I like this game a fair amount, but I honestly think it represents a departure and step backwards from Tools of Destruction.
First: the good
The Clank puzzle sections are well made and pretty fun to figure out. I wish the game gave you more optional than forced tutorial time, but whatever. The challenge puzzles you can do for gold bolts require you to both think carefully about it and also do really tight platforming across each Clank instance to get them done in time. I would play a whole game that's just these puzzles tbh.
The narrative is the best told and probably most engaging of the entire series thus far. People commonly invoke Pixar when talking about these games, but this is where it starts to feel the realest. It's a story about characters realizing that they don't need to be their forefathers and staking their own way in life. It's nothing ground breaking, but it's nice to see in an R&C game. It's also nice for the series to have more fully realized characters and NPC allies that fight alongside you, it was sure a long time coming.
The modular upgrade-able constructo weapons are so fun to dick around with. In general, this game has a pretty strong roster of weapons, but if you don't do all the gladiator matches as soon as you can you may find yourself confused as to what you're missing.
I genuinely like the planetoid segments. I have wanted more of these since the single planetoid segment for Ratchet in Going Commando and Arsenal. These don't deliver as well or hold as much promise as those, and mostly serve to pad content, but some have genuinely fun platforming challenges. Mostly great from them is the visuals: you see the planets in the system upside down as you are on different points on the planetoid's surface, etc. While I wish these weren't so formulaic and content-y, I don't dislike them.
Actual boss variety is happening in this game, which is great. I enjoyed pretty much all of them, including the Vorselon post game rematch. It's nice not to see the same big space pirate miniboss copy pasted over and over, yeesh.
I like the development and fleshing out of different alien races and factions inhabiting the galaxy. It leads to less NPC variety, but I like seeing the characterization build up. You have your Navi/Sid the sloth Fongoids, the huge moron jock Agorians, the dorky Terachnoids, the scavenging Vullards, the lesbians, and each has different aesthetics in their tech. Pretty cool.
Dr. Nefarious obviously is great, Armin Shimerman always leaves it all on the court. Also, the tiny segment where you get to wear a Nefarious hologuise and yell for Lawrence/demand your robot minions be immediately executed was a nice touch. The short part at the beginning of the Nefarious fight where he uses his moves from the Arsenal final boss fight was very nice, videogames.
The meh:
There needed to be way more (and better) time trave set pieces in this game. This game doesn't have many planets, and like well over half of them have set pieces that you can't go through again until a new playthrough.
The ship combat leaves much to be desired. Don't think I need to say more about that.
The gladiator arena challenges mostly continue retreading. I like the arena, but when are we getting some new challenges? The arena in Arsenal has more variety than this.
There aren't really any huge damage weapons like the one in Tools and the sniper in Arsenal. Let me have fun.
The hoverboots are okay. It's nice to see the charge boots become something that makes a little more sense.
There are some cutscenes where Ratchet and Azimuth are inexplicably capable of breathing in the vacuum of space.
The bad:
Honestly, separating Ratchet and Clank for this long just doesn't work. I found myself missing my clank mobility options so often. The biggest sin, though, is when you finally get clank back and you can't toggle the jet pack instead of the heli pack..... Cmon man. Without clank movement, and especially before you get the hover boots, being ratchet feels like complete ass.
Enemy variety at possibly its lowest in the entire franchise to this point.
Where's talwyn??? I like her! This game now lacks a female voice again.
Wish this game had More, which I always find myself wishing with these PS3 games. In Tools I wanted more of those well-crafted platforming and classic R&C level design taken up a notch. In Crack I wanted more planets! More levels please!
The gadgets are not great man :( The hoverboots take up a gadget slot that would normally just be Clank-filled, the swingshot is the swingshot, the time bombs you get late and don't really HAVE to do anything with (psst... They help a lot on the final post game Vorselon fight), and the water soaker thing is just.... truly a nothing device that is only used as a Key in set pieces.
