YMMV / Ratchet & Clank (2016 game)

• Adaptation Displacement: Needless to say, much people have played the game than watched the movie. This is due to the game being one of the highest selling games on the PS4, while the movie was a Box Office Bomb.
• Annoying Video Game Helper: Everyone. It's rare you'll get a moment of peace when doing something more than walking.
• Bilingual Bonus: Of the Conlang variaty. Those familiar with the Lombaxian Lexicon (or willing to look it up) will notice that the characters next to the Ammo, Health, and Cash counters read... exactly that!
• Broken Base:
  • Even after Insomniac made it clear the game is a re-imagining of the first game, fans still tend to argue over whether or not it's meant to serve as a Continuity Reboot, or a one-shot re-imagining. The Plumber's joke that it's a reboot, as well as the concept of the game changing after the re-imagining announcement, doesn't help matters.
    • The exact status of this game in relationship with the movie and the 2002 original is a consistent source of heated contention among the fanbase. Depending on who you ask, the game is either an Adaptation Expansion of the movie or an outright replacement of the 2002 game's story. Where exactly the series should go next considering this game gets even more convoluted.
  • The fact that the game ran at 30 fps with occasional drops on the PS4 (as opposed to the PS2 games running at 60). Is it disappointing, or do you not care?
  • Ratchet's characterization in this game is a point of contention. In the 2002 game, he was a Jerkass who was mean to Clank and eventually realized his mistake of obsessing over Qwark when a planet gets destroyed because of it. In this game, Ratchet is an Adorkable Nice Guy who is unambiguously heroic, with most of the game's character development going to Qwark. Some fans hate his new characterization in this game, claiming that it doesn't resemble the character he'd develop into in later games, and weakens the chemistry of him and Clank. Other fans like his new characterization better, saying that they found Ratchet from the 2002 game too unlikable to resonate with the depth of his character like the detractors of this game's Ratchet say they have.
• Fan Nickname: Most fans refer to this game as either Ratchet & Clank PS4 or Ratchet & Clank 2016 in order to differentiate it from the 2002 installment.
• Game-Breaker:
  • As in Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal, the Bouncer. Available as early as Novalis for only 100 bolts, it has the crowd-clearing power of the original, homes into flying enemies now, and once it hits level 5, the bomblets release an explosion on each bounce. However, it was only released as a Pre-Order Bonus, and there has been no news on whether or not Insomniac will give it out in any other ways.
  • As usual, the RYNO. The conditions of obtaining it are much easier, as the RYNO holocards are pretty easy to find, with only the one on Gaspar requiring a guide to help you find it.
  • As is also usual of rocket launchers in the series, the Warmonger/Peacemaker. Its power far eclipses anything else apart from the Bouncer and RYNO, its rockets have very lenient auto-targeting and homing, and when upgraded each one bursts into smaller homing rockets that only do slightly less damage, making it effective against both single targets and for crowd control. Its only weakness is a low ammo count, which doesn't matter much when it kills most enemies, even Elite Mooks, in one hit. It also tends to upgrade pretty quickly due to how often you'll use it.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • If you carefully jump around the trigger that begins the train sequence on Kerwan, you can use a high jump to glide over to the planter on the other side of the train station and use a Hyper-Strike to get enough height to land on it. There's an invisible wall on the station's main platform, meant to keep you from getting too close to the area during the ship segment, but if you go down to the question mark statue, you can walk around the barrier. While the same Captain Qwark statue appears on the other side of the train station, the other three Galactic Ranger statues (and the question mark statue) only ever appear on the far side of the train station, so performing this jump is the only way to get up close to them.
  • Using the Hologuise you receive towards the end of the game can actually let you walk underwater. Simply walk off of a cliff above water, wave, and if you hit the ground before the animation finishes, you can walk around to your heart's content as long as you keep the Hologuise on and don't walk off of any underwater ledges. If there's a slope that goes down into the water, such as on Pokitaru, you can simply walk down it with the Hologuise on, and you can even walk past the trigger that summons a Pool Shark to eat you and explore the waters and mountains past the main level.
  • If you can reach the edge of a body of water, swimming out from under it, then swimming above it, can allow you to swim through the sky on many planets, including Novalis (by reaching the pools of water in the Waterworks), Kerwan (prior to a patch, done by hovering below the pool of water with the RYNO Holocard), Aridia (by using the aforementioned Hologuise walking underwater glitch to spin an underwater bolt crank and open a door), Rilgar, and Pokitaru (both of these two by getting out of bounds and swimming out to the edge of the planet's water).
