Sequel Month - Ratchetrospective - Ratchet and Clank (2016)

I know this isn’t really a sequel but a reboot/movie tie-in game but it’s the next entry in the Ratchet and Clank series, and that’s enough for it to count for sequel month

Ratchet and Clank came out in April 2016 to positive reviews and decent sales, a polar opposite story to the movie it was tying into. Insomniac games are pros at this point but they were really up against the wall on this one, 8 months is the time they had to develop the core game, bearing in mind the Ratchet and Clank Movie debuted at a film festival in May 2015 and it could’ve gone to cinema at any point. The extra time had only a skeleton crew and was used to polish things up. The result is we have a budget title that, whilst more expensive than Insomniac’s previous budget titles, does feel more like a full game.

But, how does Ratchet and Clank hold up as a game? Well, let’s give it the Ratchetrospective treatment

Just to be clear, I won’t be covering the story in as much detail as the movie and since characters barely get an introduction in this game, I may end up bringing up names at random.

We open in Prison, a prisoner named Shiv Helix is brought before Captain Qwark for some reason, he mentions a holo-game based on the holo-film based on Ratchet and Clank’s adventures and Qwark laments that no-one would get to hear his side, Shiv offers to listen and Qwark tells his tale

We start with Ratchet, he’s about to sneak out but is caught by Grim so we can get our camera tutorial that they insist we do in these games for some reason. Once that’s done, Ratchet heads out to the Galactic Ranger trials, he does well, passing through the test but his inexperience and prior history means he’s rejected membership. Meanwhile, completely sporadically we cut to Drek’s robot factory on Qwartu where a defect occurs for no reason. Victor, not voiced by Sylvester Stallone because he’s too expensive gives chase but Clank escapes. Victor shoots his ship and he crashes on Veldin, where Ratchet goes to investigate.

Drek has sent Blarg forces to look for Clank but not a significant number so Ratchet can fight them off and head back to the garage so he can fix Clank up. Ratchet tells Clank he’s a ‘friend’ of the rangers as Clank tells him about the oncoming attack on the Rangers’ headquarters. This lie has no consequences whatsoever, it's not even referenced again. They steal the customer’s ship and are shot down after receiving a distress call from Novalis. Drek’s attacking the planet with his army of robot bees we never see again.

  

So, we save Mayor Buckwash from the Blarg and he gives an infobot, apparently the attack was motivated by the fact his Nephew, Skidd McMarx accidentally attained intel about the Blarg’s illegal activities. They also find the Plumber, who seems to recognise them. He and Ratchet fix up the ship and they head to Aleero City, the new version of Metropolis and I don’t get the change either.

They successfully fend off the Blargian warbots along with their mother-ship but as they’re invited to be part of the Rangers, Blargian mercenaries target the ship and the blast sends them across the city. To help, they meet Big Al, a friend of ranger Cora Verilux, apparently the two are in a relationship, not that they spend any time on-screen together whatsoever. He gives Clank a heli-pack upgrade and not a moment too soon as they learn of a Blarg plan to send a bomb to the Rangers’ headquarters, the hall of heroes. Ratchet and Clank put a stop to that by likely blowing something else up instead. Ratchet gets some new armour and after undergoing some basic training, are told by Qwark to find out about a secret project being developed by Drek at his research station.

On Aridia, they manage to escort Skid back to the ship by killing the sand sharks in his path. They find a new gadget and meet Skid’s agent, who they also escort back to their ship, they take off, giving Ratchet an infobot for the race in Blackwater City, since Skid's injury means he can't attend. Ratchet and Clank head there but the area has been infested with amoeboids, and Blackwater City officials have released extremobots to deal with them, robots that can’t distinguish between friend and foe. Don't see anything dangerous about that

Ratchet and Clank fight their way through and win the hoverboard match, they also explore the sewers and find, seriously? Slim Cognito. You can see his face! Anyway, he gives you a new gadget. On Drek’s research station, Clank heads outside to find a new gadget, you find a new weapon on a smaller ship and discover Drek’s secret project is a Blargian Snagglebeast. After defeating it, you get an infobot about Nefarious’ base on Gaspar, where he’s been working on a jetpack. Qwark asks that you get one so Elaris, the team’s scientific advisor, can replicate them for the rest of the team.

