Okay so good game, fun to play. In terms of gameplay I basically would only complain that sometimes the business of combat makes it hard to see what is actually shooting me and what I need to actually be shooting AT. Also I really like the hoverboots, made getting around really fun, the three-piece skate to get up to full-speed felt good every time I did it into the late game.

But man Ratchet is a boring protagonist, Dr. Nefarious is a boring "wacky" villain who I have never cared for and the competent Nefarious from the alternate dimension is also just a generic and boring dictator guy. It's just a lucky thing that this game is fun to play! I do like Kit and Clank however.

I'm really surprised how negative the reviews are for this here because I had a great time with this. I'll chalk it up to the game being admittedly a little janky, but not to the extent, IMO, being described here.

I also think the pedigree of the game makes it seem like it's going to inherently be a "speedy" platformer when it's maybe not. Like there's definitely the capacity to go fast here, and it was built with that in mind, but in a lot of cases you're poking around looking for stuff or doing little tasks for NPCs or whatever, and the movement mechanics have a little bit of a learning curve that has to be overcome before you can really move quickly, so maybe some people are feeling like they got bait-and-switched? But once you have your head wrapped around and are flying thru using the full bag of tricks it's a ton of fun.

I will say that after a couple days of sustained play I began to find the aesthetic and music in the game kind of grating and the sequence in the last boss where you're riding up the ramp has a whirling camera that makes the correct inputs unclear and lead to a frustrating number of failures. Putting all that aside, this is a short sweet game with movement mechanics satisfying enough that I know I'll come back and have some fun blasting through now and again and that's I was looking for.

I defeated Culex.

I know that the enemies have weaknesses and stuff but I never even hit the level cap and I felt over-leveled, it was never really necessary to strategize in battles, hammering groups with AOE specials and individual enemies with basic attacks always worked fine.

All the full cutscenes were super nice, the group special moves were also really cool.

Splitting up the kit between two spidermen makes the kit feel smaller, reducing the number of gadgets to four doesn't help, the mysteriums are a poor substitute for the taskmaster challenges from the first game, I will be real I don't really like Peter's robo-arms in particular being such a mainstay of his kit they just do not feel very spider-man to me and in general, I think I experienced more immersion breaking bugs and hiccups than in the predecessor but ultimately any complaints I could levy against the game should come with the massive asterisk that I played it non-stop until there was nothing left to do.

Over-long and meandering sequel to the tight and focused 2018 surprise. I understand the impulse to increase the scope and stakes of a sequel but often found myself lost as to what, specifically, I was doing and what it accomplished within the larger narrative and unfortunately even the combat which is very strong generally had worn out it's welcome by the time I reached the finish line. This is ultimately a good game bogged down by just how much of it there is vs what was actually needed or even desired.

On the plus side I was surprised at how much I enjoyed using Atreus when the game made me do so and the Draupnir Spear is an incredibly cool addition to Kratos' arsenal. The Leviathan Axe and the Blades of Chaos are obviously immensely iconic and cool weapons and I think that the spear is strong enough to stand beside them is a huge achievement.