Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (2021)

First off, I haven't played a cartoonish game like this in forever, and I have to say this rivals Pixar quality art.

Absolute blast of a game, with a wonderful story and characters. The ending left more to be desired with the final cutscene, but what an action adventure gem.

I've yet to be disappointed with this series. This is probably my favorite now. I did miss one or two games total back on PS2 maybe? I forget.

5/5

I completed R&C Rift Apart this evening. Marking my 8th completed Ratchet & Clank adventure.

I'm relieved of some sort of emotional duty to have gotten the platinum trophy. A rare occurrence these days that I admit was assisted by the remarkably handy ps5 hint system. A far cry from squinting at vague golden bolt locations in a Going Commando issue of PlayStation Magazine.

It was a colourful and character led spectacle but I'm unsure if I need to join them in another journey. The take away is largely diminishing returns aside from witnessing a robot enemy taking a selfie after beaning Ratchets head in. That was an unexpected, true laugh-out-loud highlight.

I've continued R&C: Rift Apart with a continued appreciation for the entirety of the series. Short bursts leaves time for wonderment, pairing with its stunning fidelity.

It's a concrete formula that I adore but at times, have become overly accustomed with each new entry. At worst, rail sliding and at best, golden bolt collection.

The background noise of Coronation Street playing on TV in another room and being seated on the floor, threw me back to a time where I felt safe and enjoyed R&C the most.

Somehow I'm an adult, knowing full well the series leans toward younger gamers but in moments like this, it feels made for me.

My memory of the first R&C bubbled with the same feeling of bustle and scale.

20 years later, the same sensation is there but with a world of graphical difference.

I'm set for another adventure with the duo but after playing through each entry, it may be more of the same with an astounding presence to pull me through.

There is no other title better fit to christen a PS5. Besides, Dr Nefarious alone is worth it.

This is my first time playing any ratchet and clank game. I had no clue what to expect, but I definitely understand why it got such positive reviews. It has a very impressive visual style, combined with a really impressive alternate dimension mechanic and really satisfying player movement.

The game was really fun, but I feel like it’s just candy. The story and humor and lore… just very Hollywood. It never impacted me emotionally or inspired me. The humor and characters are very kid-oriented.

The gameplay shines though, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a technical marvel even on PC and totally worth a play.

Group Podcast Discussion:

My Final Thoughts:

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is an amazing game, and for those of you who have been on the fence about whether or not you should play it - you should just play it. Especially with the recent announcement of the PC port coming soon. This game is Ratchet and Clank in its purest form, firing off on all cylinders. This is the cleanest I have ever seen the combat, and I would say is probably the most accessible Ratchet and Clank game to date. This game is fun, it’s chaotic, and it has reminded me why I love the Ratchet and Clank series despite the few bugs I encountered.

I am curious to see where they will go from here if they were to make another game, as I still feel like they are just scratching the surface and there is still more room for exploration regarding the time and dimension aspect of the series. They have spent decades building the entire game series, and there are a lot of worlds, and characters they could work off of. Give me the Spiderverse but with Ratchet and Clank basically lol.

Anyways, with that said, I am going to give Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart an 8.5 out of 10.

This is the first I've ever played of this series, and I don't know why it took me so long. When I was talking to other folks about how much I was enjoying it, someone mentioned that they just don't crank these out (no pun intended). Instead, they take their time to craft them - and it shows.

First off, what a BEAUTIFUL game for something that's more on the animated side. The attention to detail and world-building is really impressive. I found myself pausing the game to capture some of the more sweeping landscapes - and there are plenty of them. The storyline is simple, but keeps you guessing so it doesn't get too boring or repetitive. And there's not too much dialogue to bog things down. in fact, there's a sweetness in the characters which are kindhearted and caring.

The gameplay can get a little repetitive, but there's enough variety and fun that it keeps it challenging. In fact, some of the bosses were downright hard - not discouraging - but enough that I had to try them more than a few times before I figured out how to beat them. Speaking of which - the WEAPONS! So much variety and imagination! Once you figure out how to make them work together, some magic happens - really cool stuff.

This isn't an epically long game, but enough to hold my interest to the end and have a lot of fun along the way. Again, a fun game, full of adventure with plenty of stuff to blow up! I really enjoyed this little romp. I'll definitely pay attention to the next one(s) that come out. Well done!

I’d not played R&C games up until PS5, and I was lucky enough to overnight in front of a Best Buy and get one so picked this up as a ‘launch’ (lol) title for the console.

First I’d played the PS4 remake of the first game, so I knew what was going on. I didn’t like it but it was tolerable (3/5). I felt like it was kind of slapped together and the jokes fell flat.

