Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a both 3rd-person shooter and action-platformer was released for PS5 in 2021, and it was later ported to PC release in 2023. It was developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Ratchet and Clank series has grown really strong over the years since the franchise started back in early 2000s. Stuff like we had the original PS2 trilogies like the first R&C, Going Commando, and of course Up Your Arsenal that made the series quite recognisable by most of the Playstation's fans.
Around between late 2000s and early 2010s during the PS3 era, We had Tools of Destruction, Quest for Booty, A Crack in Time, and of course Into the Nexus which are also has quite a strong line-ups to this series with new levels to explore, innovative weapons and gadgets, and filled with jam-packed action-shooter.
Then we also received a 2016's full remake of the first PS2 game titled as Ratchet and Clank for PS4 which I considered the title as solid overall experience that does a job right done, so I got lucky that I've claimed this game for free (via PS Store) thanks to Playstation's Play at Home Initiative program in Spring 2021.
In 3 years later, I've finally had my PS5 Slim console which is why I had a reason to bought a copy of Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart to see if this recent title doing anything better than the previous installiment, so the answer will be further discussed on this review because I had a blast of playing this game which took me a week to beat.
I will discuss a multiple of pros and cons on single-player campaign depending on how well the story, characters, combat, and puzzles went that helps the series doing justice.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game took place after the events of the Into the Nexus, Ratchet and Clank are being celebrated as a heroes during a parade hosted by Captain Quark, Skid McMarx, and Rusty Pete on Carson V.
Clank reveals that he has repaired a device called Dimensionator which allows to opening rifts to other dimensions so that Ratchet can able to search for the Lombax race and his family.
However, the all-time villain Dr. Nefarious suddenly attacks the parade and attempts to steal Dimensionator which unfortunately Ratchet unthinkingly shoots the device which causes dimensional rifts to begin opening randomly and all hell everything went breaking loose.
While both Ratchet and Clank are being separated into the alternative universe, Clank then awakens to find his friend himself and now missing his right arm from the blast.
He is discovered and picked up by a female Lombax named Rivet agrees to help and joins Clank at the journey to find Ratchet, who are also went to find himself alone and starting his search for Clank.
Meanwhile, Dr. Nefarious ends up in a throne room which mistaken for Emperor Nefarious, an alternate version of himself who, unlike him, has never been defeated and rules over the galaxy.
So far, to tell you the truth is that I find the story in this game is actually sounds better than I've expected from the series because the story that involves twos guys going into the different dimensions which changes the universes, so you could see different alternate time parallel between the first and second universe is what I find these concepts really good in this game.
You have Ratchet, a heroic Lombax protagonist goes out on his adventure to kick every Dr. Nefarious's units asses with his wrench tool and guns, and he has his little sidekick named Clank who is intelligent and clever robot which poor thing he lost his right-arm after the blast.
The game also introduces two new characters such as Rivet, which is basically an female counterpart of Ratchet from other dimension, so judging with the similar design features she's actually pretty interesting playable character are just good as Ratchet with good personalities.
Lastly you have a yellow little robot named Kit, yeah yeah another female character in this game which is basically another counterpart of Clank then again a similar design features except with two headed light-bulb on her head.
Unlike Clank, she's quite a shy looking fella due to her fear of herself, but she willingly to accept to join in as a team partnership.
I got to say I really liked the villain such as Dr. Nefarious as being vile and evil big headed robot-scientist are up to no good as always, but his counterpart Emperor Nefarious are slightly more morbid and sinister villain does a very dirty tricks and becoming far more dangerous than the Dr. Nefarious has ever done throughout the story campaign.
The presentation in this single-player campaign is looking fantastic in terms of settings and designs which I consider these as beautifully made concept that made the whole game looking quite as remarkable.
Stuff like you have each of these locations such as Corson V which is a city-like planet filled with tall futuristic skyscapers and huge building structures.
