This is the least ambitious, least innovative game in its series, and that bothers me a lot because it manages to disappoint while being the one game which didn't need to innovate.
I'm not the biggest fan of the first Ratchet game, which is weird to say because I love absolutely everything about it with the one big exception being its controls. That's exactly why I was really excited to try this remake even knowing it was somewhat divisive among old fans. I really wanted to play through all of the incredibly well designed levels of the original with controls suited to a third person shooter, and while the remake does succeed at bringing the controls and graphics up to par with the excellence that is expected from the series, it also ignores the vast majority of memorable aspects of the level design from the original game, and what's worse, all the platforming sections are gone too.
This is all a shame because the first game was great at adding variety to the gameplay in a way the follow ups don't really seem interested in doing. And I don't think this is tied to the more functional controls of the sequels, you could have both the more action oriented combat of the follow ups and the more involved platforming of the original in the same game without them conflicting with each other, but without anything new to offer and without the strengths of the first game behind it this game just ends up feeling empty and overwhelming.
I'm glad Rift Apart turned out so well because this really isn't a good representation of what the Ratchet series is capable of.
Also, I skipped all of the cutscenes since I knew I wasn't going to like the writing and I wanted to give the game all the goodwill I could, but the lifeless interactions between the two titular characters are just depressing.