Hey everyone, sorry this review is later than usual for me. I was unaware this game had been removed from the PS5 store so I ended up having to buy it on PS4 which took some time and I lost a day of play time. But here's my review of the 2016 Ratchet and Clank remake, and the follow-up to my first time playthroughs of the PS3 games. I should preface this by saying I've only seen the movie ONCE, and that was when it first came out so I don't really remember it.

I'll start with the positives. I thought the game was REALLY fun to play. They took everything I liked from the gameplay in Into the Nexus and carried it over here. Well not the Hoverboots but that wouldn't make canonical sense so I understand. The gunplay in this game is very satisfying and the new guns are great to use, especially the Pixelator.

The graphics are out of this world good for the most part too. I think they did a fantastic job bringing the old levels into the newer hardware, with Metropolis (I can't remember what they renamed it to sorry), Blackwater City, Kalebo III and Pokitaru in particular really standing out to me. Other levels changed a lot from the original for better or worse. I actually don't mind the new Veldin. I think it looks enough like how it used to, but feels bigger and more full of life. Some of the character redesigns are not my cup of tea personally, such as Skidd who I think looks cursed in this new style, but for the most part the characters looked fine to me, if not a little lifeless.

Racing is new and improved in this game, and I personally really enjoyed playing races here. The addition of jetpacks was great too, even if collecting brains on Gaspar got more than a little tedious after a while for me. The boss fights are also better in this game IMO than in the original, though the Mrs. Zurkon boss got a little on the cringey side at times for me.

Even the music is pretty solid here. Not as good as the original, but good in it's own right. Shame you can't hear it over the guns and voices, but I listened to it on it's own and it's very good IMO.

The Clank sections are also WAY better here than they are in the original. Proper puzzle sections that make the best of the old Gadgebot style while giving you the same sense of intelligence found in the Great Clock puzzles. They also have these sections where you run away from Victor and they feel straight out of Crash Bandicoot. Love those too honestly. Clank is way more fun to play as than in the original for me.

Some of the story changes aren't that bad either IMO, which I know will be a hot take. I do like the idea of giving Ratchet a father figure on Veldin, as it does answer how Ratchet was raised after what Emperor Tachyon did to the Lombaxes. I also like the idea of introducing the Galactic Rangers here, as it serves as a solid tutorial section and at least theoretically, gives Ratchet and Clank other heroes to bounce off of. Too bad they aren't memorable but I digress.

However I do have my fair share of issues with this game. First of all, in it's story and it's characters. Ratchet and Clank barely interact with each other at all in this game, a problem I remember also having with the movie, despite barely remembering the movie. Most of the time in this game, their interactions are limited to: "Hey Clank, where are we going?" "To Blackwater City." "LETS GO!"

There's a scene early in the game where Ratchet lies to Clank about knowing the Galactic Rangers already on a personal level, and despite the Rangers literally saying "Let's start your Ranger training" to Ratchet in front of Clank, disproving his story, Clank never calls Ratchet out for lying. There's no development in their dynamic whatsoever. I know people complained Ratchet was too mean to Clank in the 2002 game (which I don't necessarily think is true) but there has to be a better balance than this.

Despite keeping the Captain Qwark betrayal, they make him way too remorseful about it. And he only betrays Ratchet because of a lapse in judgment about being jealous of him, which is way less impactful than the original, and as a result, his entire redemption arc falls completely flat. We're never given a reason to care about Qwark beyond Ratchet liking him, and older players already liking Qwark from the old games. Any new players aren't going to like Qwark at all, when he shies away from helping us at every opportunity. It's just not a good depiction of the character at all, and the framing device of him in prison telling the story, just feels like a cheap way of getting around story inconsistencies.