  • In many areas, exploiting tiny bits of collision that register as floors instead of walls, as well as the Pain-Powered Leap that's intended to keep you from being on surfaces you shouldn't be on, can allow you to go out of bounds and explore beyond what you're supposed to be able to see. Doing this on Veldin and retriggering the cutscene of Captain Qwark arriving at the Galactic Ranger tryouts takes you back to Quartu to do the first Clank section again, and completing that takes you back to Veldin post-retrieving-Clank. If you die in the right area, you can retrigger the cutscene that sends you to Novalis, even if Novalis has already been destroyed, and doing so re-adds Novalis to the list of planets you can fly to.
  • Prior to a patch, it was possible to use the Gadgebots in the Nebula G34 stage to get Clank back into Ratchet's area and goof around there. If you hadn't picked up the Predator Launcher on the warship as Ratchet, Clank can pick that up and use it, albeit not very effectively.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • People have taken to running game footage of the original and this game side-by-side a lot.
  • "The game, based on the movie, based on the game."
  • COME AND BUY A PIXELIZER!^Explanation The Gadgetron weapon vendor will repeat this over and over again once you have the money to purchase a Pixelizer, no matter where you are. Mocked in a Youtuber's review of the game and now used to make fun of any constant dialogue.
  • Try as he might, Ratchet could not breathe underwater!^Explanation Similar to the above, this is one of the two lines that Qwark says whenever Ratchet reaches 25% or less oxygen when underwater. Mocked in the same way, but also used to express dissatisfaction at any instance of Viewers Are Morons.
  • "Hashtag Gadgetron!" ^Explanation Said by the Gadgetron CEO after obtaining the Hologuise. It's the most widely mocked joke in the game, and possibly the whole series, for being a perfect example of the game trying too hard to be hip and recent. The intent of the joke seems to mocking companies that do exactly that, but one could argue that using #HashtagForLaughs ironically has become such a cliché that the joke ends up coming off as an example of the thing it's trying to mock.
• Misaimed Marketing: Michael Bross wrote on his blog that so far, the only release plans for the game's OST are in vinyl form. Considering the game can be bought in Sony's online store, and downloaded over the Internet straight to your PS4, the vinyl-only availability of the soundtrack sure reminds one of the Tactical Flintlock.
• Misblamed: Insomniac gets a lot of heat from fans for the story, characterizations, tone, and limited animations within the game. While they are not completely guilt free, it should be noted that Insomniac had very little involvement with the film itself, with Rainmaker (now Mainframe) leading the entire project meaning the developers had to work with what they were given. The game also had a bit of a Troubled Productioninvoked^note Which can be read about in greater detail here as the studio had a small budget and a short development time of 10 months, meaning that corners had to be cut in many regards with the limited in-game cutscenes being one of the results of that.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The game is considered to be at least up to par with the other games in the series and pretty much the best possible outcome for a video game adaptation of the movie. It could also be considered a perfect tie-in game due to being made by the original developers at an extremely high level of quality that exceeds that of the movie (although to be fair, that isn't all that difficult). More than that, the game is one of the most popular and well-received titles in the series and brought the franchise out of the Audience-Alienating Era it experienced after A Crack in Time.
• Older Than They Think: One of the moments that gets brought up a lot by people criticizing Ratchet's characterization in this game is his geeking out over Big Al's Roboshack being "nerd heaven," as a clip popularized by creator TheGamingBritShow directly compares it to Ratchet dismissively calling Big Al himself a nerd in the original game. Even ignoring the original context for the latter clip (Ratchet only calls him a nerd after making a lame joke upon their introductions and not for geeking out over anything), Ratchet was still depicted as being a nerd himself within first game as there are multiple instances of him gushing over hoverboarding (albeit depicted in a much more "cool guy" fashion). And while it's true that he was not said to be a fan of video games in that particular entry, he was shown as such in Up Your Arsenal, with him fawning over the VG 9000 game system held on the Starship Phoenix and jumping at the chance to play the Qwark Vid-Comic.
• Player Punch: Watching Novalis get blown up before your eyes is sure to tug your heartstrings a little. Good thing the population managed to escape in time.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: The game's dialogue, cutscenes and changes to the original 2002 game's story are all very contentious, but the gameplay itself is considered very good, sometimes even up there with the most acclaimed games in the series.
