Honestly, what a fine generational jump for Ratchet. This console generation is just about the perfect position for a game with the artstyle of R&C, old hardware not encouraging "realistic" texture vomit just for the sake of doing it, while at the same time improving enough over the past to allow for better lighting, filters, and surface effects. My disk is old and decrepit, often breaking the cutscenes, but whatever. I had a fabulous time with this game, loved so many of the weapons too. They straight up just give you a charge shot gun that fucking annihilates huge dinosaur guys.
This game does suffer from some repetitious enemy types that are a bit out of form for the franchise, but I do think the sheer amount of detail and fun in this limited cast does nearly make up for it. The main enemy types that Tachyon throws at you are these jaunty fishbowl robot men that crack and spill out their inhabitants when destroyed, how great. The story leaves some to be desired, but we are giving ratchet some lore. Whatever, not really why you pay admission for R&C.
This game has simpler gold bolts than the original trilogy, but many of these are located at the end of actually pretty carefully constructed, dare I say rewarding puzzles. Some of the gadgets are kind of a throwaway, but they're fun when implemented well (and they all have their moments). Tell me why this fucking game released 16 (SIXTEEN) years ago has better functioning and more enjoyable gyro puzzles than Breath of the Wild, a game I'm being told is the best ever and the blue ribbon standard of the open world genre. Did I ever feel less of a sense of discovery coming around a corner in R&C into a new environment than I did happening upon one of the scant few surprise structure encounters in BotW? No, not really, because I'm not a moron and I understand both to be structures engineered in this video game specifically to be found and explored by me, the player. I am not a baby or an idiot, so the fact of walking through a whole bunch of poorly textured, waving grass or not doesn't mystify me into thinking something drastically different is occurring. This R&C game has straight up more stuff to DO than so many games touted as life ruiners these days crammed into a package you can blast through in around a week if you're nasty. What is happening to this medium? Are games now intentionally wasting your time and hard drive space to keep you from entering the MTX ecosystems of other games? When I turned this fucking game on I didn't have to install anything. I didn't have to do a huge patch download that actually contains the game, with the disc itself acting as some kind of DRM ticket. Am I going on a completely insane tirade that has nothing to do with my enjoyment or evaluation of this game, freaking out about concepts foreign to it and the vast majority of games until GTA5 dropped about half a decade later? Yes.
Can we like... go back to this?? I drastically prefer the carefully curated content of a game like this to the all-consuming open-world archetype's compression of all things into Traveling Around And The Map Is Big. I feel like this sort of game dying and the Open World Form becoming so commonplace is sort of indicative of a general death of the craft. It takes a lot of inspiration, creativity, and specific directorial skills to make More Good Content To Do in a theoretical case where you wanted to make a game like R&CF:ToD (lmfao) but huger! Way bigger! But the same sort of artistic flourish is not required for crafting a huge, cavernous, technologically impressive open world with realistic horse shitting and balls retracting mechanics. All that takes is the resources to put up a veritable army of 3D modelers, texture artists, etc... individual artists utilized by indecisive/incompetent "creatives" and studio execs for nothing more than building a resource library, of all things. A game with curated areas and content like this allows the designers to communicate ideas to you WITH the game design(!!!), not just with the writing and narrative. It makes me feel seen and as though I have entered dialog with another living, breathing human when I spot the little tricky, hidden access point to start a gold bolt platforming puzzle, not so much when I am given another waypoint to walk my fat ass over to.
Bless this fun little game (other than the electrified pirate guys that chase you down FUCK THEM) and bless video games! Also Mr. Zurkon is in this game and has specific taunts for different enemies. He wants smoke with everyone.
Oh, I also don't understand what the hell people are smoking when they say this game "loses the comedy" of the original trilogy. This game is plenty silly! Qwark is still a moron comic relief character, Ratchet and Clank have some fun and comic bants, there are silly characters, lines, interactions everywhere. Was the Plumber himself reappearing not enough of a gag for you? I think if this game does anything it's take a paring knife to the more cringeworthy or just flat out unfunny cuts from the first few games, leaving what is usually more refined and enjoyable comedy. Sure, it takes itself more seriously with the plot than the original trilogy... but that is mostly because it's actually bothering to have a plot! Seriously, have you played those games lately? They barely make any sense! Their "plots" are mostly an excuse for Ratchet to just go to different places, other than the actual attempt at something of a fleshed-out narrative in Arsenal (still halfhearted, only sort of has stakes that still have nothing really to do with the main characters at all). I mean, Going Commando is my favorite R&C game, but it has like 4 characters in it for god's sake.
ALSO they locked up my boy Slim Cognito. FREE HIM!
Edit: to contextualize the low enemy variety complaint, there are around 34ish truly unique enemy types in this game counting bosses, and an additional 6-8 slight remodel/recolor higher powered versions of previous stock enemies. This isn't awful, but the problem is more with pacing/variety than with the sheer number. You spend quite a few planets fighting room after room of drophyds and space pirates, while the larger variety of enemies are mostly consigned to a few less plot-integral planets and even exclusive to the gladiator arena. I wish more time had been devoted to increased variety among the recurring "faction" type enemies, but it's not that big of an issue.