This game, in contrast, didn’t attempt the same tact. Rather it’s a half-serious romp that’s “largely spaced but still linear” in the same vein as the remake, but this title had a better plot, better guns, better graphics, and made a very worthy title in the PS5 native game set.

I can’t overstate how good this game looks in HDR with ray tracing on. The blues and purples and oranges are heavily saturated and on a good panel you’re gonna be melting your eyes. One of the guns shoot hot purple bullets which start out bright and fade over time, and the HDR really sells the entire schtick. The frame rate suffers but the entire game is better off with them on.

I wouldn’t recommend this title to someone wanting a challenge, though. It’s easy to get into and finish in about 20 hours, and there’s little incentive to try and hunt down everything. The puzzle sections are still a labor and aren’t very fun after a while. The weapons were way more fun to shoot and experiment with than the remake, however. I did have a problem near the end (Prison level) where I died and respawned on a different ledge which wouldn’t let me progress (a door wouldn’t open), and that was a bummer, but the game keeps checkpoint saves you can load from if you need to, so it was largely trouble free.

Overall, this is a solid title and I’d recommend it to someone looking for a game to play, which makes it a 4… out of 5.

Console Notes: PS5 on a 4K OLED display in Fidelity/Graphics mode.

With the exception of Astro's Playroom, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart might be the best reason to buy a PlayStation 5 so far. Released five years after the franchise received a soft reboot of sorts, Rift Apart doesn't alter the formula of Ratchet & Clank too much, instead, using the new technology the PlayStation 5 affords to craft a game as expansive and inventive as this franchise has always wanted to be.

Ratchet & Clank - at least to me - has always wanted to be sort of a cartoon that could be played, but I've always found this series to think of itself as funnier than it actually is, and with levels that don't really inspire much excitement. Yet what this series lacks in those elements, it made up for with great combat and interesting weaponry. Rift Apart is the first time in this series I've felt that Ratchet & Clank was, in fact, an animated series that I was playing.

I think too often in this series, Ratchet & Clank focuses on the broad secondary characters, and not enough on the franchise's stars. But Rift Apart largely focuses both on the title characters, as well as the new introductions of Rivet and Kit. By doing this, we get to learn more about these characters, care about their stories, all while growing to also care about these new additions. For maybe the first time in this series, Ratchet & Clank feels like more than just two heroes shooting a group of villains. Rift Apart's focus on narrative expands these universes in a really lovely way, right down to how the game handles viruses in the game's side missions.

But Rift Apart does this all in a game that is one of the best examples of what the PlayStation 5 can do. Not only is this game gorgeous, wth action that never gets old, but the controller also helps bring this game to life. There's a myriad of sounds that come through the controller's speaker, while the game's weapons will feel different the more time you spend with them. One weapon might feel unwieldy to control at first, but by leveling it up, the controls are more responsive and comfortable. It's an extremely smart way to utilize the PS5 controller to make this franchise feel new.

While I very much enjoy this game, and would recommend it to anyone with a PS5, I still have my issues with Rift Apart. My first problem is some unusual level design that came make the game frustrating at times. Epsecially in the early levels, these worlds can be a bit confusing. A problem I have with this series and other platformers is that they will send me to look for certain items, yet will not make it clear if I have the ability to get these items, or if I need some new tool to reach these items. Especially with Ratchet & Clank games, I like to try and wrap up everything I can before moving on, and there were several times where I knew where certain items were, but couldn't be sure if I could actually get them, or if I needed to come back. For the most part, I didn't have to come back, but I did find myself getting frustrated by the uncertainty of what I can and cannot do.

I think another problem that might factor into this is the user interface. Especially when looking for these items, the map is extremely beneficial, but I found myself going back and forth between the map so often that I almost wished the game had an easier way to tackle all these collectibles. Similarly, I wish there were more options for the maps, and an easier way to set up the weapons wheel, amongst other minor problems that I think could make the game more enjoyable. For example, with Insomniac's Spider-Man games, the player can easily see what collectibles are nearby while playing. I think the DNA of Ratchet & Clank but be found within Insomniac's Spider-Man games and Sunset Overdrive, but I wish more of the DNA of those games was brought into this one.

One final nitpicky issue I have is that Rift Apart - at least in the early trailers - made it seem like the player would be able to travel between universes within the game, making for what looked like a crazy experience. In actuality, rifts are rarely used, often just used as a tool to get from one platform to another. Which is fine, I can understand how adding more to this new dynamic could be extremely difficult to maintain. I just sort of wish more of that universes colliding aspect had been a major part of this game.