Zurkie's is a space station which filled with floating debris at landscape and has inside bar club.
Savali is sort of dry planet which has badlands outpost, temple, and forest are filled with plain structures.
Blizar Prime is a mining operation planet that gathers with blizon crystals in the galaxy, so its rather small world which covered in craggy rock formations and towering spires.
Cordelion is basically an ocean world with vast majorities of the planet being covered in water, so it has multilayed kedaro station being constructed into the seafloor.
Sargasso is a wild primordial world, primarily inhabited by non-sapient creatures, are covered in copius amounts of wild planetlife and filled with many large rock formation.
I really liked how they designed these planets to look different each other, so you have a futuristic looking city buildings, some of them has ice or fire environmental stuffs, some planets has different structures of man-made objects and towers, and one of them are dry and plain wastelands which I got to say these are the best looking presentation concepts that fits the game's universe.
Overall, it has good story overall, likable cast of characters, and fantastic presentation design.
Gameplay
In single-player campaign, you get to play as twos such as Ratchet or Rivet in 3rd-person perspective depending on which missions you're playing on, as your main goal is to complete each of these story missions in order to progress throughout the campaign.
You'll move the player with the left-stick control, while using the right-stick control to move camera system around you.
Clicking the left-thumbstick button which allowing the player to sprint through, and pressing the cross button to jump then double tap it to double jump to reach up high platforms, and you can also hold the cross button while in mid-air to glide through the long distance platforms.
You can also perform the phantom dash by hitting the circle button which are used for evading enemy's projectiles or used as longer jump platforms.
Pressing the left shoulder button which allows you to perform any types of manuvering such as swinging ropes allowing you to swing forward to platforms, used as grappling ropes to pull you straight towards the rift tether to quickly warp between areas, and grab on to hurlshots to fling you across to the destination.
Holding the right-shoulder button which allows you to use hover system boots to travel huge distances, and you can also repeatedly press the left-trigger button to pump-up the high speed mode.
On combat, you can use melee attack by pressing the square button which are used for close-range attacks on enemies or used as breaking the objects, and then holding the left-trigger button is to ready-aim, then pressing the right-trigger button is to shoot at the enemies and breakable objects.
You can cycle your weapons by holding the triangle button, then navigate it with the left stick controls or quickly cycle with the d-pad button to change the weapons.
So far, the controls are pretty straightforward to play which I had no issues with the default settings, so if any of you wanted to change the configurations then you can able to customise your button bindings and other configuration on the controls option menu to suit your playability.
Aside with the controls, the main importance of the game has to be a combat system which relies on the choice of weapons and using the gadgets throughout the game.
In order to get a new weapons, you really need to collect many bolt currencies in which you really needed these to purchase the weapons and ammunitions, so in order to gather all the bolt currencies you need to defeat all the enemies as well as breaking the objects which drops down the bunch of bolts scattered on the floor.
Once you've collected many of bolts currencies, you can go to the green vendor lady's shop which sells the weapons that you'd like to purchase.
Stuff like The Enforcer which acts as shotgun doubles the firepower, Shatterbomb is a expolsive ball that tears apart the enemies with large energy boom, Mr. Fungi is the little assist here to help attacking your enemies, Negatron Collider that can charge up and fire a large beam are effective against the large enemies, Topiary Sprinkler that turns the enemies into a gardening sculptures, Ricochet is a weapon that fires a bouncy ball that repeatably beat them over the head with it, lighting rod that fires the bolts of lighting that causes the spread of electrocution around the enemies, Drillhound just fires a drill and digs under the ground until it explodes the enemies faces, Void Repulser is a shield weapon which not only blocks the enemy's projectiles but also shoot a wide-spread blast of energy, Glove of Doom just tosses out a egg to release them and they'll bite the closest enemies they see, Buzz Blades fires a multiples of slicing blades that bounce off your enemies, Cold Snap acts as a frozen weapon which freezes your enemies, Warmonger is basically a rocket launcher which makes a heavy impact blast against the large enemies, Bombadier which deploy a drone that files in a straight-line and drops bombs on enemies, Headhunter is a sniper-rifle which allowing you to zoom-in distance and make one deadly shots at enemies, Blackhole Storm is a mini-gun which fires a multiple bullets, and lastly Bouncer which is a grenade that releases micro-size grenades upon impact with the enemies.