This game does suffer from some repetitious enemy types that are a bit out of form for the franchise, but I do think the sheer amount of detail and fun in this limited cast does nearly make up for it. The main enemy types that Tachyon throws at you are these jaunty fishbowl robot men that crack and spill out their inhabitants when destroyed, how great. The story leaves some to be desired, but we are giving ratchet some lore. Whatever, not really why you pay admission for R&C.
This game has simpler gold bolts than the original trilogy, but many of these are located at the end of actually pretty carefully constructed, dare I say rewarding puzzles. Some of the gadgets are kind of a throwaway, but they're fun when implemented well (and they all have their moments). Tell me why this fucking game released 16 (SIXTEEN) years ago has better functioning and more enjoyable gyro puzzles than Breath of the Wild, a game I'm being told is the best ever and the blue ribbon standard of the open world genre. Did I ever feel less of a sense of discovery coming around a corner in R&C into a new environment than I did happening upon one of the scant few surprise structure encounters in BotW? No, not really, because I'm not a moron and I understand both to be structures engineered in this video game specifically to be found and explored by me, the player. I am not a baby or an idiot, so the fact of walking through a whole bunch of poorly textured, waving grass or not doesn't mystify me into thinking something drastically different is occurring. This R&C game has straight up more stuff to DO than so many games touted as life ruiners these days crammed into a package you can blast through in around a week if you're nasty. What is happening to this medium? Are games now intentionally wasting your time and hard drive space to keep you from entering the MTX ecosystems of other games? When I turned this fucking game on I didn't have to install anything. I didn't have to do a huge patch download that actually contains the game, with the disc itself acting as some kind of DRM ticket. Am I going on a completely insane tirade that has nothing to do with my enjoyment or evaluation of this game, freaking out about concepts foreign to it and the vast majority of games until GTA5 dropped about half a decade later? Yes.
Can we like... go back to this?? I drastically prefer the carefully curated content of a game like this to the all-consuming open-world archetype's compression of all things into Traveling Around And The Map Is Big. I feel like this sort of game dying and the Open World Form becoming so commonplace is sort of indicative of a general death of the craft. It takes a lot of inspiration, creativity, and specific directorial skills to make More Good Content To Do in a theoretical case where you wanted to make a game like R&CF:ToD (lmfao) but huger! Way bigger! But the same sort of artistic flourish is not required for crafting a huge, cavernous, technologically impressive open world with realistic horse shitting and balls retracting mechanics. All that takes is the resources to put up a veritable army of 3D modelers, texture artists, etc... individual artists utilized by indecisive/incompetent "creatives" and studio execs for nothing more than building a resource library, of all things. A game with curated areas and content like this allows the designers to communicate ideas to you WITH the game design(!!!), not just with the writing and narrative. It makes me feel seen and as though I have entered dialog with another living, breathing human when I spot the little tricky, hidden access point to start a gold bolt platforming puzzle, not so much when I am given another waypoint to walk my fat ass over to.
Bless this fun little game (other than the electrified pirate guys that chase you down FUCK THEM) and bless video games! Also Mr. Zurkon is in this game and has specific taunts for different enemies. He wants smoke with everyone.
Oh, I also don't understand what the hell people are smoking when they say this game "loses the comedy" of the original trilogy. This game is plenty silly! Qwark is still a moron comic relief character, Ratchet and Clank have some fun and comic bants, there are silly characters, lines, interactions everywhere. Was the Plumber himself reappearing not enough of a gag for you? I think if this game does anything it's take a paring knife to the more cringeworthy or just flat out unfunny cuts from the first few games, leaving what is usually more refined and enjoyable comedy. Sure, it takes itself more seriously with the plot than the original trilogy... but that is mostly because it's actually bothering to have a plot! Seriously, have you played those games lately? They barely make any sense! Their "plots" are mostly an excuse for Ratchet to just go to different places, other than the actual attempt at something of a fleshed-out narrative in Arsenal (still halfhearted, only sort of has stakes that still have nothing really to do with the main characters at all). I mean, Going Commando is my favorite R&C game, but it has like 4 characters in it for god's sake.
ALSO they locked up my boy Slim Cognito. FREE HIM!
Edit: to contextualize the low enemy variety complaint, there are around 34ish truly unique enemy types in this game counting bosses, and an additional 6-8 slight remodel/recolor higher powered versions of previous stock enemies. This isn't awful, but the problem is more with pacing/variety than with the sheer number. You spend quite a few planets fighting room after room of drophyds and space pirates, while the larger variety of enemies are mostly consigned to a few less plot-integral planets and even exclusive to the gladiator arena. I wish more time had been devoted to increased variety among the recurring "faction" type enemies, but it's not that big of an issue.