Ratchet and Clank General Discussion

I don't know how many of you rely on IGN for movie reviews, but they have their review of the movie.

Not as bad a rating as I feared, but...

Copying from the Video Game Film thread:

I went to see the film today, and I thought it was okay. It's one of the better video game adaptations I've seen, but it's not great by any means. (Frankly, that says more about how low the standard is than it does about this film's quality.)

I liked some of the Adaptation Expansion the film did, like introducing Dr Nefarious early (and yes, he does steal the show whenever he's on screen, as always) and more depth to Quark's role In the film, Drek plays on Quark's insecurities and his need to be the center of attention at all times to make him switch sides, whereas in the game he was just a Villain with Good Publicity. the animation was excellent, and it was clear from all the references and in-jokes that there was a real love of the source material, but for whatever reason, it just didn't come together. I couldn't tell you what exactly was missing, as I'm not sure myself yet, but it felt like less than the sum of its parts. I'd give it a 6/10, and as a big fan of the games, it's really disappointing that I can't go higher.

Does this mean that Warcraft is the new Chosen One, or is that Angry Birds since it comes out first?

I saw the film and i actually really enjoyed it!

So I still haven't gotten around to playing the game, but I just need to clarify; does this game actually represent a proper replacement of canon, or is it just, as I have previously been lead to believe, a mere 're-interpretation' of the original game, which would, in theory, mean that everything that happened before still happened? If that makes any sense.

I've heard from some sources that the game's story is much faster to establish Ratchet & Clank's friendship than the original, which, I'll be honest, doesn't sound like my cup of tea. As someone who religiously played the first game to bits, I actually liked the character dynamic there, how Ratchet started out as a massive Jerkass who needed to be convinced to save the galaxy, but his inner goodness pulls through in the end with Clank's help. It made perfect sense for them to be partners after all of that crap they went through, but not right away.

I also liked how he had to do everything by himself; which doesn't make any sense when you consider that Drek was destroying entire planets, but it made sense to me back then because Ratchet was just some random mechanic with no experience to speak of, and he didn't even want to get involved. Of course he wouldn't go joining armies or anything. Plus, it made Drek seem more like an implied Villain with Good Publicity, expertly manipulating the media so no-one figured out what he was doing, but now I'm probably going into Wild Mass Guessing territory. And rambling, for that matter. :V

edited 6th May '16 4:51:56 PM by PresidentStalkeyes

From what I understand, the game takes the basic structure of the original and reworks it. The movie is where you would look to see the bonding between Ratchet and Clank - unfortunate truth is you can't really have the whole experience with just one.

There wasn't really enough bonding between the two in the movie I found.

I want to ask something: The game pages keep saying that the High Impact games were "confirmed" as non-canon by "Into the Nexus", but the only support for this claim comes from the fact that they weren't referenced in the museum there. The logic here strikes me as dodgy. Just not being mentioned is hardly the same thing as being contradicted or confirmed as not having happened — this is absence of evidence being taken for evidence of absence.

I don't think there is any real confirmation for anything.

But it would be a tragedy if Secret Agent Clank wasn't canon.

I was under the impression that the game, with respect to the other games, is a retelling via Qwark with new elements retroactively sprinkled in.

I haven't seen the movie or game yet, but I'm kinda mixed on the idea of Ratchet and Clank being closer together then they were in the original.

On one hand, I do like the idea they had going for in the original, but on the other, I think that they really overdid it with Ratchet's obssesive hatred towards Quark over what he did. Both the original and the new movie/game seem to go to two different extremes. The former goes too far in making Ratchet a jerk while the latter seems to make him too nice early on.

RE: High Impact Canon

I noticed that too, and I agree that it seems rather odd. I see no reason why they couldn't be canon. I don't remember them explicitly being contradicted or contradicting anything else, so they could fit in somewhere between Deadlocked and Tools of Destruction nicely enough. There's something similar on the Kingdom Hearts pages with Deep Jungle supposedly being non-canon too. Maybe it's someone enforcing their Fanon Discontinuity in the absence of an official stance on the matter?

Come to think of it, Secret Agent Clank not being referenced in the museum in Into the Nexus makes sense, as Clank would want to keep his real spy stuff a secret, so it's only logical that there wouldn't be a museum exhibit on it.

edited 7th May '16 2:06:50 PM by GavsEvans123

Fine. I'm deleting references to them being confirmed as non-canon, then, unless there's some more solid evidence for it.