Each of these weapons has an upgradable option which you can able to upgrade them through the vendor shop, so this will improve upon the weapon's firing rate, ammo capacity, damaging impact, firing range, and etc that'll make your weapon feel more powerful against the certain types of large enemies, so in order to do that you really need to find and gather all the upgrade crystal items can be found somewhere in the levels which you'll see it on the map navigation menu.
Your weapon also has the experience system level which means that every time you keep killing your enemies with the weapon you're using, this will increase your weapon's EXP points, so once it's reaches up to level 5 which turns your weapon into more highly class stuff like one of your weapon has homing projectiles attacks, fires 3-way projectiles, and other cool stuff that makes your weapon even more powerful that deals much damage.
The gadgets in this game are really good which comes very handy in single-player mode. Stuff like you have Omniglove which allows you to use any manuvering moves like swingshot allowing you to swing forward to platforms, the the rift tether allowing you to quickly warp forward between areas with grappling hook, phantom rush allowing you to dash forward to reach the longer distance platform or evade enemy's projectiles, and of course performing the wall run which you can run across the wall.
The glide boots allowing you to glide through the platforms, the hover boots makes you traverse through across the stages with high speeds, grind boots makes you grind on rails at high speed to traverse the environment as soon as you jump on one, and lastly magnetic boots that lets you walk along specific metallic surfaces.
The overall gameplay are fantastically played because I had a fun of blasting all the bad guys and being able to jump up on the high platforms throughout the areas which proves that the game provides a good mix of action and platforming just plays flawlessly.
I really loved the combat system in this game which are very responsive and precise thanks to range of firing rate and accuracy just worked effectively on types of enemies, and I also liked some of the platforming segments like being able to ride on grinding rails where you can able to jump on different platforming rails, and the last of all are pulling towards to rifts to reach platforms are kinda cool in some areas.
I also wanted to praise the haptic feedback on triggers which is very useful for combat play such as using grenade bombs where you hold the right trigger halfway for quick aiming then press it further to throw bombs just works really well, and I also liked the feel of the right trigger are rapidly vibrates when using the machine guns just feels really good on my finger.
I also had a good time playing with both the story missions and of course some side-missions which provides multiples of great epic action such as the segments like chasing after Dr. Nefarious and fighting his minions at the frantic parade, dimensional anomaly puzzles which involves solving the riddle puzzles with Clank or Kit inside the dimensional puzzle area, participating arena fights to deal with bunch of big bad guys, search and find dimensionator, repair the forge, accessing the archives, and of course battling against the bosses is what I find the game quite entertaining to play.
Having to play as two of the playable characters are more likely plays the same which is not that big of the deal because it's still plays great throughout the game no matter what characters you're playing, as long as the story campaign mission and combat system plays really well on single-player action.
While I did manage to enjoy the single-player campaign, it would have been nicer if they could include split-screen multiplayer for co-op play and deathmatch mode like the previous R&C games sounded like a fun idea to play, but it's a shame that it's been absent on this game.
Overall, it has straight-forward control schemes, solid combat gameplay, and great action-packed campaign missions.
The graphics is looking magnificent for 9th gen system because it really shows the true technical power of the PS5 hardware system in regards of visual standouts.
The environments is incredibly on large scale of areas, as you can see how much details on landscapes and backgrounds in Sargasso with big mountain and hills, the forest are filled with sharper details of multiples branches and trees and has nice shades of lighting and shadow effects, and I can able to see a much details of big planet behind the skies is just looking amazing.