The gold bolts are less Special and cleverly hidden than ever before.
First: the good
The Clank puzzle sections are well made and pretty fun to figure out. I wish the game gave you more optional than forced tutorial time, but whatever. The challenge puzzles you can do for gold bolts require you to both think carefully about it and also do really tight platforming across each Clank instance to get them done in time. I would play a whole game that's just these puzzles tbh.
The narrative is the best told and probably most engaging of the entire series thus far. People commonly invoke Pixar when talking about these games, but this is where it starts to feel the realest. It's a story about characters realizing that they don't need to be their forefathers and staking their own way in life. It's nothing ground breaking, but it's nice to see in an R&C game. It's also nice for the series to have more fully realized characters and NPC allies that fight alongside you, it was sure a long time coming.
The modular upgrade-able constructo weapons are so fun to dick around with. In general, this game has a pretty strong roster of weapons, but if you don't do all the gladiator matches as soon as you can you may find yourself confused as to what you're missing.
I genuinely like the planetoid segments. I have wanted more of these since the single planetoid segment for Ratchet in Going Commando and Arsenal. These don't deliver as well or hold as much promise as those, and mostly serve to pad content, but some have genuinely fun platforming challenges. Mostly great from them is the visuals: you see the planets in the system upside down as you are on different points on the planetoid's surface, etc. While I wish these weren't so formulaic and content-y, I don't dislike them.
Actual boss variety is happening in this game, which is great. I enjoyed pretty much all of them, including the Vorselon post game rematch. It's nice not to see the same big space pirate miniboss copy pasted over and over, yeesh.
I like the development and fleshing out of different alien races and factions inhabiting the galaxy. It leads to less NPC variety, but I like seeing the characterization build up. You have your Navi/Sid the sloth Fongoids, the huge moron jock Agorians, the dorky Terachnoids, the scavenging Vullards, the lesbians, and each has different aesthetics in their tech. Pretty cool.
Dr. Nefarious obviously is great, Armin Shimerman always leaves it all on the court. Also, the tiny segment where you get to wear a Nefarious hologuise and yell for Lawrence/demand your robot minions be immediately executed was a nice touch. The short part at the beginning of the Nefarious fight where he uses his moves from the Arsenal final boss fight was very nice, videogames.
The meh:
There needed to be way more (and better) time trave set pieces in this game. This game doesn't have many planets, and like well over half of them have set pieces that you can't go through again until a new playthrough.
The ship combat leaves much to be desired. Don't think I need to say more about that.
The gladiator arena challenges mostly continue retreading. I like the arena, but when are we getting some new challenges? The arena in Arsenal has more variety than this.
There aren't really any huge damage weapons like the one in Tools and the sniper in Arsenal. Let me have fun.
The hoverboots are okay. It's nice to see the charge boots become something that makes a little more sense.
There are some cutscenes where Ratchet and Azimuth are inexplicably capable of breathing in the vacuum of space.
The bad:
Honestly, separating Ratchet and Clank for this long just doesn't work. I found myself missing my clank mobility options so often. The biggest sin, though, is when you finally get clank back and you can't toggle the jet pack instead of the heli pack..... Cmon man. Without clank movement, and especially before you get the hover boots, being ratchet feels like complete ass.
Enemy variety at possibly its lowest in the entire franchise to this point.
Where's talwyn??? I like her! This game now lacks a female voice again.
Wish this game had More, which I always find myself wishing with these PS3 games. In Tools I wanted more of those well-crafted platforming and classic R&C level design taken up a notch. In Crack I wanted more planets! More levels please!
The gadgets are not great man :( The hoverboots take up a gadget slot that would normally just be Clank-filled, the swingshot is the swingshot, the time bombs you get late and don't really HAVE to do anything with (psst... They help a lot on the final post game Vorselon fight), and the water soaker thing is just.... truly a nothing device that is only used as a Key in set pieces.
The gold bolts are less Special and cleverly hidden than ever before.