioned upgrade and then I realized afterwards, that this was not the intentional way I should get here.
The overall platforming was also reduced by a lot. There is not a single challenging platforming passage in the whole game and even the optional levels, which should offer a bit more of a challenge are offering laughable easy platforming. I wouldn’t even call Ratchet&Clank a platformer anymore if I’m being honest.
Sure, there are cool set pieces, the visuals are amazing and the gunplay satisfying, but the combat is mindless even on the highest difficulty setting, the story serviceable & the level design mediocre at its best.
If you put the visuals aside, rift apart ends up being a very bland experience. I pretty much have the same criticism here as with Insomniacs previously released titles. While they definitely nail the controls of their games, everything else from level structure to enemy types remains very repetitive throughout the entire game. Aside from one single enemy type with a shield, which pushes the player to get a bit creative, everything else is just “use everything you currently have freely”. The game doesn’t want you to push into a playstyle, but if the game doesn’t push the player into any challenge whatsoever, the game just feels forgettable and mindless. All boss fights in the game are sharing similar mechanics, mostly there is a laser beam you need to dodge with a side-jump or something similar. It doesn’t matter if you are fighting against a robot with laser beams or a dinosaur which throughs rocks at you, both are sharing the same mechanics gameplay-wise. Even the final boss of the game is doing nothing new.
Level design is also pretty bad, especially in the second world, where a lot of paths are getting blocked by invisible walls. The game also doesn’t implement further obtained upgrades into its level design. There is an upgrade in the game which lets you ramp up a lot of speed to traverse faster through the map and jump further. The upgrade is only really used in the level the upgrade itself gets introduced, afterwards its just an optional thing for combat. There was a lot of situations where I reached a place with the mentioned upgrade and then I realized afterwards, that this was not the intentional way I should get here.
The overall platforming was also reduced by a lot. There is not a single challenging platforming passage in the whole game and even the optional levels, which should offer a bit more of a challenge are offering laughable easy platforming. I wouldn’t even call Ratchet&Clank a platformer anymore if I’m being honest.
Sure, there are cool set pieces, the visuals are amazing and the gunplay satisfying, but the combat is mindless even on the highest difficulty setting, the story serviceable & the level design mediocre at its best.