• Scrappy Weapon: The Proton Drum. It places a stationary orb that releases a shockwave every few seconds, but it's so weak it's only a threat to swarmers, and the Pyrocitor and Pixelizer (and the Combustor once upgraded) are much more effective at crowd control. Its main use seems to be adding additional damage in firefights while you use another weapon, but Mr. Zurkon does that job much better once you have access to him. Its low damage also means it takes a long time to upgrade (by which point you'll have better weapons), and its upgraded form isn't even worth the effort, only adding an occasional arc of lightning towards a single enemy (which is still very weak). A complete letdown from one of the few wholly original weapons in the 2016 game.
• Tear Jerker: If you drop a Gadgebot into lava, Clank will sadly apologize. Robots in these games are self aware Turing machines.
• That One Achievement:
  • "Faster than a Speeding Amoeboid" and "Kalebo Thunder", which require you to complete the Gold Cup hoverboard races under a time limit. The harsh Rubber-Band A.I. and having to finish first as well makes these trophies feel luck-based.
  • "Death by Disco." Hope you have the patience to replay the entire game repeatedly just for this if you dare miss any of the missable enemies required for the trophy like the glow slugs and train tentacles. Bosses must be hit too. To top it off it's a Bronze trophy despite requiring 48 specific enemies to be hit with the Groovitron in a single Challenge Mode playthrough.
• That One Boss: Even for a final boss, Dr. Nefarious is heinously difficult, resulting in what may be his cheapest encounter yet. His mech soaks in normally-powerful Warmonger and Critical Plasma Striker shots even when upgraded, and if you run out of ammo for those, you may as well be pelting him with tennis balls with the pitiful damage that every other gun does to him. He can unload a salvo of energy shots and plasma beams within a second's notice, heals himself using the dwarf star core at 70% and 50% of his health bar (although this leaves him open for a couple shots), and has several highly-damaging Elite Mook squadrons accompanying him around the only sources of respawning ammo and health you have access to. Thinking about camping at these sources and pelting him with replenished Warmonger rockets? Try again, because not only does he destroy them after healing, he also has a nasty habit of laying down a field of trip mines that inexplicably suck you in and do a ton of damage one after the other. Top it off with having to watch your jetpack fuel on top of all the chaos and you've got quite the irritating mess to deal with. It almost gives Drek from the original a run for his money. Thankfully, the Ryno quickly tears through his health bar... that is if you have the Ryno.
• That One Level:
  • Despite the return of the reviled Rilgar sewers and the hoverboard races, the real culprit here is the new final level, the second visit to the Deplanetizer, a reboot-exclusive level involving painstakingly-slow stealth sections using the Hologuise, several Hold the Line segments where you have to prevent waves of Blarg forces from activating the instant-kill sanitation system - the last of these being extremely vicious by pitting you against several Elite Mook bullet sponges at once alongside small robotic attack dogs to distract you - and one of the most frustrating Trespasser puzzles in the game. This level definitely shows the scars of the hurried development cycle, and that's not even mentioning the two boss battles with Captain Qwark and Dr. Nefarious, both of whom are easily capable of killing you if you're not careful. Special mention goes to the latter, see That One Boss above.
  • As stated above, Rilgar's sewer section: once again you're forced to rush your way through a rapidly filling level full of obnoxious Amoeboids that smack Ratchet and Clank around, shaving precious seconds away from an already tight time limit. And you have to go through this to make it to the rest of the level and get the RYNO. It's already tough on normal mode and basically impossible on hard mode so it's best to avoid Rilgar until you get the helipack on Kerwan.
• That One Puzzle: The Clank puzzles during the confrontation with Victor von Ion on the Phoenix are the most involved in the game and require some creative re-programming of Gadge-Bots, with many players online getting stuck on them. It doesn't help that Clank will give the same unhelpful hint over and over as you spend time in there.
• That One Sidequest: The hoverboard races, especially on higher difficulties. Rubber-Band A.I. is in full force here, so you have to be on the top of your game the whole way. While saving your boost for the final lap works if you just want to progress, this isn't the case if you want to earn the trophies for completing the races under a certain time, as you have to finish first and meet the time requirement in order to earn them. Taking the shortcuts are demanded even if you're not playing for trophies.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Clank barely exists beyond a backpack that Ratchet carries around to do things with. He also almost never talks with Ratchet, either, barring about a minute near the end when the two have a conversation, and the duo lack the dynamic they had in the original due to Ratchet's drastic personality change.