But beyond these relatively minor problems, Rift Apart is by far the best game in this franchise, which inevitably makes it one of the best platformers I've probably ever played. Insomniac's focus on the narrative of these characters, mixed with the franchise's continued determination to provide interesting and fun weaponry makes this a great new direction for this series.

I fully intend to go back and finish up what I left in this game, and try out the new game plus features too, but I have been putting the review off for too long.

What a fun and fast paced game. The mix between platformer and shooter is very well balanced. You can focus on leveling up a specific combo of weapons to play a specific way, or try out all of them without handicapping yourself. The weapons make use of the PS5's adjustable trigger strength, but not in a way that I felt added anything. But the haptic vibration and controller sounds were very immersive. I also really enjoyed the way the developers seamlessly transitioned the player from cutscene to action and vice versa in most situations.

Rivet and Kit are great new characters, and having only played the series sparingly I found them to be more interesting than Ratchet and Clank. Zurkie Jr's weapon descriptions seemed to go for the style of humor found in Borderlands games, but lands far more often. Playing this game while knowing the stories of prior games seems like it would make it even more enjoyable since I was in the dark on a lot of the dimensional counterparts and how they compared to the original character.

There is a nice little story to the game which sees characters dealing with identity, insecurity, esteem, purpose and other existential questions. While not greatly in depth, the game does a good job of not confining characters to a tired out black and white trope.

The visuals were very bright, colorful, and diverse; and I am glad we have left the mid 2000's trend of gloomy brown and grey far in the past. (Excuse my appropriation of the British spelling of gray). The many different worlds let the developers show off their style in a lot of different settings, and I enjoyed all of them. The music felt appropriate and did not stand out as exceptional or as badly out of place.

It was very difficult to decide whether to give this game 4 or 5 stars. At the end of the day, the main reason I went with 4 stars was the buggy environments. Getting too adventurous and climbing or jumping to objects sometimes got me stuck where Ratchet/Rivet behaved as if they had not hit the ground yet. This led to a few restarts from prior checkpoints where I lost a chunk of progress, though never enough for me to call it quits for a session. A button to "self-destruct" would be useful for situations like this. If you can handle those minor frustrations better than I did, or if you are not the type to slowly jump your way up an entire mountain in Skyrim like I did, then this game is definitely 5 stars for you.

This game is a marvel of presentation and visual detail, both graphical and artistic. It gives the PS5 a much-needed crowd-pleasing exclusive to hold up alongside some of the more niche experiences it’s offered so far. I enjoyed myself for several hours, but a few issues held me back from truly loving the game by its second half.

The combat is very approachable, and a lot of fun in the opening hours as you constantly get new weapons and new enemies to fight. Eventually, though, I felt that the game was way over-reliant on this combat to fill its runtime. There are some really fun platforming sections, puzzle and combat challenges similar in scope to BotW shrines, and hubs to explore to break things up, but they’re underutilized in favor of copy-pasted bosses and enemy mobs.

The game’s main hook is hopping between dimensions, and occasionally this is used to great effect — creating comical situations between characters, neat inter-dimensional platforming, teleporting around enemies, hidden secrets, and many awe-inspiring visual transitions made possible by the PS5’s SSD and other hardware. I find it somewhat of a letdown, then, that the two main characters play exactly the same, have so much in common, and almost never interact, considering how well the game works when it deliberately juxtaposes things that starkly contrast from one another. This is much less cool than the similar concept in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, though I guess it’s not fair to compare things to something that good.

The plotline these two lombaxes inhabit is generally fine, even good for much of its time, but tends to drag in the middle. This section is spent going back and forth between parallel storylines, so with them being playable in either order there’s not much opportunity to actually move anything forward beyond the very “ok” character arcs. Luckily, a few individual missions do have good internal arcs of their own, and the initial setup of arriving to the new dimension and meeting all the characters was a ton of fun to experience. There is a lot of humor in the writing that usually lands well and keeps the fun going. I think kids would especially love it and not mind as much how broad the brushstrokes are on its heroes and villains.

With all of the game’s strengths and weaknesses in mind, I feel comfortable giving it a “Light 4”. Like I said, it’s a crowd-pleaser type of thing, a blockbuster, so almost anyone could enjoy something about it. It feels like a big moment in terms of visual presentation, so definitely worth seeing with your own eyes on a good display and enjoying all of its energy and excitement.

I just platinumed this game and omg it was over way too soon! Ratchet And Clank: Rift Apart easily puts every part of your PS5 to the test and overwhelms you with so much pride over the system.

Downright hilarious, exhilarating and so so well written. Just when you think you've seen them all, the final boss sequence leaves you with so many feelings.

Even if you have never played a Ratchet game before, this one is for you. Buy it blindly.