Rift Apart provides a joyous arsenal of weapons and a story that combines non-stop spectacle with endearing characters.
As with any Ratchet and Clank game, combat plays a huge role. You are given tons of weapons to purchase and upgrade, along with countless opportunities to take them for a spin. The game does a great job of encouraging you to use it's spectacular arsenal of weapons by pretty drastically limiting the amount of ammo you get and carry. Particularly later on in the game, when the fights can get longer, you'll find yourself needing to use three or four weapons minimum. The difficulty in this game comes more from ammo management than tough fights. Many of the weapons work well to support other weapons, further encouraging weapon swapping. I often used the Topiary Sprinkler -- which turns enemies into plants that can't move, and followed up with the Headhunter (sniper) to pick away at the unmoving lawn ornaments. Overall my most used weapon was certainly the Executor (shotgun) as I found it a diabolically efficient way to mow down heaps of weak enemies or giant brutes.
You upgrade weapons by finding Raritanium throughout the environment. There's enough lying around that it rewards your exploration and it's addicting to click away at the upgrade screen to make all your favorite weapons even better. There are other collectables to find, like gold bolts that unlock armor, spybots that grant you a super weapon when you find them all, and each world contains a tiny, hard to find, stuffed animal for the completionists out there.
There's so much shooting in this game, and even with the extensive diversity of guns, I still found my enjoyment wearing thin in the second half especially as the frequency of long fights picked up. This game was at it's best when you are freely exploring interesting worlds, meeting new characters and completing a variety of quests to move the story forward, while shorter fights are constantly being mixed in. That is the flow for much of the first half of the game. The latter half of the game meanwhile, felt a bit more like one big shooting gallery after another, facing off against enemies I'd already taken down hundreds of times. Sure this was still fun, but less fun. Of course, even when the story had wrapped I wasn't exactly eager to put the game down. I ended up going back through nearly every level to pick up collectables I had missed and I even grabbed the platinum trophy.
Surprisingly the thing that really kept me going the most was the story and my investment in the characters. Rivet was a fantastic addition and even though her gameplay is basically just a palette swap from Ratchet, her personality and place in the story was quite enjoyable. There are so many fun and weird characters, and my limited experience with the previous entries in this franchise didn't hold back my enjoyment of them at all. Mort, Pierre and Gary were highlights and while some of the dialogue felt a bit stiff and awkward, particularly during action gameplay, the plot was roaring and I loved soaking up as much as I could from the world. It's hard to think of a game that packs so much story, fun gameplay, and breathtaking environments into a tight 10-hour package.
Ratchet and Clank is an absolute spectacle on the PS5 with beautiful colors and controller integration that brings you as close as possible to the arsenal of weapons. There was a bit too much shooting and not enough exploration and platforming for my taste but it's so rock solid at what it is trying to do that my annoyances were short-lived.
As with any Ratchet and Clank game, combat plays a huge role. You are given tons of weapons to purchase and upgrade, along with countless opportunities to take them for a spin. The game does a great job of encouraging you to use it's spectacular arsenal of weapons by pretty drastically limiting the amount of ammo you get and carry. Particularly later on in the game, when the fights can get longer, you'll find yourself needing to use three or four weapons minimum. The difficulty in this game comes more from ammo management than tough fights. Many of the weapons work well to support other weapons, further encouraging weapon swapping. I often used the Topiary Sprinkler -- which turns enemies into plants that can't move, and followed up with the Headhunter (sniper) to pick away at the unmoving lawn ornaments. Overall my most used weapon was certainly the Executor (shotgun) as I found it a diabolically efficient way to mow down heaps of weak enemies or giant brutes.
You upgrade weapons by finding Raritanium throughout the environment. There's enough lying around that it rewards your exploration and it's addicting to click away at the upgrade screen to make all your favorite weapons even better. There are other collectables to find, like gold bolts that unlock armor, spybots that grant you a super weapon when you find them all, and each world contains a tiny, hard to find, stuffed animal for the completionists out there.
There's so much shooting in this game, and even with the extensive diversity of guns, I still found my enjoyment wearing thin in the second half especially as the frequency of long fights picked up. This game was at it's best when you are freely exploring interesting worlds, meeting new characters and completing a variety of quests to move the story forward, while shorter fights are constantly being mixed in. That is the flow for much of the first half of the game. The latter half of the game meanwhile, felt a bit more like one big shooting gallery after another, facing off against enemies I'd already taken down hundreds of times. Sure this was still fun, but less fun. Of course, even when the story had wrapped I wasn't exactly eager to put the game down. I ended up going back through nearly every level to pick up collectables I had missed and I even grabbed the platinum trophy.
Surprisingly the thing that really kept me going the most was the story and my investment in the characters. Rivet was a fantastic addition and even though her gameplay is basically just a palette swap from Ratchet, her personality and place in the story was quite enjoyable. There are so many fun and weird characters, and my limited experience with the previous entries in this franchise didn't hold back my enjoyment of them at all. Mort, Pierre and Gary were highlights and while some of the dialogue felt a bit stiff and awkward, particularly during action gameplay, the plot was roaring and I loved soaking up as much as I could from the world. It's hard to think of a game that packs so much story, fun gameplay, and breathtaking environments into a tight 10-hour package.
Ratchet and Clank is an absolute spectacle on the PS5 with beautiful colors and controller integration that brings you as close as possible to the arsenal of weapons. There was a bit too much shooting and not enough exploration and platforming for my taste but it's so rock solid at what it is trying to do that my annoyances were short-lived.