History YMMV / RatchetDeadlocked

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments: For those that love CoOpMultiplayer, you and a buddy could play ''the entire campaign'' in split-screen, albeit with a cap of 30 frames per second, and you get Merc and Green's exclusive gear so both players can trade off who handles the objective. Even better, the second player can unlock additional skins, meaning Ratchet and [[VideoGame/JakAndDaxter Jak]] can finally kick all sorts of ass together.

** In the HD version of the game released on the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3, the camera [[https://imgur.com/pBlyDN4 clips into Ratchet's face]] in an early cutscene - something which managed to become the port's SignatureScene.

* PortingDisaster: While the rest of the ''[=R&C=]'' remasters suffer from glitches that weren't there originally, their glitches were mostly visual and didn't affect the actual gameplay. This game's remaster has both visual ''and'' worse glitches. Characters in the in-engine cutscenes seem to skip frames every so often, constant framerate drops (with the campaign co-op suffering from them so bad it becomes nigh-unplayable), some fonts and sound effects were changed, the max number of local multiplayer players was halved from the original 4, and not only was a GameBreakingBug from the original not fixed, it's now accompanied by the risk of ''more'' corrupted saves if the game freezes during an autosave. It's recommended to save each game to two different slots to avoid losing all progress. All of this is compounded by the fact that this was Sony's ''[[MyNewGiftIsLame apology gift]]'' to players for the [[UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita PSVita]] port of ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFullFrontalAssault Full Frontal Assault]]'' taking so long to come out, which ended up being a massive porting disaster itself.

** The "Less Is More" [=DreadZone=] Station challenge. Fighting off enemies in time before the arena shrinks and crushes you is hard enough--try doing it while your health ''and'' your ammo are shrinking at the same time! Especially [[IncrediblyLamePun dreadful]] on Exterminator difficulty, where the health crates heal much less.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Gleeman Vox and Ace Hardlight are among the most popular villains of the franchise. Vox is well-liked for his LargeHam advertisement at the beginning of the game ("It's time to blow $#@% up!"), and Ace has a devoted fanbase on [=DeviantArt=].

* SpiritualAdaptation: This game is retroactively considered a ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' video game due to the subject matter and dark tone.

* PortingDisaster: While the rest of the ''RAC'' remasters suffer from glitches that weren't there originally, their glitches were mostly visual and didn't affect the actual gameplay. This game's remaster has both visual ''and'' worse glitches. Characters in the in-engine cutscenes seem to skip frames every so often, framerate drops are common, some fonts and sound effects were changed, the max number of local multiplayer players was halved from the original 4, and not only was a GameBreakingBug from the original not fixed, it's now accompanied by the risk of ''more'' corrupted saves if the game freezes during an autosave. It's recommended to save each game to two different slots to avoid losing all progress.

* CompleteMonster: [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Gleeman Vox]] is the greedy owner of Vox Industries who came up with the idea of ''[[ImmoralRealityShow DreadZone]]'', a game where he kidnaps heroes across the galaxy and forces them to [[InvoluntaryBattleToTheDeath fight for survival in gladiatorial combat]]. Even before then, Vox was a [[BadBoss cruel boss]] who had fed his weapon design team to a leviathan after they disagreed with a weapon proposal and used the Fusion Rifle on his employees if he was ever interrupted. Vox keeps the heroes imprisoned with [[ExplosiveLeash Deadlock collars]] that will shock them or explode if they don't participate or try to escape, and makes them participate in challenges such as putting the entire planet of Stygia in danger by sabotaging the force fields that protect it from meteor storms. [[spoiler:When Ratchet declines his deal, Vox personally tries to kill him brutally and reveals he had a self-destruct device that would blow up the station with everyone on it. Finally, when everyone except him and Ratchet manages to escape, Vox gloats to Ratchet on how he will die along with him and get the highest ratings ever on television.]]

* MemeticMutation: In the HD version of the game released on the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3, the camera [[https://imgur.com/pBlyDN4 clips into Ratchet's face]] in an early cutscene - something which managed to become the port's SignatureScene.