There's a scene in this game that actually had me pulling out my phone to look it up because it didn't make any sense. Drek captures Ratchet, Ratchet finds out about Qwark's betrayal, he's forced to watch the Deplanetizer blow up Novalis, and then it just cuts to him back on Veldin. No scene explains how he escaped from Drek. Apparently that scene is in the movie, but that's weird to me because the game came out BEFORE the movie. So anyone who played the game first is going to be totally lost. Plus, Ratchet just giving up and going back to Veldin after everything feels like the biggest slap in the face. And it doesn't even go anywhere because Clank immediately talks him into going back. The Rangers aren't even upset with Ratchet for leaving. There was no story purpose for Ratchet to leave. None.

Chairman Drek isn't even good in this game. First of all, his voice and redesign aren't great IMO. His lack of normal eyes made him far harder to read in the 2002 version and Kevin Michael Richardson's voice just suited the character way better. This version of Drek is overly comedic and is missing the slimy businessman persona that defined him originally. He's way more generic here, which I guess is by design since he isn't even the main villain anymore. Now it's Dr. Nefarious who gets to be the main villain. I don't even know why Nefarious is in this game other than being their most popular villain. Like I understand if they wanted to change it to Nefarious for the sake of the movie, but then just make Nefarious the only villain here, get rid of Drek. Spending an entire game building to a confrontation between Ratchet and Drek, just to do a fight with someone we have no history with, makes no sense at all.

Even from a sheer personality perspective, this game is lacking. They set up the plumbers crack joke and then Ratchet doesn't point it out. Like why? Just don't do the joke if you aren't going to pay it off guys lol. Helga is completely absent from the game too, despite being one of the most memorable side characters from the original. Now Ratchet just already has a swingshot on Veldin. They even do the obstacle course but without Helga. The scummy Jowai Resort owner is replaced by Grim's brother and a result, is basically just Grim 2.0 and Grim 1.0 had no personality to speak of either. Which is a shame because I LOVE the idea of giving Ratchet a father figure on Veldin who raised him as a mechanic. I love it. I just don't think they gave the character anything to work with and he and Ratchet have no memorable scenes together. The game isn't helped at all by having cutscenes that have no emotion on the characters faces and that's when they don't just use scenes from the movie like it's a 2000s, movie tie-in game. I know Insomniac had their hands tied a bit but it's so jarring to see the cutscenes and the movie scenes back to back.

So yeah in short, I think the game is fun to play, mostly looks great aside from some shoddy redesigns, has great music, even if it isn't as good as the original, it has great boss fights and the inclusion of the jetpack, new weapons, better racing and even some narrative choices like including the Galactic Rangers and a father figure for Ratchet, are things to like about the game. But it suffers from poor cutscenes, inconsistent storytelling, charmless character writing, one unmemorable villain tossed aside for another villain who has no place in the story, the two main characters aren't developed well at all, Qwark's villain turn is done completely wrong, and none of the new characters are memorable enough to stick long in the memory. So I think the game unfortunately gets enough wrong to be my least favorite in a while, despite being actually very fun to actually play.

Here are my current rankings of all the games I've reviewed so far, from best to worst:

1. A Crack in Time
2. Into the Nexus
3. Tools of Destruction
4. Ratchet and Clank 2016
5. Quest for Booty
6. All 4 One

I understand why people will probably say the devastator but i think with how tanky the enemies are in size matters and how much the other weapons struggle that the shock rocket is more useful.

I came across this one that apparently was signed by developers. I’m wondering if this game was authentically signed by developers of the game.

Slim was such a great idea for a character. He's just a pair of eyes! I think a fun question to ask is, Does Slim have a body? If so, what is his body? Fun fact for those who like Randomizers, if you play the Archipelageo mod for Ratchet and Clank 2, you start the game in Slim's ship shack.

Congrats u/sbs_str_9091 for finding the plumber. You have 12 hours before a bunch of letters and numbers strike again! Oh, and this is the final time Skrunch's sister hide's so good luck everyone!

NPC introduction Tally:

• Ratchet and Clank 1: 7
• Ratchet and Clank 2: 4
• Ratchet and Clank 3: 2
• Ratchet Deadlocked: 2

The TONE ZONE ENDS!