Ratchet heads to Gaspar and quickly finds a new gadget, accessing a new area with said gadget we find a friendly Blarg that offers a jetpack in exchange for Telepathapus brains, he later offers an infobot which explains that Drek is planning to lay siege to the Starwatch Defence Cannon on Batalia in order to ensure safe passage for their hydro-harvesters, which are kinda self-explanatory.

Ratchet and Cora head to Batalia and fight their way through to the defence cannon, eliminating the Blarg ships, also Cora already seems to have a jetpack. Cora does some fast work. Ratchet also conveniently finds a message from Grimm at the end of a grid rail for some reason. He’s received a distress call from his brother on Pokitaru and asks for Ratchet to check it out.

Ratchet meets with Grim’s brother, Pokitaru is being laid waste to by the Hydro-harvesters, all 3 of them. Ratchet doesn’t have the weaponry to destroy them but Big Al is conveniently there to upgrade his ship so he can do so, he then gives Clank a new upgrade.

The Galactic Rangers approach Qwartu, favouring a full-frontal assault against Drek as opposed to a more considered approach. They land and Clank heads out on his own to deactivate the defence shield. Once inside they’re confronted with Drek’s army of Mr Zurkons, eventually leading to an encounter with a giant Mrs Zurkon.

They discover Drek’s intent, although that was more or less revealed in an earlier infobot, to build a planet from parts of destroyed ones. They discover the next target is Novalis. They make their attack, with Captain Qwark going in to ‘reason.’ Victor attacks in his battleship, Ratchet defeats it but he survives. Ratchet ejects from his ship so he can free-fly onto the base as Victor attacks the ship Clank is on. With Elaris’ help, Clank activates the fire suppression systems, rusting Victor away.

Ratchet fights his way through the ship but Drek captures him and he finds out that Qwark was working with Drek. Apparently because he was jealous of Ratchet or so Shiv points out, there’s little evidence for that on screen. Anyway, Drek doesn’t kill him for some reason and just launches him away as he blows up a fully evacuated Novalis.

Clank convinces Ratchet to continue (there's also a reference to a line not in the game) knowing that Drek still has another target: Umbris. An atmosphere of tetrigen (not the stuff it was made of in the movie) combined with a rare planetary alignment means its destruction will wipe out the entire system. Ratchet somehow deduces that Nefarious is behind this, despite having never met him in person. Elaris has a plan, or at least part of one, it involves heading the Gadgetron Headquarters on Kalebo III to acquire a hologuise.

Ratchet and Clank do so but find Kalebo III is under attack by the Blarg, seeking their weapons stockpiles. Erm, this is Gadgetron headquarters, in the original game the guys there weren't worried, they've got the weapons stockpiles so they can bloody well use them! But no, Ratchet defeats them and finds the head of the company. The last remaining hologuise is a prize in a hoverboard race and fortunately Ratchet wins. The head tells him to make sure he shares his thoughts on the ‘social medias’ – oh god why?!

So Elaris’ plan is for Ratchet and Clank to use the hologuise to disguise themselves as Captain Qwark so they can remove the core stabiliser from the deplanetiser so the rest of them can use mag-boosters to draw the deplanetiser off course. Qwark confronts Drek about hurting the Rangers and Nefarious shows himself, with the line about him dying which makes even less sense here, since this was the first time Qwark had seen Nefarious. Nefarious turns Drek into a sheep and sends him away.

Ratchet and Clank arrive at the deplanetiser. Unfortunately, Drek has upgraded security with a localised sanitation field, Ratchet and Clank use the hologuise to pass these and eventually deactivate the security and fight their way through to the core stabiliser.

They’re rather sporadically confronted by Captain Qwark and after shooting him for a while he stands down and apologises for some reason. Nefarious confronts him but the Galactic Rangers are successful in drawing the deplanetiser off course. Nefarious has a back-up plan, and I’m a little confused as to what it is. I think the deplanetiser uses some kind of localised star to power itself. Nefarious plans to blow it up and take Umbris, and the system with it, naturally for such an occasion he has a giant mech suit. Ratchet and Clank destroy it and leave Nefarious to be burned to death in the sun. Not sure how he could possibly survive that, even with the robot body.