In savili and Torren IV, I really loved the environmental structures are super detailed and crisp on some man-made objects, and just loved the large portion of areas is what I considered as technically impressive for big AAA title like this.
The character's animation is fascinating because it sort of has a Disney's PIXAR vibes to it in terms of animated design that made these characters in cutscenes feels almost like a blockbuster animated movie level which is excellent.
The movement feels really smooth and it captures really good animation performances to it with the great use of facial techniques that really adds up the character's personality development.
I got to say these graphics options gives you an option to select any of these threes graphical modes such as the fidelity mode which makes the game runs on 4k resolution capped with 30fps providing a best quality visuals running on full ray-tracing native which is perfect for cinematic purposes and overall environments, where as the performance mode with RT support has a partial ray-tracing support running on 60fps which limits a few ray-tracing details in order to have the game being able to run on full 60fps are suitable for those who wants to have a good balance of gameplay and graphics performance, and finally the performance mode without RT support are basically just a non-4k stuff being capped to 60fps running on low-resolution support may lack the game's high visual details but provides a smoother frame-rate performance.
To be honest, I really liked how the fidelity mode looks on the 4k television for crispy details, but when it comes with the gameplay and graphics performance which I always much preferred running on performance mode with RT support for faster gameplay action just performs well enough to play this kinds of game.
Overall, it has magnificent environmental design, fascinating character's animations, and decent visual performance.
Music and Sounds
The original soundtrack in this game is sounds incredibly fantastic because I really liked the vibes of cinematic movie-like orchestra just feels very epic at the whole level. It was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh and Wataru Hokoyama did such a amazing job for delivering the finest video game music for entre R&C franchise.
The sound design is very well made which provides a great background noise level, booming sound effects, and some atmospheric sound details just really fits the game's sound design overall, and I got to praise the voice performance for their character's role are sounds marvellous which delivers a great humours and decent dialogue throughout the game.
Overall, it has epic soundtrack, very well made sound designs, and marvellous voice acting.
Special Features
There's nothing much to say besides some small collectables and documents, but as I said earlier the game does not have split-screen co-op and deathmatch which is kinda shame.
Overall, it really need more features.
Advantages
Good story overall
Likable cast of characters
Fantastic presentation design
Solid combat gameplay
Action-packed campaign missions
Magnificent visuals
Epic soundtrack
Disadvantages
Lacks split-screen modes (such as co-op and deathmatch)
Final Verdicts
Presentation 9/10 - good story overall, likable cast of characters, and fantastic presentation design.
Gameplay 9/10 - straight-forward control schemes, solid combat gameplay, and great action-packed campaign missions.
Graphics 9/10 - magnificent environmental design, fascinating character's animations, and decent visual performance.
Music and Sounds 9/10 - epic soundtrack, very well made sound designs, and marvellous voice acting.
Special Features 3/10 - does not have split-screen co-op and deathmatch.
Overall 9/10 - Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is clearly not only just being the best PS5 libraries on the list, but also another best game title in the franchise next to Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal in terms of story, characters, combat, and of course the single-player frantic action is what made the game a best recommendation for those who had PS5 should consider picking this copy up and experience this wonderful action-packed title to play.
The game should cost over £20 for physical copy, where as the digital copy on PS Store costs around £70 which is more expensive compared with the physical ones, but the good news is that you can play this game for free through the game catalogue under PS Plus subscription extra.
I am glad that the Insomniac Games did such a incredible job of creating a fun action game that does everything right for the series is all about delivering a good straightforward story with great humours and likable cast of characters, the combat system has to be creative and fun that I can able to blast the shit out of these bad guys with cool new weapons, having a blast of time with the single-player campaign action with epic story missions featuring both action and puzzles, and of course being shifted into the different dimensions through the rifts one and another is what I loved about this title, so this is definite must play for PS5 owners should get into with Ratchet and Clank's epic action.
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