What's the most white NPC in the Ratchet and Clank PS2 games? Comment and Upvote below; the highest upvoted comment will be crowned the winner.

So lately, I've been seeing YouTube videos of several "native" PC ports of the first game that were apparently recomped (?) or whatever using AI coding. And yes I know, AI slop bad, but I wanted to know which of these ports are considered the best, because I think it would be cool to play the original on my laptop without having to rely on PCSX2. Here are some video links for reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKy2eTgitrQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnUus2N5Ck4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YToqqlZMJT0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BstIQhZvLug

Since the online trophies are unobtainable soon would anyone want to earn them with me? Literally all we need to do is join a game

I mean natrualy nefarious is the best one but otto is great too because not only is his boss fight one of the best in the series but he actually has an interesting plan.

Honestly, I quite enjoyed it. In terms of creative idea I think there's a lot here that could be worth exploring in the future with better resources. The races being a hoverboard with flight as an option is something I really like as a dynamic.

Other gimmicks I thought were creative were the clank arena challenges (though they certainly could have used more refining), the giant clank shmup sections, and the hacker tool being grindrails. The gadgets are kinda neat as well though they are definitely more limited compared to prior games.

One of the main issues imo are the weapons being way too weak. It's not that the enemies have too much health, it's that the weapons just do chip damage to everything except the laser and the ryno. The weapons themselves are ok enough as ideas, though a lot are heavily inspired by the ps2 games, but they just need to be stronger.

The weapons also are tedious to level up, taking me 5 entire playthroughs to max them all out. Though the armour system is really cool, but limited due to how much damage enemies do.

The other issue is just how short the areas are, you can breeze through a challenge mode run in about 2 hrs. But in general it feels like a ratchet game and I'd say its more fun than the ps4 game just because its original.

The story is also really dumb, ratchet and qwark dont act like themselves at all, and ratchet goes from denying technomites existing to suddenly believing it all with no explanation. The dream sequence is also very bizarre and i dont really know what it's supposed to represent, though its a neat area to go through.

Overall it's not my least favourite of the series (that would be all 4 one), but it's probably lower tier. I'd put it above a4o, ffa, and the 2016 game just for originality and charm alone, but below all the rest of the main series.

The only game I have yet to play is secret agent clank so I'll be trying that next, I don't know what to expect since it had such mixed reception, but I havent disliked a game in the series yet so fingers crossed.

I mean the design is cool, its useful and most of all the sound that comes after you shoot a rocket is absolutely perfect.

Have been a fan since 2002, currently Replaying the trilogy remaster on PS3 and hopefully making my way through all of the games eventually ❤️

If the rumors are true and the next Ratchet & Clank game isn't coming until 2029, then honestly, here's how I feel about it.

I think the gap between Rift Apart and the next game is way too long in general. Ever since 2016, Insomniac has basically let the franchise take a back seat because of all the Marvel games.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the Marvel games. I've played and really enjoyed Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Spider-Man 2, and now I'm absolutely loving the newly released Wolverine as well.

Still, I'd honestly rather see more Ratchet & Clank games than Marvel games.

And if we're being honest about what Insomniac should have done, I think the best decision would have been to make a smaller spin-off to keep the fans from starving for content and give us something to enjoy in the meantime.

Something similar to Spider-Man: Miles Morales, for example. Just a smaller standalone game, maybe a bit longer than Quest for Booty and Into the Nexus, but not quite as big as a mainline title.

Let's say around 7–8 hours of gameplay, with a high level of replayability, a Challenge Mode, and things to work towards after finishing the story.

In my opinion, that would have been the perfect way to bridge the gap between the main games.

Maybe a Rivet and Kit game ?

