Ratchet and Clank is a mix of 3D action-platformer and third-person shooter only for PS4, which was developed by Insomniac Games, and published by SONY Interactive Entertainment. It is a re-imaging of the first game in the series, as well as being based on the 2016 film of the same name by Rainmaker Entertainment (now Mainframe Studios) and Blockade Entertainment.
To keep you in mind before reviewing this game, I had a difficulties to get into with this series since I've played R&C Tools of Destruction on PS3 and R&C Size Matters on PS Vita as digital PSP copy (via PS Store) which are these two games that I never being able to complete it, but that doesn't mean it's anything bad because I heard this series are overwhelmingly positive for its clever-puzzle solving, various of engaging weapons upgrades, fun platforming sections, exploration, and has great single-player action that made the series so recognisable on SONY platforms.
I decided to give this series a second try with the Ratchet and Clank for PS4 which I had this digital copy for free from PS Store thanks to Playstation's Play at Home Initiative program who has previously given a two giveaways games like Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection and Journey last year.
So I've finally beaten this game for a week and I got to say I kinda liked it so far because it's one of my first Ratchet and Clank title that I have completed it.
This game does have a positive parts that made this game worth playing, while I will discuss some of the negative things in further review.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
While the game was based on the 2016's movie, the game sets in planet Veldin as it focuses on young Lombax named Ratchet, who works at the mechanic, had his dreams of joining the Galactic Rangers, but unfortunately after he passes the test he was then quickly being rejected by Captain Qwark due to his criminal past.
Then Ratchet had discovered the crashed ship and rescued a defective warbot named Clank, who managed to escape from factory on planet Quartu, as he explains to Ratchet that he needs to warn the Galactic Rangers of dangerous plans made by Alonzo Drek, a chairman who works at the construction factory of a mechanical army built by an evil scientist Dr. Nefarious.
So Ratchet had agreed to join Clank as a new partner throughout the adventure to stop the Drek from destroying the planets.
To be quite honest with the story in the game which is based on the film, I finding it quite below the average which I got to say that it's not fully terrible but it's just not sounds great in my opinion.
The only good part in the game is that it did had a sense of humour lines which is entertaining for young viewers, but I find the rest of the story dialogue throughout the game is somewhat a bit under-developed when it's comes with the story-written plot which doesn't do anything to impress me, but like I said it's fine with the younger audience may seem to like this stuff.
Aside with the story, I really liked the cast of characters in the game such as Ratchet is just the lombax welding with the wrenches and kicking all robots asses which made him quite memorable, and you have little robot friend Clank who is intelligent and clever with the puzzle-investigation as well as helping with the partner throughout missions which I quite liked him a lot.
Then you had one silly side-character like Captain Qwark which kinda looks like Mr Incredible from Pixar's film The Incredibles wore Daffy Duck's Duck Dodgers costumes from Looney Tunes, yeah judging with his bulky design.
He one of the dumbasses who pretending to be like a superhero just for attracting attention to people in order to gain money and publicity which sounds like a jerk moves, but he's not always being a horrible person as he seems much nicer with Ratchet.
There are some support characters like Agnogg Buckwash, Plumber, Skidd McMarx, Cora Veralux and rest others are just the people who needed their help from Ratchet and Clank throughout the story missions.
The game also shared with great villains such as Chairman Alonzo Drek is more of being the dictator than just the chairman who are aiming to create his new homeworld by creating his space station that could destroy planets with deadly powerful laser as well as sending his forces to gather pieces from other planets and use them for his new homeplanet known as New Quartu.
Then you have big bulky robot lieutenant Victor Von Ion who is a chairman's bodyguard and served as Clank's archenemy when Clank had becoming one of the defect of all warbots which led Drek instructed Victor to destroy him before he escapes the planet.
Lastly Dr Nefarious is one of the series's original villain who is vile and evil big headed robot-scientist has a distinct hatred against humanity and plotting to rule the galaxy which you will see able to see him quite soon sometime throughout the game.
I honestly to say that I liked their production values for its aesthetics cinematic design which is almost like watching Pixar's films during the cutscenes seems to be quite look amazing for the Playstation platform. The CGIs and animations throughout the sequences is pretty gorgeous which I'm quite surprised the animation team behind the 2016's film did a tremendous job of capturing these cinematic assets in both film and video games.
The presentation looks fantastic in each planets such as Veldin which is rocky-like wasteland full of scrapyard and garage, Novalis is a spring forrest places with cave tunnels filled with neon-light and waterfall, Kerwan is sorta city like centre with many tall buildings and flying transport, Rilgar is the place where the racing event took place, Gaspar is a tiny islands filled with lakes of lava and stations, Batalia takes place in icy battle fort, and others locations which is colourful and sharp looking details the game has to offer making it the most appealing designs they ever produced for the whole series.