Ratchet, Clank and Qwark race to Drek’s teleporter on the bridge and if you’ve seen the movie you know what happens. In the Present, Qwark and Shiv are litter-picking near the hall of heroes. Ratchet arrives for weapons testing or something, but Shiv evades the guards and steals his ship, which is why you should never leave your keys in the engine. Ratchet offers Qwark a chance to come in pursuit which I’m sure the guards are totally ok with.

Now we come to the difficult bit. The story for this game is… not very good, but it is limited by having to follow plot beats from the movie. For the sake of analysing just this game, I’m going to ignore the problems I have with the movie for the most part. If you want my thoughts on the movie, my review came out last year.

That said, there are some pretty major problems with the story of the game. Let’s start with the humour. It’s probably the least funny game in the entire series, and I’m including Size Matters and Secret Agent Clank. It’s not just down to the writing either, some of the all-important comedic timing was off. An example would be the ‘hold your questions’ bit in the info-bot Qwark gives you Operation: Falling Star (was done better in Ratchet and Clank 3). After Clank defeats Victor, he says ‘oh dear’ but his tone implies worry rather than it being snarky or the like. Just small elements prevent some of the humour of this working, then there’s the god-awful 'social medias' bit.

OK, but that’s unfortunately not the end of it. Let’s talk about Captain Qwark. In the movie, his motivation for his betrayal is highly rushed but in the game, the one with the longer running time, it’s not shown at all, in fact it’s all explained in one line from Shiv. But, the idea that Qwark was jealous of Ratchet isn’t really explored in the game. This misstep is all the more unforgivable because of the way the game is framed, as Captain Qwark’s version of events.

Now, Qwark giving his version of events is not unheard of, and as much as I wish I didn’t have to say it, I wish they’d taken a leaf from Secret Agent Clank. There, Captain Qwark exaggerated details of his plot for humorous effect and because that’s his character. Here, there’s a joke about a brain-eating zombie t-rex… which isn’t funny and that’s about it. Qwark’s perspective serves merely as some narration to help with scene transitions and for annoying hints that never shut up. Oh, I’ll get to that little issue.

But first, let’s talk about Big Al and Skidd McMarx. I have no issues with Skid aside from his infobot showcasing another instance where the comedic timing seemed off, his vocal tone implied worry but the length of his phrase and the speed of it, not so much. Big Al is a different story. I don’t care about his relationship with Cora, it doesn’t factor into anything, it’s there for a reference and if it wasn’t there, it would make no difference to the story whatsoever. Don’t care for his new goatee either but that’s not really a story issue. What is is the meta-commentary regarding internet critics coming back from the Pokitaru bar, I really don’t think I need to elaborate on this. Calling out your critics is nearly always tacky, especially from a series that has received almost universally positive reviews.

This game may share many elements with the original ratchet game but there are differences too. In the original the theme is a wide-eyed mechanic wanting to travel into space gets his chance with Clank and realises the universe beyond is not what he expected with extortionate pricing and money-grubbing maniacs bent on destroying worlds. Here it’s a more standard heroes journey. I bring this up because I mentioned in my original review that sometimes it was frustrating that important story paths didn’t have story related reasons for going down them. This game fixes that a little too well with every path taken being story related for one reason or another, which rather limits the idea of exploration.

That said it does expand on the movie’s story, adding worlds like Novalis, giving us a picture to identify it with before it’s destruction, plus it feels like the odds are more against Ratchet, with him having to face armies of enemies that he didn't have to face in the movie because of its desire to appeal to children. It also provides us with solid reasoning to visit all the planets that weren’t in the movie.

There aren’t a lot of differences between this and (Into the) Nexus, but there are a couple worth mentioning, so here they are

Holo-cards

Just what this game needed, another collectable! Holo-cards are collected in packs of 3 scattered across the level and can be collected by defeated enemies, Holo-cards form sets featuring images from past games and can unlock omega weapons and stat boosts. RYNO Plans are also printed on Holo-cards for some reason. Also, with the exception of RYNO holo-cards, you can exchange duplicates for new cards.