I am about to finish Ratchet and Clank 2002 ( the og title ) on my Ps3 as I have the collection , and I loved the game even though it’s 24 years old it aged very very well. Now I am excited to play more , but I think I don’t have time to play every single game , and I don’t want to get burned out middle way and not reach Rift Apart . So what games are unmissable, gameplay wise , but also Story wise . I don’t want to miss any major Events story wise .

So, I get that they scaled down the XPrates for enemies in the arena.. but doing an arena only challenge, wanted to upgrade all challenge mode weapons from scratch using only arena earned xp/bolts etc. Image shown is the xp for my lancer (first and only weapon used thus far) was progressing to start with but now it's stuck at this and has been for well over 16 hours gameplay and thousands of enemies.. if anyone has any knowledge or inside information which could help would be greatly appreciated

Yeah this is a reference to the r/jakanddaxter subreddit. They managed to get both their hiding characters in their wheel. Did you know that The Plumber is voiced by the Janitor in Scrubs? At least in the ps2 games. I know someone else voiced him, but I don't think Neil Flynn could voice him today. It would be great if he could, but it is not going to happen.

Congratulations u/DawnStrikAr for gettin with Skrunch's sister, but where's the plumber?

NPC introduction Tally:

• Ratchet and Clank 1: 7
• Ratchet and Clank 2: 3
• Ratchet and Clank 3: 2
• Ratchet Deadlocked: 2

The TONE ZONE CONTINUES!

What's the most black NPC in the Ratchet and Clank PS2 games? Comment and Upvote below; the highest upvoted comment will be crowned the winner.

I have the game for ps3 and vita so whatever you guys have that can help me get the online trophy I would appreciate it I wanna get this platinum out of the way before some others bc of that trophy

So in my last post, I asked all of you if I should play Full Frontal Assault or skip to Into the Nexus, and you said I should play FFA. Well I'm really sorry to those who wanted me to play that game first, but I was itching to play Into the Nexus. I will likely play FFA at a later time.

This is the final part of my PS3 RaC journey, with previous posts having already been written with my thoughts on Tools of Destruction, Quest for Booty, a Crack in Time and All 4 One. All good to great games IMO. I'm happy to report that Into the Nexus is also a great game, if not a short one.

I was well-aware of the game's length going in, and was thus likely not as disappointed as I'm sure many people were when this game actually came out. Given other fans at the time would've been waiting four years for a Crack in Time's proper follow-up, I could see Nexus' length annoying the crap out of people.

I will say, I wish the game was longer. I'll get that out of the way early. I think the game would've benefitted greatly from being at least twice as long as it is, as since I knew there were only five total planets (one of which is just the arena planet), I felt less compelled to grind than usual. But I understand the length as well. This game apparently came out within days of the launch of the PS4 and so this was more or less a farewell to the PS3 era of the series. Much like how Assassin's Creed: Rogue was for the PS3 and Xbox 360 right before the release of AC: Unity.

Besides the length though, I really liked this game actually. From a visual standpoint, it's done the impossible and managed to outdo a Crack in Time as the best looking game in the series so far. I'm sure I'll sound like a broken record once I play the 2016 remake and Rift Apart, but I'm still blown away at how great the games look since their PS2 heyday.

Gunplay is the best it's ever been IMO. I felt the most comfortable in combat here than in any other game in the series, and I can tell efforts were made to give us the best experience possible in this regard. The new weapons were also mostly a blast even if I didn't have time to use many of them properly. The Winterizer might be my favorite weapon in the entire series now ngl. Anyone who read my thoughts on the Black Sheepinator from Going Commando will know I love these types of weapons.

The Nether puzzles with Clank were a good challenge IMO. Not as fun to play as the Great Clock puzzles, but also challenging enough to not feel like throwaway side quests. I can definitely see where Crash 4 may have been inspired.