* ScrappyWeapon: The B6-Obliterator. It serves as a decent starting weapon for the first few planets, but it quickly proves itself as not only the worst bomb-based ''Ratchet & Clank'' weapon, but one of the worst overall weapons in the entire ''series''. It's a grenade launcher like the [[GameBreaker iconically broken]] [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando Mini-Nuke]] and [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal Nitro Launcher]], but that's all it has in common with those weapons. The B6 has very low ammo and a slow rate of fire, and its damage and area-of-effect are truly abysmal compared to the other weapons, making it a pain in the ass to upgrade--and if you ''do'' fully upgrade it, you'll quickly find that it's ''still'' useless. The Hunter Mine Launcher and Scorpion Flail both start off dealing respectable damage and only get stronger, in addition to holding more ammo and having a much higher rate of fire ''without'' needing to mod them, allowing them to quickly superannuate the B6 in every way.

* FountainOfMemes: Dallas is arguably the most quotable character in the game due to his energy. It helps that he is voice by Creator/DaranNorris.

** The Holoshield Launcher now shoots bigger walls that have rectangular shapes instead of ellipse shapes, meaning less stray shots hitting you while you're hiding behind them, and they disappear after a certain time (with red blinking beforehand to inform you) instead of after taking enough damage, eliminating the risk of losing your barrier at the worst possible moment. While still not hailed as an amazing item, it now provides a useful tactical tool, especially at higher difficulties.

** The Freeze Mod. While not as flashy or damaging as the Shock and Napalm Mods, it damn near trivializes combat in the game. It can be [[DiscOneNuke acquired as early as Kronos]] for a paltry 60k bolts, it can be equipped to any weapon off the bat, from your precision weapons to your wide-range crowd control ones, and it actively slows down your opponents and their attacks to a crawl, making it impossible for them to fight back against you as you shoot them into oblivion. Combined with weapons like the Antimatter Rifle, it makes short work of even the toughest enemies in the game, even [[DemonicSpiders Executioners and Laser Backs]]. It's also beloved in the {{speedrun}} community, as the animation of freezing and shattering your enemies is quicker than most of their regular death animations, saving seconds every fight by making new enemies spawn in faster.

** "Higher Ground", which opens as a Dread Challenge after the Vindicator Tournament. It's the already annoying Tower of Power redesigned by [=DreadZone=]'s incompetent interns, with grind-rail sections that end in hordes of enemies, difficult jump sections (including some [[GrapplingHookPistol Swingshot]] jumps where it's very easy to screw up your momentum) and fall down, and another grind-rail portion that has some precise jumps to end with.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Ace Hardlight is '''not''' a good person, but was he really the [[SellOut willingly]] [[BloodKnight bloodthirsty]] [[TheDragon dragon to Vox]] who had a sudden HeelRealization after Ratchet beat him to a pulp, or was he just as much a victim of Vox as Ratchet who had long crossed the DespairEventHorizon and [[ThenLetMeBeEvil convinced himself that he had no future outside of Dreadzone, and decided to just embrace its dog eat dog nature until his time was up?]] A few in-game scenes and his [[AllThereInTheManual somewhat sympathetic out of game backstory]] make either one plausible.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments: For those that love CoOpMultiplayer, you and a buddy could play ''the entire campaign'' in split-screen, albeit with a cap of 30 frames per second, and you get Merc and Green's exclusive gear so both players can trade off who handles the objective. Even better, the second player can unlock additional skins, meaning Ratchet and [[VideoGame/JakAndDaxter Jak]] could finally kick all sorts of ass together.
* BaseBreakingCharacter: Dallas and Juanita; though their commentary is funny at times it really gets kind of annoying when they always try to put Ratchet down during the fights. Dallas sometimes gets impressed with Ratchet's skill but Juanita rarely compliments the lombax. [[spoiler:Of course, their last few appearances show that they're just as much as hostages as Ratchet, and were forced to slander him at the threat of death. In the final mission, when Vox finally snaps and puts them both in Deadlocked collars, the two support Ratchet]].
* BestLevelEver:
** Planet Shaar, which is one of the most enemy dense levels in the game and offers just the right amount of challenge and action. It helps that it has a side challenge that is ridiculously easy to grind for bolts and experience on (especially during Challenge Mode).
** Also [[spoiler:Ghost Station, the penultimate level and last true Dreadzone challenge. It has great atmosphere, really feels like the ultimate challenge, and brings in previously unseen ghost enemies, including [[NinjaPirateRobotZombie Robot Zombie Ghosts]].]] And the final mission includes storming the station using the hovership, preventing Vox from using the place ever again and makes you feel like you're here taking revenge for everything he has done.

