Ratchet and Clank General Discussion

Well, she's got a hammer and a robot arm to counter Ratchet's wrench and...er, warp grab? (Y'know, that thing where he can warp short distances?)

Maybe her specialty is more physical combat and strongarming (pun intended) bigger enemies?

Huge fan of PS 4 Ratchet & Clank, but it's story is indeed completely atrocious.

So I just got done playing through Tools of Destruction, and I liked it! As a veteran of the original trilogy, it didn't feel that different from Going Commando (my favourite in the series as far as gameplay is concerned), particularly with the flight sections, the hunting-down-big-beasties sidequests, and the presence of spacefaring criminals as secondary antagonists; it actually improved on all of these things, in my opinion (Star Fox-style on-rails shoot 'em ups are great because you don't spend all of your time getting shot in the back and having to circle around, and as for the hunting... well, anything is better than Planet Grelbin. :V) The big battle sequences reminded me of Up Your Arsenal, but without those battle side-missions I wasn't a huge fan of.

Overall felt like a nicely streamlined version of those two games, and with a better story to boot (though I still prefer the original game's story). Though I will say, going into it, I was expecting Talwyn to play a much bigger role, but instead it seemed like she was barely in it. That being said, I have to admire her guts to stone-facedly threaten a guy who just burst into her space station and single-handedly blew up all her security drones and turrets with homing Predator Missiles while she only has a pistol and a pair of senile warbots for backup. :V

My favorite is the original still...

I'm personally not a fan of Tools, but I'm glad you had fun with it :)

As a follow-up to my last post, I played through A Crack In Time, and here are my impressions. It was... well, it was alright, but it was really easy. Like, I set it to the Hard difficulty right off the bat, because I figured I played enough Ratchet & Clank that I could do with the extra challenge, but I barely noticed it. It seems like its main effect on gameplay is to make attacks do more damage, which was most noticeable at the very end of my playthrough with the Post-Final Boss, who ratchets up the difficulty so much I actually had to turn it down because I just wanted to unlock the Insomniac Museum already. Before him, I managed to beat every boss without dying once (I think. Not counting deaths by falling off the platform, they totally don't count :V).

I thought the plot was okay. Not great, just okay. It was inoffensive, though I can certainly understand where the Cliché Storm accusations come from. The interesting thing, though, is that for the longest time I basically spurned this game and Tools of Destruction because I was under the mistaken impression that they went full Shadow the Hedgehog and jettisoned humour completely in favour of non-stop melodrama, so with those expectations when going in, I guess I was pleasantly surprised because it didn't do that - though it certainly stood out much more with the well-done emotional moments. And that ending. I appreciated the attempt at fleshing out the universe a bit more with all the extra races they introduced, it's just a shame they tended to be one-dimensional Planets Of Hats for the most part.

I weirdly enjoyed the flying sections, though. Not as good as Tools or even Commando in the combat aspect - most space dogfights just boiled down to barrel-rolling in circles and shaving off all the groups of fighters with torpedo spam - but I guess I really liked the extra exploration element rather than just flying from planet to planet. The moons got a bit repetitive by the end, but thankfully it didn't matter because I'd completed them all by then. I especially liked the Space Radio, it felt like something you'd expect from the classic games at points. :V

For me, the highlight of the game was the Clank sections on the Great Clock. I honestly think they could have made an entire game out of those temporal recording puzzles - they were challenging, to be sure, but not so frustrating that I ever found myself noticing there was a 'skip puzzle' option if you failed too many times. So overall, gameplay was fun if short and easy, the writing was tolerable at worst, and final impressions are mixed. Probably my least favourite game in the series but only because I've only played five of them: the classic trilogy, Tools, and this, so it comes in fifth by default. :V (If you were wondering, my favourite is Commando, with the original coming in a close second).

I suppose it's worth noting that, unlike Commando or Arsenal, I never felt like going back to do Challenge Mode with these two (this was also the case in the original game but only because proto-Challenge Mode was literally just the same game except you start out hilariously overpowered, so you may as well just start the game from scratch).

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Jul 1st 2020 at 8:38:49 PM

You can expect our favorite dynamic duo (soon to be dynamic trio?) to show up at gamescom Opening Night Live this Thursday in the same demo for Rift Apart that we got for the reveal of the game back at the Future of Gaming conference... except this time, it's completely uncut.

Edited by SonicWind on Aug 25th 2020 at 11:24:26 AM

And here's the aforementioned full demo:

It's confirmed that this takes place after Into the Nexus, as well as the fact that Rift Apart will be released within the PS5's launch window.

But sadly, we still don't have a name for the female Lombax. Insomniac, you bunch of teases...

Edited by SonicWind on Aug 27th 2020 at 4:08:40 AM

On a very visceral level, my inner eight-year-old is very pleased with how shiny Clank now looks.

Huh, so from the looks of things they are in the Bogon Galaxy after all. At least it's so similar that it'd be weird if it wasn't. I mean, the subtitles call the random civilians 'Megalopolis Citizens', which isn't exactly the same as Megapolis (the city on planet Endako from Commando), but it's close enough, and they are fighting Thugs-4-Less... or 'Goons-4-Less' as they seem to be called now. They must have rebranded. They are a pretty forward-thinking organization. Probably thought it was weird to name their organization after the name of their species, when presumably non-Thugs can join too. :V

Now I sorta hope they're going to try and make this game a spiritual sequel to Commando; it would make sense if they had originally planned to reboot the franchise with the 2016 game - if the whole reboot concept had been better received, perhaps Rift Apart would have been a straight-up adaptation of Commando following the reboot continuity. As it is, I'm glad that's not what we're getting, though. :V

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Aug 28th 2020 at 2:17:03 PM

You have the option of playing Rift Apart at 60 FPS, making this the first game in the series since 2009 to allow for that.

The demo definitely looks gorgeous and fun to play, but man it all feel so… humorless.

Edited by Lyendith on Sep 24th 2020 at 7:18:15 PM

Rift Apart lands June 11th. There'll be a Digital Deluxe Edition available for purchase as well.

More info here.

Edited by SonicWind on Feb 11th 2021 at 11:15:02 AM

Carbonox armour for the mystery lombax?

That certainly MUST mean that she's a playable character!

×2

Noticed a hologram of Dr.Nefarious in the background.

For anyone that's missed the news, the folks who animated the R&C movie, Mainframe Studios (formerly Rainmaker), teamed up with Sony and Insomniac again to create a 23-minute short film starring our favorite Lombax-and-robot duo subtitled Life of Pie, which just made a surprise debut today on the streaming service Crave. Apparently, it's meant to be a pilot for a full-on animated series, which I'd love to see come to fruition.

The downside? Crave is a Canada-only streaming service, so anyone else is unable to watch it... at least, for now.

Edited by SonicWind on Feb 12th 2021 at 10:28:20 AM

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Gameplay Trailer

we also have a name for the female Lombax it's Rivet

That did not seem like a lot of gameplay for a gameplay trailer

All the buzz about this game is kind of making me want to get into Ratchet and Clank myself. But this would likely be a horrible jumping-in point XD

God, it feels good to finally know her name. Definitely playing this ASAP.

Also, more info here.

They've said this game will be a good jumping-on point for newcomers, don't worry.

Ah, that's good then.

Holy fuck how is Nefarious still alive?

Popularity. XD

Between this and Returnal coming out this Friday, I’m very glad I managed to get a PS 5 last week.

Oh right this is a PS 5 exclusive.

Okay a reason to get it.