This game improved a ton from the last entry. Much more concise, flows great, feels like the morning cartoons it's trying to emulate. It fixed most of its issues in terms of traversal and power creep with shorter, more dense levels, and the exp mechanic for guns. Although, the series' fascination for bullet sponges still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Especially for common enemies in the late game. I also finally got a hang of the control scheme with this game (which still sucks). Overall though I'm glad I got to go on another adventure with Ratchet and Clank :)

I remembered loving this game and it being my favourite from the ratchet and clank series but after finishing it last month I've sat on writing the review on it just because I don't know exactly what to say about it, fun game but its definitely not as good as I remembered, the game takes a much heavier focus on its combat and a reduced focus on platforming and the game is much worse for it

nefarious is a great villain though and I couldnt help but enjoy every cutscene with him and its no wonder he continued (and continues) to come back in these games frequently

still fun and worth a play through and I'm unsure if me playing this trilogy back to back caused me to be much more cynical towards this game on revisiting it but regardless its heavy focus on combat makes it a bit more of a pain to get through and a lot less of a chill out fun game like the first 2

i'd rank this second-place of the first three ratchet & clank games (with r&c 1 on top and going commando on the bottom.)
the gameplay is improved over the second, but the writing is mixed. we've reached the second R&C that introduces a brand new love interest for ratchet for absolutely no reason. that said, there are a lot of funny jokes! so i'd say it's a pro on the comedy and a con on the plot. having started with the 2016 R&C and then going backwards, i can say that by the third entry i'm definitely getting tired of 2000s kinda-edgy jerkass ratchet.

One of the best third person shooters ever, but at the cost of the more interesting level design and art direction of its predecessors.

This game's development was rather troubled and it shows. Some levels feel hastily slapped together and some of them are just repurposed multiplayer maps. The multiplayer slapped, actually, but sadly it's now dead as a doornail, and I seriously wish the series did more with it after Deadlocked. Fortunately the series' signature strafe-shooting and frantic somersaulting is as good as ever and carries the game really hard.

Though it lacks the highs of some of the other games, it's still a fairly consistent experience overall. It's just absent some of the interesting features of other entries in the series such as platforming gauntlets and branching levels to explore. I still rate it as one of the best Ratchet & Clank games just because what's there is a ton of fun, and though it's less satirical than its predecessors and immediate sequel, it's still one of the funniest games in the series. And David Bergeaud's music still goes just as hard.

I almost can't forgive this game for creating Dr Nefarious, who I consider a plague on the series because he's had every last drop of mildly amusing humour and villainous charisma squeezed out of him and continued to be milked for several more games after he ran dry of entertainment value. But it wouldn't be fair of me to take points away from this game for introducing him, as he was a reasonably entertaining villain in this game and he hadn't yet been milked to death and then some.

And so comes to a close the last R&C game I own (for now). I had always heard that only the first three games were really worth playing (up until the newest one), but a friend of mine who is a fan informs me that is not the case (and I have more R&C on the way in the mail). Regardless, I can see why that may've been the talk around these games, because R&C 3 is a damn fine improvement over 2 to the point where I can see why the series started to deviate from this formula after this point. It took me around 16 hours to beat the Japanese version of the game with only light searching for collectibles.

Just as R&C 2 did, R&C 3 picks up right where the previous game left off, with Ratchet & Clank chilling in the capital of the main city from R&C 2. They suddenly see a news report on TV about their home galaxy being attacked by the evil Dr. Nefarious. Losing no time, Ratchet finishes installing the galactic warp capabilities in his ship and the duo return to defend their home galaxy! After a mission to help rescue the missing Captain Quark, the two are roped into his Q-Force to try and stop Dr. Nefarious and save the galaxy!

The writing is head-and-shoulders above the past two games, easily. Characters recur throughout the story, they have conversations, they grow a report with one another. It's hardly a masterpiece of literature, but it's a far more coherent and realized story than the past two games. It also really gives elements aside from Ratchet & Clank themselves time to shine narratively, with the other members of Q-Force being entertaining and fun, as well as Dr. Nefarious being so delightfully extra and silly that he gives Captain Quark a run for his money. It's not hard for me to see why Sony likes him so much that they brought him back for later games in the series.