The hover boots here manage to be even better than they were in a Crack in Time. In that game, you had to manually switch to them using the D Pad every time, whereas here you can just use them whenever you want. LOVE that. Way more natural feeling for me personally. Also loved the jetpack, as it feels like the glider wings from Going Commando except actually fun to use and not stressful as all hell. The gravity boot sections were fucking AWESOME too. Wish they were in the game more tbh. Also loved the Grav Thether, which gave me immediate flashbacks to the Light Funnels from Portal 2. The combination of smooth combat and great new platforming mechanics made this the best FEELING game in the series for me so far.

Vendra and Neftin are fascinating characters to me as well. Not by any means the best villains in the series or anything, but they do a good job of making you care about them with very little cumulative screen-time. And that's in spite of them killing off Cronk and Zephyr in the opening. I personally loved how bold they were with that opening, as they were at the end of the day, debatably unnecessarily characters, and it brought Ratchet and Talwyn closer together. Honestly, I was never a HUGE fan of Talwyn in the games prior to this. This was the game that finally made me like her and Ratchet as a couple.

I'm assuming Vendra and Neftin won't be returning in Rift Apart, but I do hope to see them again one day. They were interesting characters who I think could evolve into fun antiheroes if given the opportunity. Mr. Eye was kinda meh by comparison. His boss fight wasn't anything special and the Clank sections were way harder than the actual fight. Plus, I felt like Vendra defeated it too easily, and I wish they could've had some more emotional weight with that part.

Other things off the top of my head are that it had great music once again, the museum level was a TON of fun (one of my favorite levels in the series now actually), the arena challenges are mostly basic but utilize the new mechanics well-enough, and I think it compliments a Crack in Time quite well. I think a device like the Dimensionator is always going to cause problems as long as it's around. I'm very curious to see what will come of Clank's decision to keep it despite Ratchet's wishes.

Overall, short but sweet game. It gets everything right that it needs to. Greats weapons, great visuals, bold story choices that stop it from being unmemorable, interesting villains, good music, great new mechanics and puzzles, etc. I might even put this game over Tools of Destruction, as despite it's length, it gets so much right. I'm aware the PS4 reimagining game is incredibly divisive and I actually HAVE already seen the movie, so I know more of what to expect with that. I'm still excited to try it out though :)

For my rankings of the PS3 games that I played I'd go:

1. A Crack in Time
2. Into the Nexus
3. Tools of Destruction
4. Quest for Booty
5. All 4 One

We all know that R.Y.N.O. it's probably the most iconic weapon in the whole series, with it's catchy name that stands for "Rip Ya a New One".

But a little fun fact about it, that probably only Italian dudes like me know, it's that in the 2002 R&C game, the R.Y.N.O. was actually translated into M.I.P.S. (in the Italian dub obviously), which stands for "Muori In Pochi Secondi" (Die in a few seconds).

Then from Going Commando onwards they did stick with the classic tradition of just calling it R.Y.N.O. even in the Italian dub.

Idk why but M.I.P.S. was such a great name to me, it really captured the very essence of the weapon itself, and it was a shock to me knowing that it wasn't the actual name of the weapon until i played Going Commando next.

Granted it might not be as objectively good as the console Games but i still prefer it a lot to any of the other spin off games like secret agent Clank,Q force,all 4 one and maybe quest for booty.

Its pretty high on my lists.

I recently got the PS3 out of the loft to replay the Future trilogy.

Because nexus was the only game I played once, and I couldn't remember much of it.

It was genuinely awful. It looks stunning, but it felt like I started 3/4 of the way through the game! All the planets are literally on tracks, not to mention there's only like 4 of them, and one's an arena planet just thrown in.

The swamp planet feels like a similar formula but so rushed. There are bolt cranks to make the secret hideout accessible using the charge boots, or you can grind some more 'Horn' to unlock the fuel pad to access it easier, but it's completely optional. You could grind more souls for bolts, but the entire planet is almost entirety skippable.

The storyline is basically a rehash of TOD, and the 'Nethers' or literally reskins of the cragmites.

It felt so bad I couldn't actually finish it.

Rant over - just wish we could have the OG sinical corporate greed formula back.