"Welcome to PS3, But Farewell To This Series' Charm"
After taking an extra year to develop "Ratchet & Clank's" next-gen showcase, "Tools of Destruction" feels like a step back in tone for the franchise. Gone are the snarky jabs at capitalistic deep-space and gone is the goofy charm of all of its characters. Now R&C is a "mature" franchise going for a "deeper" story, and I think this direction hampered the development of this game big time.
This game's story explores Ratchet's existence as a Lombax, and goes into some depth about the species' disappearance from the galactic community. This already makes no sense because there was another Lombax in "Going Commando", so this change of direction bothered me throughout my playthrough. The story pretty much has R&C battle a new villain, Percival Tachyon, who is the last of a species called the Cragmites that the Lombax eradicated from the galaxy following some sort of war. It's "fine", but there is never enough depth or intrigue throughout the story that made me care. I much preferred the exploration aspects and the goofy side characters, which have pretty much been removed from this entry.
There are some new characters to meet, but none of them are that interesting. There's a smuggler and parrot duo...called smuggler and parrot, who pretty much act as a set of NPCs who you give materials to in exchange for bolts or a special weapon. There are the old-timer robots Cronk and Zephyr, who are literally just old robots that make lame jokes and act old. There's Captain Quark, who is pretty much flanderized beyond belief at this point by just being a whiny, unfunny baby and an incompetent "hero". And finally, there's Talwyn Apogee, the bland team member that help R&C uncover the lost Lombax secrets that her father helped uncover in the past. All of these characters are lame to see and doesn't really add to the series' legendary knack for fun cutscenes.
The gameplay is thankfully still pretty solid, and there's a good mix of combat and exploration that I believe captures a bit more of the first games' energy, at least for the first half of the game. Weapons do tons of damage, and the difficulty is pretty low. I do think the arsenal is a bit disappointing at times, especially with the prevalence of the Sixaxis controls for some of them.
The game has some weird obsession with displaying the PS3's Sixaxis controller, seemingly using any and every opportunity to present a mechanic involving motion controls. It doesn't really work outside of the solid hacking minigame, and most of the time it feels unintuitive and gimmicky. It's not so bad where it derails the experience, but I think most of it should have been removed.
The visuals are pretty good for early PS3 era, but there are some slight technical issues. Some checkpoints triggered weirdly, and I encountered a glitch or two that required a death to fix character pathing. I also think the game's style is a bit bland, since it tries its very best to be something akin to a Pixar movie while lacking any real flair or charm to make it memorable.
This was a solid R&C game, but I kind of get the sense that this is where the series lost its original identity. It still plays great and looks solid, but it's missing a lot of the personality that made the original trilogy so great. There's a nice balance of exploration and combat, but the story just didn't capture me at all. The characters are weak and feel generic. It's a fine entry to the series, but a let down at the same time.
Final Verdict: 7/10 (Good)
After taking an extra year to develop "Ratchet & Clank's" next-gen showcase, "Tools of Destruction" feels like a step back in tone for the franchise. Gone are the snarky jabs at capitalistic deep-space and gone is the goofy charm of all of its characters. Now R&C is a "mature" franchise going for a "deeper" story, and I think this direction hampered the development of this game big time.
This game's story explores Ratchet's existence as a Lombax, and goes into some depth about the species' disappearance from the galactic community. This already makes no sense because there was another Lombax in "Going Commando", so this change of direction bothered me throughout my playthrough. The story pretty much has R&C battle a new villain, Percival Tachyon, who is the last of a species called the Cragmites that the Lombax eradicated from the galaxy following some sort of war. It's "fine", but there is never enough depth or intrigue throughout the story that made me care. I much preferred the exploration aspects and the goofy side characters, which have pretty much been removed from this entry.
There are some new characters to meet, but none of them are that interesting. There's a smuggler and parrot duo...called smuggler and parrot, who pretty much act as a set of NPCs who you give materials to in exchange for bolts or a special weapon. There are the old-timer robots Cronk and Zephyr, who are literally just old robots that make lame jokes and act old. There's Captain Quark, who is pretty much flanderized beyond belief at this point by just being a whiny, unfunny baby and an incompetent "hero". And finally, there's Talwyn Apogee, the bland team member that help R&C uncover the lost Lombax secrets that her father helped uncover in the past. All of these characters are lame to see and doesn't really add to the series' legendary knack for fun cutscenes.
The gameplay is thankfully still pretty solid, and there's a good mix of combat and exploration that I believe captures a bit more of the first games' energy, at least for the first half of the game. Weapons do tons of damage, and the difficulty is pretty low. I do think the arsenal is a bit disappointing at times, especially with the prevalence of the Sixaxis controls for some of them.
The game has some weird obsession with displaying the PS3's Sixaxis controller, seemingly using any and every opportunity to present a mechanic involving motion controls. It doesn't really work outside of the solid hacking minigame, and most of the time it feels unintuitive and gimmicky. It's not so bad where it derails the experience, but I think most of it should have been removed.
The visuals are pretty good for early PS3 era, but there are some slight technical issues. Some checkpoints triggered weirdly, and I encountered a glitch or two that required a death to fix character pathing. I also think the game's style is a bit bland, since it tries its very best to be something akin to a Pixar movie while lacking any real flair or charm to make it memorable.
This was a solid R&C game, but I kind of get the sense that this is where the series lost its original identity. It still plays great and looks solid, but it's missing a lot of the personality that made the original trilogy so great. There's a nice balance of exploration and combat, but the story just didn't capture me at all. The characters are weak and feel generic. It's a fine entry to the series, but a let down at the same time.
Final Verdict: 7/10 (Good)