The gameplay is still the same overall platforming and action segments as the prior two games, but tightened up and refined even past where R&C 2 brought the series to. Ratchet & Clank control better than ever, and the gunplay is more solid than ever with some of the most fun guns in the series yet (the black hole gun and lava spitting gun are both SO MUCH FUN). Also gone are all of the dreadful mini-games that plagued the even R&C 2, and in their places are a more infrequent hacking mini-game as well as ranger mission segments, where you assist the Galactic Rangers in missions that involve going around a map to attack points, defending a single point, riding around in a Halo Warthog-style jeep, and flying around in a hovercraft to destroy targets. There are even 2D platforming/semi-run and gun segments where you play as Captain Quark. The only tiny complaint I have is that I wish your auto-lock-on were a litttle more accurate, or that you had a fire button mapped to a shoulder button so you could look, move, and fire all at the same time.

It's all great fun, and there wasn't a single point where I thought "well this game was great right up until HERE." The difficulty is also way better tuned than the previous two games, settling in at a nice place between R&C 1's often unfair-feeling challenge and R&C 2's too frequent ease, all leading up to a really satisfyingly challenging final boss fight (although hoo boy is that final level hard).

This is also the first R&C game I'd say has actually good music. The music in the previous games is at best appropriately atmospheric, but this game manages to actually have some nice tunes in it. It's also once again a very pretty-looking game, flexing a good art style and well-designed characters. Although it does encounter some framerate issues from time to time, like Ape Escape 3 (another first party Sony game released around the same time) these are never problems that seriously impact gameplay.

The Japanese version of each of the first 3 R&C games is more or less identical to the international version with a couple notable (and infamous) exceptions. Ratchet has his infamous large, black eyebrows that make no sense with the rest of his fur coloring. His head is also slightly larger, and that all adds up to what I suppose is to make his face somewhat more visibly expressive? I'm not positive on the rationale behind it.

The localization otherwise is really good, and I actually prefer it to the English original in many ways. I think the relationship between Ratchet & Clank suffers a bit, as Clank comes off as similarly silly and quippy to Ratchet in many ways compared to how well-spoken he is in English, but their buddy dynamic is still very fun despite Ratchet's more kid-like voice. The voice cast on the whole feels like they're hamming it up more than the English VAs, and that overall makes for a much more fun time for characters like Dr. Nefarious and Captain Quark. The Japanese VA threw me off pretty bad at first, but it's something I've really grown to love in a way I didn't expect myself to.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is up there with Ape Escape 3 as one of my favorite games on PS2. It plays so well, the writing is so fun, and it all stays varied enough to keep you interested with the new story beats and new guns you find that it's just a big fun time until it's all over. I'd say you should probably at least play R&C 2 before you play this one, but if you only play one of the original 3 games, this is easily the top of the pile in terms of its overall quality.

I know a lot of people don't get this game. Just because you don't get it, doesn't mean it's overrated. A lot of the criticisms I've seen of it, are not problems with the game but rather stuff that doesn't cater to their taste.

The non annihilation nation wave missions: oh go figure in a game that is literally combat focused, there will be some repetition, that's just any shooter ever made. Also you get the gimmick of spinning the crews before the enemies are shooting near one and it's not even as repetitive as everyone says it is, since you get new ways of dealing with enemies, just because you don't understand the design intent, does not mean it is a problem for the game to have.
Also it's NOT a platformer, fine if your going to say it's worse off for it, that's an understandable view to have, but the original two games had PLENTY of problems that are just as damaging.

there's the complaint about this game being linear, except that's not what people actually mean, they are upset that it feels like you walk one set path of a planet with a more limited scope. Now to a degree, I can understand this, I think it was able to pull off what WAS there quite well though, especially since it feels like it's just the main meat and nothing else, with nothing to drag down the pacing and the combat really makes these planets fulfilling and satisfying to play, it's also NEVER mindless thanks to being on the harder end at times.

I will admit that the aesthetic of SOME of these planets are bland though. The game LOVES orange lol (I still wouldn't say it's piss looking like mega Man X7) more just middling

Qwark minigames get criticism from some people, but I think they are a really neat and thoughtful (and even maybe memorable) platforming game, yes it's easy but it gave me a kind of unique perspective of what they could get out of the concept. And they don't outstay welcome to me.

