Arguably the most consistently good Ratchet & Clank game if that makes sense. As an action game its sequels surpassed it but i don’t think any of them entirely meet with R&C1 achieving its goals as an action-platformer. The level design’s largely great, the weapons across your arsenal have utility so (with a few exceptions) it feels like they always serve a purpose instead of being outclassed by the next time buy or come across one
Writing-wise there’s not much to write home about here imo, the immediate sequels are both funnier and snappier - Though looking back Ratchet as a character feels very inconsistent here, I appreciate what Insomniac was going for here but it’s no wonder how people found him so unlikeable back in the day when the game speedruns his development regarding his relationship with Clank so fast it feels like he’s flip-flopping off screen lol.
Chairma-Sorry, I mean Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek is probably my favorite villain in the series though, on account of him being an extremely opaque “I know writers who use subtext, & they’re all cowards”-tier implementation of the corporate/consumerist satire that would continue throughout the later games in the series, he hits a good line between being a little silly and coming across as a huge, despicable threat that really pays off as when you wipe the floor with him at the end of the game.
Really interesting how much this game feels like the culmination of Insomniac’s work on Spyro the Dragon, they’re still very different games ofc but you can feels bits and pieces of what would end up as part of Ratchet’s core design DNA forming across Spyro 1 and especially its sequels

Probably the weakest mainline Ratchet & Clank game that i’ve played honestly, your arsenal is a step down from past games and there’s just a lot about the gameplay in general that doesn’t work for me - the early 7th gen jank curse is real. Really uneven difficulty spikes later on too iirc
It’s also where the series becomes pixarified tonally which i don’t care for and it’s at its worst here with a plot that’s just very, very bland and a comic relief character disguised as a main antagonist (granted, past R&C villains were silly too…but they still felt like actual threats you really wanted to take down)
Remember when we had way more cutscenes where R&C talked to side characters, fully animated, voiced and all? this game is where the series started having out of place, very stiff & one-sided semi RPG style choose-your-questions conversations and it’s just strange and boring imo