* ContestedSequel: Do you prefer the Ratchet series for its action-platformer gameplay, or the shooter elements that trickled in more and more with the prior trilogy? If you're for the latter, ''Deadlocked'' is [[EvenBetterSequel right up your alley]] as a game near-entirely focused on shooting stuff with bits of the standard platformer elements in there, refining the often unfinished-feeling elements of ''Up Your Arsenal'''s arena segments. Fans at the time that preferred the former on the other hand felt like the game doubled down on the creeping decisions they weren't fond of, and that ''Deadlocked'' [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks was too far removed]] from the origins of the games. Notably, with the series moving to shooter-platformer in full as it progressed, this rendered ''Deadlocked'' VindicatedByHistory while the first couple games would be hit with EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.

** Beam Turrets--they usually come in the form of tiny little laser turrets that drop in at random points, and are usually overlooked right until you get a laser beam in your back. The bigger counterparts also deal truly nasty damage, but are at least easier to see coming.
** Missile Turrets. Like Beam version, they hide in the ground until you come close, then pop out and shoot you with barrage of missiles that do a lot of damage. There is around one second window between them appearing and starting firing missiles, making kind of difficult to engage them. Worse yet, they appear mostly in vehicle levels where camera zooms out, making them even easier to overlook.
** The Executioners, they hit hard, are about as sturdy as a tank, can hit you from a distance as well as close up, and show up ''everywhere'' in the last two-thirds of the game. Luckily, their shots are relatively slow, very predictable, and very easy to dodge.
** Then there's the ''Laser Backs''. Compared to the Executioners, Laser Backs are just as powerful, perhaps just as tough, have faster and harder to dodge attacks, track your movements whilst hovering in mid-air, and typically show up in groups of two or more. They basically look like [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere giant flying]] [[PirateNinjaZombieRobot robotic one-eyed crawfish]] with twin rapid fire machine guns that hit ''hard''. If a group of these guys suddenly shows up, you'd better make destroying them your new top priority, especially if there are already Executioners around.
* DisappointingLastLevel: The Dreadzone Control Room, which is just four fairly short and straightforward combat levels, all of which are capped off by you defending Merc and Green while they plant bombs.

** You actually get ''paid'' for getting Skill Points in this game, unlike the past entries where they were mostly a BraggingRightsReward. Well, you ''are'' on a reality TV program, pulling off feats like that obviously improves their ratings.
** Ace surviving the events of the game is obviously a retcon, but when his health falls low enough, he starts relying almost entirely on invisibility and holographic clones. You could make the argument that he escaped but left Ratchet one final message on his "corpse".