Yeah the game is a retelling by Quark, The entire thing is pretty much an embellished version of , It is really only potentially 'canon' in his mind.

The biggest differences are an expanded cast. and the call backs to previous Ratchet games.

edited 7th May '16 7:13:12 PM by Memers

Well, the ending was charming. The whole thing being a retelling from Quark TO Ratchet & Clank while he was doing community service was kinda funny... and the whole thing of them willing to give him another chance was a bit heartwarming too.

So, did anybody know about a game-wrecking bug in Ratchet Deadlocked? I looked for it on a whim, and didn't see any mention on the Deadlocked pages.

So I was wondering... what is the general consensus here on Ratchet's characterization in the 2016 reboot? I've heard a lot of people defend the changes by claiming that his personality in the reboot is based more on the Ratchet of later games after the first one, but for my money that doesn't seem true at all. True, Ratchet of the later games wasn't as mean as he was initially, but neither was he ever this... wide-eyed innocent nerdy goody two-shoes the reboot depicts him as. For me it seemed kind of like a slap in the face for Ratchet to behave this way because it feels like the character we'd grown to know for over a decade had just been tossed out and replaced with a completely different person.

While I didn't play that much of it, it did feel like it wasn't either of the Ratchets.

It's like they only looked at the current Ratchet, and then rewound his character development while not considering what the original one was like.

Yeah, it feels like a massive departure, even if it aligns more with the earlier games, because with the games, at least his earlier characterization still exists, and he still went through that development. The movie/remade game tries to change that origin to reconcile his personality with the later games, but it ends up creating an entirely new character that has NONE of that development, and is far more generic because of it.

More importantly, because Ratchet has no arc to go through, it also makes his friendship with Clank feel way less significant. There's no growing relationship between them or anything. They just hit it off and that's it. If anything, Captain Qwark is the only one that goes through a genuine character arc.

So Ratchet and Clank 1 is clunky as hell. super super clunky., I loathe the magnet boots with a passion.

Haven't played most of the Ratchet games (only hit 3, Deadlocked, and some demos of the PS 3 era ones), but I did find Ratchet to be a little overly saccharine in the reboot. Kinda hurts his relationship with Clank, since they just sort of go from strangers to friends in a blink and then nothing ever changes after that.

It's even noticeable on subtler levels like the way Ratchet is animated. In the reboot, he constantly has this big, goofy excited grin on his face; an expression that feels really... off if you've grown used to Ratchet from previous games, who hardly ever smiles like that. Then there's James Arnold Taylor's performance, who I swear uses a higher pitch for this Ratchet that he did in previous games. At times the performance actually reminded me more of Taylor's Harry Osborn than of Ratchet. Ratchet just doesn't feel right, almost like he's on drugs or being mind-controlled.

I just really take issue with the blanket defense of 2016 Ratchet that they used the characterization from Going Commando and later games. I mean, come on — if you were asked to describe the Ratchet of the later games, would you describe him as some nerdy, dorky boy scout? The Ratchet who growled "It's payback time!" in Going Commando, who asked Clank to translate Al's nerd speak in Up Your Arsenal, who fantasized about "money and babes" in Deadlocked? Ratchet in later games still had a bit of an edge to him even if he was no longer a straight-up asshole.

I understand a lot of people hated the original Ratchet in RC 1 — and to be fair, I can see why. But dammit, his arc was still solid in concept if not in execution, and the later games had proven that the character could be salvaged without feeling like a totally different person. Overhauling Ratchet's character like they did really was throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This would have been a great opportunity to do Ratchet's arc from the first game, and do it better.

And there was one video that pointed out that the bit at the end of the original game where Ratchet loosened up by offering Clank to fix his arm is immediately taken away in the reboot where Ratchet, upon meeting Clank, immediately offers to repair him.

Pre-re-imagining: Took a whole adventure culminating in saving the galaxy to fix backpack robot. Post-re-imagining: Fixed backpack robot upon meeting, no build up present.

Reviving this thread.

Apparently we're due for a new game featuring our favorite Lombax and Robot REALLY soon for the PS5!

As happy as I am for a new game if it's PS 5 exclusives am not going to be playing for a couple of years.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Trailer