The original Ratchet And Clank was a ground-breaking game, and will always be remembered as such. It was a big experience with great graphics and loads of weapons and gadgets to try. Sadly though, I have to admit that the first Ratchet game feels unfortunately dated nowadays. Why? Ratchet And Clank 2, of course. That game was such an immense sequel that it renders the original massively inferior, in my honest opinion. It improved everything from the first game so significantly that for me, playing R&C1 seems almost painful nowadays, despite it being an admittedly solid game.
R&C1 was a great game for its time, but I think most can agree that it suffers from unfair difficulty due to Ratchet being much weaker here. Weapons don’t upgrade, most of the weapons themselves aren’t very useful, Ratchet's health can only upgrade twice and not by much, there’s no armour, and Ratchet can’t strafe. The game doesn’t pause when you turn on the Quick Select screen either, leaving Ratchet vulnerable when you have to switch weapons. This made several levels absolutely deadly because you could almost never improve Ratchet’s capabilities and chances of success. You were stuck with what you had. Levels like Rilgar, Orxon, the Gemlik Base and Oltanis were and still are almost a chore to traverse and complete, whereas the difficult levels in R&C2 are far more doable and thus a lot more fun to tackle.
As for collecting bolts in this game, it's a slow process and is pretty underwhelming (unlike in R&C2 where it’s simple and loads of fun). Even as a person who grew up with R&C1 and loved it at the time, I still remember the dullness of having to play levels over and over again just to make enough money to be able to buy weapons like the Tesla Claw. Getting enough money to be able to buy the R.Y.N.O. is unbelievably tedious, and the weapon is almost necessary for conquering the game’s incredibly tough boss, Chairmen Drek. Though Challenge Mode allows you to buy gold weapons, there’s no denying that they aren't much fun to buy or use, unlike the weapons of RC&2, which can be upgraded and modified to your liking.
So, is R&C1 a bad game? Of course not! Its graphics, music and gameplay are still decent enough. However, would I recommend it to R&C newbies? No, because the glorious and colossally superior R&C2 is always the place to start.
Videogame It was a great game back then, but it hasn't aged well
The original Ratchet And Clank was a ground-breaking game, and will always be remembered as such. It was a big experience with great graphics and loads of weapons and gadgets to try. Sadly though, I have to admit that the first Ratchet game feels unfortunately dated nowadays. Why? Ratchet And Clank 2, of course. That game was such an immense sequel that it renders the original massively inferior, in my honest opinion. It improved everything from the first game so significantly that for me, playing R&C1 seems almost painful nowadays, despite it being an admittedly solid game.
R&C1 was a great game for its time, but I think most can agree that it suffers from unfair difficulty due to Ratchet being much weaker here. Weapons don’t upgrade, most of the weapons themselves aren’t very useful, Ratchet's health can only upgrade twice and not by much, there’s no armour, and Ratchet can’t strafe. The game doesn’t pause when you turn on the Quick Select screen either, leaving Ratchet vulnerable when you have to switch weapons. This made several levels absolutely deadly because you could almost never improve Ratchet’s capabilities and chances of success. You were stuck with what you had. Levels like Rilgar, Orxon, the Gemlik Base and Oltanis were and still are almost a chore to traverse and complete, whereas the difficult levels in R&C2 are far more doable and thus a lot more fun to tackle.
As for collecting bolts in this game, it's a slow process and is pretty underwhelming (unlike in R&C2 where it’s simple and loads of fun). Even as a person who grew up with R&C1 and loved it at the time, I still remember the dullness of having to play levels over and over again just to make enough money to be able to buy weapons like the Tesla Claw. Getting enough money to be able to buy the R.Y.N.O. is unbelievably tedious, and the weapon is almost necessary for conquering the game’s incredibly tough boss, Chairmen Drek. Though Challenge Mode allows you to buy gold weapons, there’s no denying that they aren't much fun to buy or use, unlike the weapons of RC&2, which can be upgraded and modified to your liking.
So, is R&C1 a bad game? Of course not! Its graphics, music and gameplay are still decent enough. However, would I recommend it to R&C newbies? No, because the glorious and colossally superior R&C2 is always the place to start.