** The Freeze Mod. While not as flashy or damaging as the Shock and Napalm Mods, it damn near trivializes combat in the game. It can be [[DiscOneNuke acquired as early as Kronos]] for a reasonable price, it can be equipped to any weapon off the bat, and it actively slows down your opponents attacks to a crawl, making it impossible for them to fight back against you as you shoot them into oblivion. Combine it with weapons like the Antimatter Rifle, and It makes short work of even the toughest enemies in the game, even the [[DemonicSpiders Executioners and the Laserbacks]], and its ideal to use with crowd control weapons. It also becomes a huge lifesaver on the Hero and Exterminator Difficulty settings.
** The Miniturret Launcher/Quasar Turret Launcher. [[LastDiscMagic While its available somewhat late in the game (after you beat Orxon)]], it is by ''far'' the most useful weapon next to the Harbinger. You can put out as many of these turrets as your ammo allows, and their combined damage output (along with mods like the shock upgrade) will utterly ''eviscerate'' any enemy unlucky enough to be caught in their line of sight, it turns the so-called "Challenge" mode into a complete joke, and the fact that its ridiculously fast and easy to fully upgrade it is icing on the cake. The final boss can be beaten in barely a minute with this gizmo.
** [[EpicFlail Scorpion/Leviathan Flail]]. This thing quickly outclasses B6-Obliterator in every aspect since it has very good range, fair enough starting ammunition, and can spread some serious hurt over large area. And that's without any mods on it. Putting some area mods on it along with Omega Shock Mod means possibly clearing entire screen from anything but resident DemonicSpiders in just one or two shots, and filling the rest of spaces by ammo mods means you won't need to worry about its ammunition ever again. The only problem are airborne enemies, but that's what Dual Vipers/Raptors and Arbiter/Silencer are for.
** The Mega Supernova V99, the fully upgraded version of the already insanely powerful Harbinger. All minor foes are vaporized in one shot, and the bosses take massive damage from it.
** Once you get to Challenge Mode, you get the option to buy the Jackpot and XP Alpha Mods. While both are quite expensive to buy, both of them (especially the former) turn the rest of the game into a cakewalk--two jackpot mods alone will allow Ratchet to stack up millions of bolts in mere ''minutes'' and thus quickly acquire all of the Mega weapons and then stack up on other alpha mods, and the XP mod makes it so that your health and each one of your mega weapons can be upgraded to level 99 in a ridiculously short period of time. The XP mod is also useful in places where health recovery is scarce, [[NotTheIntendedUse since every HP-up also restores some health]].
** The game's sniper rifle is easily the most versatile gun in the game, as it still has a visible crosshairs and perfect accuracy even when the scope is not in use. To start, the gun is not only extremely powerful - after a few level-ups, it can take out most DemonicSpiders out in one hit - but it also [[OneHitPolyKill penetrates targets]] and the beam it shoots is ''huge'', meaning it can kill entire groups of enemies with one shot. While its rate-of-fire and ammo capacity are a bit low, they can be easily balanced out with a few alpha mods, and putting the aforementioned freeze mod turns the gun into a death-dealer that also temporarily disables whatever enemy survived the shot. While bosses are a bit more resistant to it than the {{Mooks}}, each shot will still deal a significant amount of damage. And that's just close-quarters combat! If used properly as a sniper rifle, you can preemptively destroy many combat encounters from afar.
* GoodBadBugs: The Shield Link is obviously intended to make the user defenseless while they put a shield on their ally. However, when used on a bolt crank, the user of the item can enter the shield by jumping to the top, allowing them to hold the shield without fear.

* ItsShortSoItSucks: One of the most persistent complaints about the game is that its much shorter than the other Ratchet & Clank games, due to only having 11 levels (by comparison, the first game is the next shortest and still contains 15 planets with plenty of backtracking for goodies), many of which can be beaten in mere minutes. Even playing all the Dread Challenges only slightly draw out the game longer.

* OneSceneWonder: [[spoiler:Dr. Nefarious]] makes a cameo at the end of the game, drifting past [[spoiler:the wreckage of the DreadZone station while berating Lawrence for "lying" about being in range of a space station.]]
* {{Padding}}: The subplot about Gleeman Vox struggling to offload his surplus of Ace Hardlight merchandise serves as nothing more than quick comedy between battles, as the reasons for the champion Exterminator's massive unpopularity are very poorly explained and doesn't much affect his final confrontation with Ratchet in the final acts of the game.
* PortingDisaster: While the rest of the Ratchet remasters suffer from glitches that weren't there originally, their glitches were mostly visual and didn't affect the actual gameplay. This game's remaster has both visual ''and'' worse glitches. Characters in the in-engine cutscenes seem to skip frames every so often, framerate drops are common, some fonts and sound effects were changed, the max number of local multiplayer players was halved from the original 4, and the GameBreakingBug mentioned on the main page was not only not fixed, it's now accompanied by the risk of ''more'' corrupted saves if the game freezes during an autosave. It's recommended to save each game to two different slots to avoid losing all progress.