Overall, it suffers with the average storylines, but has lovable characters, aesthetics cinematic design, and fantastic presentation settings.
Gameplay
You take control of Ratchet in third-person perspective with the mix of open-world platforming and shooting action elements, so you will have the list of the story missions as well as optional side-mission on the map menu where your goal is to complete all missions throughout the game which leads you to the next planet.
Using the left stick to move Ratchet while right stick is to move camera system around, so you use wrench as a basic melee weapon to attack on enemies by thrown or swung at them as well as destroying boxes packs with bolts and it is also serves as tool to turning bolt cranks and picking up objects.
You will gain a new weapon are made available by completing missions or buying them through a weapon vendor which requires numerous of bolts as a currency to spend.
You will start off with combuster which is a balanced blaster weapon, fusion grenade works effectively with impact damage and area of effect by throwing at the enemies, pyrocitor is a flamethrower had short range but high rate of fire works better for smaller enemies, predator launcher is a homing weapon with multi-lock on system allowing you to release 4 missiles, proton drum is a orb launcher which launches metallic ball on grounds or wall creates large portion area of shockwaves damaging enemies, plasma striker is a sniper works better effectively in long-range shots provides critical hit damage, pixelizer is a 8-bit shotgun are short-ranged but deals heavy damage turns enemies into 8-bit pixelated, warmonger is a rocket launcher which fires 2 rockets per shot, groovitron is a disco ball that plays disco music that makes enemies dance along for distraction till it expires, Mr. Zurkon is just the assisting attack drone that zaps his laser, sheepinator is a laser weapon that zaps enemies turned into sheeps, buzz blades shoots out with multiple sharp-blade disc, bouncer fires with large bomb with smaller bomblets, glove of doom acts as kamikaze explosives allowing you to run towards an enemy, and R.Y.N.O fires up to a 9 powerful missiles per launch.
The game also has several of gadgets that can be used for platforming segments such as grind boots which allows you to ride on rails, heli-pack that can be used for glide and jump high to reach inaccessible areas, hydro-pack allows you to dive under the water but be vary to keep an eye with the oxygen level, hydrodisplacer is a water draining equipment that drains and fills pools of water, magneboots allows you to walk across the traverse magnetic surfaces, swingbot allows you to latch and swing as grapple hook to reach across gaps, jetpack allows you to fly around the area which requires fuel from fuelling stations, and trespasser are used for hacking devices to unlock blocked doors.
You also get to play as Clank which is more puzzle-based focused as oppose to combat and platforming segment like Ratchet.
He has ability to punch at enemies, but rather than defeating enemies he must solve the puzzle aspects in the game such as using gadget bots to create bridges which allowing him to get across the gap, spring makes him jump high to reach higher platform, and using power to activate generators.
Aside with these weapons and gadgets, the missions has the list of objectives that you will need to complete which can be marked on the map screen. It involves stuff like destroying the battleships, disable the security system, escaping the sewers, finding someone to help you repair your ship, get to the HQ, investigating the factory, locating the gadget, meeting up with the rangers, trade 20 brains for an infobot, and defeating bosses, while it also has optional side-missions like collecting all holocards, winning the hoverboard race cup, and searching for hidden treasure.
Once you've completed some of the objectives which leads you to unlocking a new planet for newer objectives so you can able to travel there with the ship to select any of these planet to visit.
I got to say the combat in the game are pretty good for its range and firing rates so my favourite weapon to use mostly is pixelizer that turns enemies into chunk of pixels which is fantastic, the predator launcher did had a great lock-on system which is easier to target at the enemies but I much preferred with warmonger which benefits a heavy impact damage, and the buzz blade which shoots multiple sharp discs which kinda worked pretty well.
There are couple of the weapons that I find it hilarious which is groovitron and sheepinator are the funniest part of the game.
I wasn't the fan with the Mr. Zurkon as a drone assistant which is slow and doesn't do any of damage are by far the weakest of all combat weapons.
The rest of the gadgets such as jetpack, heli-pack, grind boots, and swingbot in the game are actually pretty cool for most part which is great for platforming segments so I really like stuff like riding on the rails, gliding in the air, swinging forward and backwards, and jumping up high.
My favourite part on the Ratchet's mission is riding on the warship similar to Nintendo's Starfox or Factor 5's Star Wars: Rogue Squadron where you need to take down many of the enemies ship as possible which I finding it quite entertaining to play and I also liked the stealth segment where you need to use device to disguise as Captain Qwark to avoid getting contact by securities.