Ship Combat

Not much to say here, it’s pretty similar to the ship combat in the original Ratchet and Clank game except it’s your ship this time and there’s a pretty neat segment when you first arrive in Aleero City where you use the mag booster.

Clank Game-play

Clank’s game-play has been refined and his sections have been entirely redesigned, gadgebots now can be programmed with abilities to help Clank along, but they can’t help in physical combat. It creates some nice and semi-challenging puzzles. It’s honestly up there with A Crack in Time in terms of enjoyability. The only critique I’d make is they don’t incorporate the heli-pack, Clank cannot use it on its own.

There are 15 guns in this game, one of which was a pre-order bonus but I did pre-order so I’m counting it. You have a generic blaster, bomb glove, sniper rifle, flame thrower and rocket launcher. There is shotgun too but it’s not generic, so I’m going to cover it. You also get Mr Zurkon, Predator Launcher, Bouncer, Buzz Blades and the Groovitron which are essentially unchanged from previous games. The new weapons are creative I just wish there were a few more of them

Proton Drum/Protoclast

This weapon shoots a device which emits pulse bursts which damage enemies, it upgrades to do more pulses, and shock enemies even without pulsing. A great weapon for dealing with waves of small enemies but ultimately not powerful enough to deal with the larger ones you find later on in the game

Pixelizer/Pixelizer HD

A shotgun which converts enemies into 8-bit pixels, a hilarious use of the extra graphical power the PS4 provides, it upgrades to have a charge blast. It’s a lot of fun to use and reasonably powerful too

Glove of Doom/Apocalypse glove

Like the weapon in the original, the glove launches out small robots that attack enemies, they can be upgraded so it’s more than the initial four robots that are released with each shot. The final upgrade gives the robots jet packs so they can target enemies in the air. This isn’t one of my default weapons, but it’s worth using when there are a lot of enemies and you want to thin out the heard without charging in

Sheepinator/Goatinator

As is probably obvious, especially if you’ve seen the movie, this is a gun that turns people into sheep, it has limitless ammo, it’s a pity you buy it in this game and don’t have to collect it but it’s a really useful weapon, even if it’s a little slow and best not used when you’re surrounded by enemies. When it upgrades, it turns enemies into goats which then attack enemies.

RYNO/Ryno Xtreme

What’s this? Another RYNO V Clone? Come on Insomniac, you can do better than this! The design is like the RYNO IV, but that might be because it was like that in the movie.

I’ve got to admit, I have a few other issues with this game. First off, in the background of nearly every level there’s ALWAYS SOMEONE TALKING! Look, I get it, the Arkham games had guys talking on the radio all the time but Ratchet isn’t Batman and this isn’t Gotham City. Shut the hell up!

Also, this game holds your hand a lot, too much. It tells you how to jump, gives you a tutorial on smashing crates (even after areas with crates to smash). If you stick around too long it’ll always tell you where to go, even near the end, you get ‘helpful hints’ from Qwark which never stop, you have Big Al telling you to ‘do a barrel roll’ to avoid enemy fire, even Ratchet himself chips in when you’re low on health or near raritanium (something I didn't enjoy in previous games).

Then we have some of the cut-scenes. One of the joys is watching interactions but there’s honestly very little of it. I feel like they had a very limited budget to animate so it’s rare to see Ratchet and Clank actually talk to each other on-screen (as in not cutting between one and the other) in a cut-scene.

And then there’s the music. You’d think being a semi-remake of the original game, they’d try and remix some of the old classic tracks but nope! They spent probably more money creating brand new, ever so generic music. Not that you can listen to it often because someone’s talking every 5 seconds!

I’ve ravaged this game, haven’t I? I suspect you’re expecting me to say it’s the worst in the series but nope. I need to give this game some credit, it looks absolutely amazing, truly on par with a Pixar movie and to be honest, the game-play is still the same strong work that Insomniac has been refining for years, even if it recycles maybe a little too much. Is it flawless, god no, but is it fun, hell yeah!

Rating 70/100