Very little I disliked, The only planet i was somewhat underwhelmed by was Aquatos, because the sewer seemed to repeat itself a few times, even that almost redeemed itself later on.

I will not admit anything. I can assure certain people, I find very little of your complaints hold weight to me.

The shooting is satisfying, the story has some fun spots... Thats all the things I like.

Really big shift in focus this time around. No platforming, no exploration, just shooting, shooting and more shooting. There are linear levels to shoot through, combat arenas to shoot through, and brand new missions arena things to shoot through. It's fun enough but lacks the variety and depth of the previous couple games.

The level and world design is a huge step down. Without any branching paths or exploration they feel completely lifeless, and that means there's no real thrill in unlocking new worlds and progressing through the game.

There's also an overall lack of polish to a lot of it that's hard to ignore. Lots of basic looking menus, janky vehicle sections, and reusing the same maps over and over.

I really didn't vibe with this one!

Clearly the best one of the trilogy that follows everything the previous games did great without adding a lot to the formula. The main improvements of the game are more QOL based than game/level design based but there are still a few with the most important which is the weapons upgrade. In R&C2, you could upgrade your weapons to level 2 and that was it, this time you can go up to level 5. That is a nice improvement that will make you use more different guns until you get to the end of the game and you will start to use your most useful guns. I don't have much more to say other than it has the the coolest weapon of the trilogy and also the hardest final boss.

Up Your Arsenal is another good sequel. Although it's not as ambitious as the previous game Going Commando, what it does well hasn't changed from the previous games, the gameplay is still frenetic and fun. It has some changes I like, and some I don't.

What I've noticed is that there's a shift in focus that started in Going Commando but has reached its culmination here. Which is that it's finally dropped all pretense of being a platformer, and has cemented itself firmly as being a fast paced run and gun shooter. I don't actually have an issue with this in theory, because I never thought Ratchet and Clank had outstanding platforming to begin with. The problem with this change for me is the simplification of the level design, and how that affects the feel of the worlds and player choice. The previous games had worlds with branching paths for the player to choose from. One path could be a puzzle section and another could be a combat section, and there was a lot of fun in exploring the worlds from different angles. They felt organic, and always rewarded with a new gadget or story progression event. The levels in Up Your Arsenal are mostly straight lines to the end. They're finished so quickly that there's hardly any time to appreciate the ambience of the world, and the few split paths they do have usually only lead to titanium bolts, a cosmetic unlocking item. The mission list is functionally useless in this game.

It also has less variety compared to previous games. There's no grind rail sections, hoverbike races, or space ship battles. Instead there's Galactic Ranger missions where you fight enemy hordes, fine at first but there's just too many of them and it's always the same thing. The writing is funnier, but it lost a lot of its edge and corporate satire, and feels more like a typical Saturday morning cartoon.

As far as improvements, there's a second weapon wheel which cuts down on constant menu opening. The weapons got an upgrade up to 8 levels which keeps them useful. There's less Giant Clank levels, which I detested. The bosses are better, they're back to being about as good as the first game's bosses again. I did enjoy the story more than Going Commando's weird evil furby thing, but that's mainly because I loved Dr. Nefarious and his apathetic butler as characters, and not because the story is complex or has any sort of character development like the first game. It added a mini hub, and it's nice that it let me buy armor upgrades without having to remember which level the armor vendor was thrown into.

Even if it's not quite as varied or innovative as the previous games, Up Your Arsenal is still a fun game, and a solid entry worth playing.

The third installment in the original R&C trilogy fully slides on the spectrum toward the "Shooter" half of Shooter-Platformer, but does so impressively well. A shorter adventure than the previous two, but one with fine-tuned gunplay, a more gripping story, and the best arsenal in the series yet. The characters are the best they've been, it's clear to see why Dr. Nefarious became a series mainstay, and the character development for Captain Qwark is some of the best we'll see in the entire franchise. Just left a bit to be desired in the exploration department, but an experience that I'm happy to revisit whenever I get the chance to.