** The Mini-Turret Launcher too. Some players complained about its upgrade in the prior games, which, while shooting stronger projectiles, had a much slower rate of fire. Some even suggested the upgrade should shoot lasers instead. The Quasar Turret Launcher does exactly that and is thus much more efficient.
* ScrappyWeapon: The B6 Obliterator. It serves as a decent starting weapon for the first few planets, but it quickly proves itself as not only the worst bomb-based ''Ratchet & Clank'' weapon, but one of the worst overall weapons in the entire ''series''. It's a grenade launcher like the [[GameBreaker iconically broken]] [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando Mini-Nuke]] and [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal Nitro Launcher]], but that's all it has in common with those weapons. The B6 has very low ammo and a slow rate of fire, and its damage and area-of-effect are truly abysmal compared to the other weapons, making it a pain in the ass to upgrade--and if you ''do'' fully upgrade it, you'll quickly find that it's ''still'' useless. The Hunter Mine Launcher and Scorpion Flail both start off dealing respectable damage and only get stronger, in addition to holding more ammo and having a much higher rate of fire ''without'' needing to mod them, allowing them to quickly superannuate the B6 in every way.
* ThatOneAchievement: This game is surprisingly merciful compared to its predecessors when it comes to the skill points, but there is a couple of really nasty ones:

** ''Drunk For Joy'', ''The Run Away'' and ''That's Gonna Hurt'' on Shaar, which have to be done in the ''Landstalker Stalkin'' mission. The first requires you to kill ''nine [[DemonicSpiders Laserbacks]]'', and not only they can wreck you, nearly not enough of them appears if you kill the things too fast or in wrong order. For the second you have to complete the aforementioned mission without ''any'' damage to your Landstalker, which translates into completing the mission on foot. Note that the enemies here are adapted to [[MightyGlacier Landstalker's]] firepower and damage resistance, not yours, and the skill point can still fail if even stray fire hits the Landstalker. The last requires you to destroy a Landstalker with a wrench. To save yourself some headache, just select the easiest difficulty when completing these.
* ThatOneLevel:
** The "Higher Ground", which opens as a challenge for Dreadpoints after Vindicator Tournament. It's the already annoying Tower of Power turned UpToEleven, with grind-rail sections that ends in middle of enemies, difficult jump sections including some [[GrapplingHookPistol swingshot]] jumps where it is very easy to screw up momentum and fall down, and ends in another grind-rail portion that has some jumps that require millisecond precision.
** "The Big Sleep" becomes this on Exterminator Difficulty. Think its hard to fight hordes of mooks with your health slowly draining as is? Well try doing it when you lose a hit point every ''second''. If you haven't already built up a reasonably sized nanotech bar, you are in for a world of pain here.
** The "Less Is More" challenge. Fighting off enemies in time before the arena shrinks and crushes you is hard enough--try doing it while your health ''and'' your ammo are shrinking at the same time! Especially [[IncrediblyLamePun dreadful]] on Exterminator difficulty, where provided health crates heal much less.
** The Kronos level "Enemies Are Such A Grind" becomes this on Hero and Exterminator difficulty. While its a rather short level, most of it is grindrail centered, and you're constantly hounded by groups of flying mooks who are very good shots and can kill you in just a few hits if you don't shoot them down immediately. And to add insult to injury, you can only use the Dual Vipers on rails, and the nature of its bullets makes it easy to miss your targets--hope you bought the Freeze Mod by this point!
** The Sharr level "Landstalker Stalkin'", especially on Exterminator Difficulty. This level is ''loaded'' with enemies, particularly homing missile turrets, that will rip you to shreds in seconds if you don't think on your feet and spam the mortars like crazy. Making matters worse is that it has two difficult skill points--one where you have to destroy a Landstalker using your wrench, and another where you have to beat it without the Landstalker taking any damage (basically forcing you to play it on-foot).
** The Shaar Dread Challenge "Shoot to Kill" is one of the most exasperating challenges in the game. While its a very short rail shooting challenge, you are given ''just'' enough targets to match your score, and if you miss even one, you have to start all over again. Making this more irritating is that its easy to mess up the Jackpot timing (which is ''necessary'' to beat it) and some of the essential targets are [[GuideDangIt hidden out of plain sight.]]
** The Orxon Dread Challenge "Scoring With The Blarg" on Exterminator difficulty. Enemies that hit hard? Check. Having to shoot a certain number of targets to win? Check. Not having control of the Landstalker? Check? No way to heal yourself? Check. The other Landstalker Rail Shooters on Shaar and Maraxus are pretty hard as well on Exterminator, but not as hard as this one.
* ThatOneSidequest:
** Getting all six of the Exterminator Cards. In order, you have to get 400,000 Dreadzone points (read: beat every single challenge in the game) upgrade your health up to 100, buy all weapons (including Mega versions) and Omega Mods, get all of the Skill Points, and complete every single mission on [[HarderThanHard Exterminator Difficulty]]. And your reward for all this? You get to unlock the [[BraggingRightsReward Ninja Ratchet skin]], which slightly increases Ratchet's speed and strength.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: At the time of release, many fans felt like this due to the drastic shift the game took. Platforming was even less of a focus, the maps were designed more for Multiplayer rather than Single Player, and the dark tone of the game put many people off. Such a reaction would not be seen by fans until the release of ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankAll4One'' nearly a decade later. In the case of both, detractors generally agree that while it is a good game, it is not a good Ratchet game.
** On an opposite note, ''Deadlocked'' brought in its own group of fans that prefer it over the other, more light-hearted titles.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: ''Clank'' of all people is hit by this here (As if the very title wasn't enough indication), serving as Ratchet's guide from the sidelines while having no part in any actual combat whatsoever as he had in previous installments. For many, Clank's reduced role only served to hamper the experience.
* UnexpectedCharacter: Nobody expected [[spoiler:Dr. Nefarious and Lawrence]] to appear at the very end.
* VindicatedByHistory: When first released, ''Deadlocked'' got a lot of flack for being so different to the previous three games with having a more combat-action playstyle. Today, it is seen as one of the best games of the franchise for its unique gameplay, having quite an entertaining story, giving Ratchet plenty of CharacterDevelopment, and being the last game in the series to really lean in on the anti-corporate humour of the old trilogy. A few elements of the game (such as weapon modifying and the styles of several arena challenges) returned in ''A Crack in Time'', to the joy of many fans.
* WhatAnIdiot: Gleeman Vox is not an incompetent villain by any means, but he's a very short sighted businessman. His persistence at pushing Ace Hardlight and his merchandise is a clear case of putting your eggs in one basket and not knowing when to quit while you're ahead, considering he had to shut down an entire toy factory (and recycle it as one of his Dreadzone courses) due to the abysmal sales of Ace's merch, is forced to stockpile crates of the stuff in his own office, and can't even ''give'' the junk away, all while evidence of Ratchet becoming their hot new seller flies right in front of his face, something he refuses to wise up to until just near the end of the game.

** Even Dallas becomes one towards the end. [[spoiler:He and everyone else in [=DreadZone=] were taken hostage by Vox to be used as a ratings stunt when Ratchet tries to free them, which if he fails, will result in the entire station being blown up, and no one would survive because of their Deadlocked collars. Dallas is completely ''terrified'', citing that he has his whole life ahead of him, and still has a lot of goals for his future.]]

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments: For those that love cooperative multiplayer, you and a buddy could play ''the entire campaign'' in split-screen, albeit with a cap of 30 frames per second, and you get Merc and Green's exclusive gear so both players can trade off who handles the objective. Even better, the second player can unlock additional skins, meaning Ratchet and [[VideoGame/JakAndDaxter Jak]] could finally kick all sorts of ass together.