I got to say that I've enjoyed the hoverboard race competition throughout the 3 cup race which is really fun to play these kinds of mini-games.
I also enjoyed the Clank's puzzle-investigation which I liked the ideas of using these gadgets bots that allow me to get across the gaps with bridges, activating power generators, and reaching up high platforms with spring jump that encouraging me to find the way of unlocking the blocked doors.
The game does have an amazing boss battles where you need to fight off against the boss which requires tactics such as memorising their attacking patterns before you had a chance to attacking them in right timing which adds the fun factor of the game.
While everything is positive so far, I do find the game kinda lacked innovation which is too similar to the previous Ratchet and Clank titles so I fully acknowledge the PS2 games like Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal has already introduced new mechanics like weapon upgrades and new control system in the past, but I don't see this game add anything new to this installiment besides it uses the similar assets as the R&C's PS3 titles for its controls and combat, but honestly its more playable than the first original PS2 title when it comes with making an decent remakes.
Overall, it has good combat system, cool gadgets, and enjoyable single-player mission.
Graphics
The graphics is looking excellent on the PS4 hardware. I was so impressed to see the developers had managed to make one of the top-quality design of all Ratchet and Clank series featuring bright lighting effects, polish details of foregrounds and backgrounds environments, colourful surfaces, and smooth character animation are looking so amazing on both in-game cutscenes and open-world areas.
Speaking of open-worlds areas, the game itself has large portion of areas which resulting an ambitious exploration of big cities, massive junkyards, inside cave tunnels, outside stations, and factory that you can roam around the levels is so much beautiful to look at in the game.
I see no signs of screen tearing and major drawbacks on these particular design that they made the game look and feel astonishing for the Playstation platform, and the game has locked on 30 fps which I don't see the severe slowdowns during the gameplay which is good so far.
Overall, it has bright lighting effects, polish details of foregrounds and backgrounds environments, colourful surfaces, and smooth character animation.
Music and Sounds
The game does have an solid original soundtrack is more like a movie-like orchestral with Pixar style vibes feel to it which really fits nicely to the game itself increasing the game's atmospheres. Rather than re-arranging the 2002's soundtrack from the PS2 which has more cartoony sounds, the composer Michael Bross wanted to create his music feels more cinematic which I kinda liked it a lot, yeah that just my opinion.
The sound design is pretty good for its environmental noise and ambient effects in some areas and the voice cast did a decent job on their role in the game delivers their character's personality and humour throughout the game.
Overall, it has solid soundtrack, good sound design, and decent voice roles.
Special Features
The game does have an unlockable modes called challenge mode which is more of new game plus featuring most items including all weapons are carried through, but it also raises the game's difficulty making it more tougher than ever.
There are several collectibles are present in the game such as holocards which provide information about the world, and gold bolts which unlock aesthetical extras such as cheats and misc.
Overall, a cool content.
Advantages
Fantastic presentation settings
Aesthetics cinematic design
Good combat system and cool gadgets
Enjoyable single-player mission
Excellent graphics design
Solid soundtrack
Disadvantages
Average storylines
Lack of innovation
Final Verdict
Presentation 7.5/10 - average storylines, but has lovable characters, aesthetics cinematic design, and fantastic presentation settings.
Gameplay 8/10 - good combat system, cool gadgets, and enjoyable single-player mission.
Graphics 9/10 - bright lighting effects, polish details of foregrounds and backgrounds environments, colourful surfaces, and smooth character animation.
Music and Sounds 8/10 - solid soundtrack, good sound design, and decent voice roles.
Special Features 7.5/10 - unlockable contents and collectables cards.
Overall 8/10 - It took me awhile to get used with the Ratchet and Clank series, this game is definitely a solid overall experience that I never regret playing it on my PS4. The game filed with great single-player campaign, clever use of combat and gadgets, has the mix of action and puzzles segments, memorable duos, and entertaining boss battles is what made me enjoy the game itself.
Although it could have been done it a bit better when its comes with the mediocrity of storyplot and has not enough innovative doesn't mean it drags out the fun factor of the game itself does has the charm to appeal younger audiences.
I say this game is pretty good especially I've claimed this game for free (via PS Store) thanks to Playstation's Play at Home Initiative program, so grab it while you can till it expires on next month, but incase it's expired the original price is not that expensive to pick up and play which is worth getting it for less than £12.
I say this is must play for all casuals and the fans of the series, so I'm hoping for the another sequel in sometime future such as R&C Rift Apart for PS5.
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