* ContestedSequel: Do you prefer the Ratchet series for its action-platformer gameplay, or the shooter elements that trickled in more and more with the prior trilogy? If you're for the latter, ''Deadlocked'' is [[EvenBetterSequel right up your alley]] as a game near-entirely focused on shooting stuff with bits of the standard platformer elements in there, refining the often unfinished-feeling elements of ''Up Your Arsenal'''s arena segments. Fans at the time that preferred the former on the other hand felt like the game doubled down on the creeping decisions they weren't fond of, and that ''Deadlocked'' [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks was too far removed]] from the origins of the games. Notably, no one seems to complain about the story either way, and with the series moving to shooter-platformer in full as it progressed, this rendered ''Deadlocked'' VindicatedByHistory while the first couple games would be hit with EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.

* ContestedSequel: Do you prefer the Ratchet series for its action-platformer gameplay, or the shooter elements that trickled in more and more with the prior trilogy? If you're for the latter, ''Deadlocked'' is [[EvenBetterSequel right up your alley]] as a game near-entirely focused on shooting stuff with bits of the standard platformer elements in there, refining the often unfinished-feeling elements of ''Up Your Arsenal'''s arena segments. Fans at the time that preferred the former on the other hand felt like the game doubled down on the creeping decisions they weren't fond of, and that ''Deadlocked'' was too far removed from the origins of the games. Notably, no one seems to complain about the story either way, and with the series moving to shooter-platformer in full as it progressed, this rendered ''Deadlocked'' VindicatedByHistory while the first couple games would be hit with EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.

* {{Sequelitis}}: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]. While Deadlocked is by no means considered a bad game, fans generally consider it to be inferior to the previous Ratchet and Clank games due to the overemphasis on combat while almost completely throwing out the series platformer elements and the extremely repetitive enemies and environments.

* CompleteMonster: [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Gleeman Vox]] is the greedy owner of Vox Industries who came up with the idea of ''[[ImmoralRealityShow DreadZone]]'', a game where he kidnaps heroes across the galaxy and forces them to [[InvoluntaryBattleToTheDeath fight for survival in gladiatorial combat]]. Even before then, Vox was a [[BadBoss cruel boss]] who had fed his weapon design team to a leviathan after they disagreed with a weapon proposal and used the Fusion Rifle on his employees if he was ever interrupted. Vox keeps the heroes imprisoned with [[ExplosiveLeash Deadlock collars]] that will shock them or explode if they don't participate or try to escape, and makes them participate in challenges such as putting the entire planet of Stygia in danger by sabotaging the force fields that protect it from meteor storms. When Ratchet declines his deal, Vox personally tries to kill him brutally and reveals he had a self-destruct device that would blow up the station with everyone on it. Finally, when everyone except him and Ratchet manages to escape, Vox gloats to Ratchet on how he will die along with him and get the highest ratings ever on television.

* CompleteMonster: [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Gleeman Vox]] is the greedy owner of Vox Industries who came up with the idea of ''[[ImmoralRealityShow DreadZone]]'', a game where he kidnaps heroes across the galaxy and forces them to [[InvoluntaryBattleToTheDeath fight for survival in gladiatorial combat]]. Even before then, Vox was a [[BadBoss cruel boss]] who had fed his weapon design team to a leviathan after they disagreed with a weapon proposal and used the Fusion Rifle on his employees if he was ever interrupted. Vox keeps the heroes imprisoned with [[ExplosiveLeash Deadlock collars]] that will shock them or explode if they don't participate or try to escape, and makes them participate in challenges such as putting the entire planet of Stygia in danger by sabotaging the force fields that protect it from meteor storms. [[spoiler:When Ratchet declines his deal, Vox personally tries to kill him brutally and reveals he had a self-destruct device that would blow up the station with everyone on it. Finally, when everyone except him and Ratchet manages to escape, Vox gloats to Ratchet on how he will die along with him and get the highest ratings ever on television.]]