Ratchet & Clank (2016) - Review

The game based on the movie based on the game. 

Console: PlayStation 4 game played on a PlayStation 5.

Last year, I had my first hands-on experience with what was once a staple PlayStation series, Ratchet & Clank. I got the latest entry, the PS5's Rift Apart, as a birthday present and it knocked my socks off. After finishing it, I wanted more. So, when Black Friday rolled around I picked up a 2nd hand copy of the PS4 Ratchet & Clank. A game that's quite the oddity. 

While these days Ratchet & Clank is not a priority for Sony, back in the PS2 and PS3 era, they were bestsellers with a new game every other year or so. That popularity and its appeal to kids culminated, after years of attempts, to a full-length animated feature in 2016. 

This game was produced as a tie-in to that film. It's a reboot of sorts to bring in new players with a fresh start after clamouring for more after seeing the 'hit movie'. That didn't quite happen. The movie bombed but the game thankfully sold well. Both audiences and critics alike did not think highly of the pretty film with a predictable story with shallow characters. 

Something that sadly rubbed off on this game... but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Let´s end this long-winded opening and start talking about the game itself. A very solid, but in my eyes unremarkable, entry in the series. 

Prisoner Shiv Helix is moved to a joint cell with former head of the Galactic Rangers, Captain Qwark. A big fan of the disgraced hero, he excitingly tells him of the holo game based on the holo film based on one of his adventures. Always excited to meet a fan (and be adored) Captain Qwark decides to tell him his side of the story.

On the planet Veldin, the young Lombax mechanic Ratchet dreams of greater things. Of joining the Galactic Rangers and being a famous hero. Ratchet finally gets his chance when the diminutive defective warbot Clank crashlands on the planet. He has escaped one of Chairman Drek’s robot factories where he’s building an army for his nefarious plot. To make himself a new planet by taking pieces from all the others.

Ratchet offers Clank to bring him to the Galactic Ranger’s Headquarters to warn them of the danger and thus, a galactic journey of adventure and danger begins. 

I'm not going to start with my thoughts on the plot this time. Before all of that, we need to talk about what makes this game, such an oddity. The game wasn't adapted from the film or the other way around. They were developed in tandem with both teams sharing work with the other.

They, for example, send character models and animations back and forth. One team would make it, the other would touch it up and then send it back. You can quite literally say the models are the same in both! 

Most of the voice recording is shared, save a few exceptions, and some of the cutscenes are even taken straight from the movie. I can't recall any such overlap between gaming and film projects and that's what makes this game unique. 

The vistas in the game can be real lookers. 

Now, it's time for that narrative. The plot of this ‘reboot’ is its weakest link and is bogged down by the film. I never saw that movie, I just might after this, but research tells me that the by-the-numbers, shallow plot filled with one-dimensional characters is what doomed this otherwise competent flick. These same issues persist in this adaptation, with a bunch of D-tours thrown in to extend the narrative to game length. 

Helping your boss´ brother. Winning a speeder race for a piece of equipment. Those sort of D-tours. It's decent, very ´gamey´, stuff that is rather standard in these types of games that beef up the game well enough without dragging things out too much. They certainly stand out in how easy it is to see what is also in the film and what is only in the game. Whenever a cutscene plays to start the quest, you can tell where it was made for by its look. The scenes taken straight from the movie version have different textures and fluidity of animation. It's a bit weird, not going to lie. 

The latter also feel out of place because they were made for a medium with a different kind of storytelling. This leads to scenes that cut abruptly and callbacks to moments that never happened in the game. This Frankenstein approach doesn't do the narrative, or the presentation, any favours. 

On the up and up, there´s a lot of humour to be found here. From quick and you´ll miss it jokes to meta references about long-running series. I also find the narrative device of Captain Qwark as the story´s narrator quite nifty. It not only puts a spin on the tutorial but it also puts the story into perspective. Is it a reboot that incorporates more elements introduced post the original, like Nefarious, or just an unreliable retelling of Qwark? That's up to you. 

While the story is not great, the gameplay is as solid as ever. The action platformers with tons of sci-fi weapons formula just is a very fun one which Insomniac has had 14 years of experience with at this point. Ratchet and Clank jump from planet to planet, traversing them through platforming and puzzle solving in between shooting at the baddies. That gladly hasn't changed since, or I guess I should say wasn't changed for, Rift Apart. It's a good structure with a nice balance between the main narrative and you going off and doing your own thing. 

I also very much appreciated that, in my eyes, the platforming is better here. I know that all the gunplay is the core of Ratchet & Clank but I prefer platforming and exploration over shooting and action. Playing this game, it felt like we had more of the former here than what its sequel offered and that it was not as predictable in design to boot. 

Now, on to that gunplay. It's standard shooting, bang-bang and alike, but with a sci-fi twist. While you have your basic pie-shooter, wide shot etc. it's the sci-fi guns that make all of this fun. The pixelizer turns everything you hit into pixels. The bouncer that shoots out multiple bouncing balls that hurt enemies on contact. Using all these different weapons with their cool and/or wacky effects to sow chaos is what the series is really all about. It's not a coincidence that the marketing of the early Ratchet & Clank titles focused so much on this borderline cartoony arsenal. 

And yeah, I had a lot of fun using them. Buying new weapons and seeing what they´re all about, upgrading my current weapons to the max to see what their new uses would be and then using them to positively annihilate the blarg in a fury of chaos and colourful effects. It´s good stuff. My favourite has to be that Bouncer. The crowd control on that one is great and combined with the Protodrum it is the best way to handle all those times the game throws dozens of enemies at you at once. I highly recommend you go to the PS store and download for free this formerly pre-order exclusive right off the bat. 

Is this the most 'boring' image I could've captured? Yes. Why use it than? Because I was so occupied while playing that I didn't think of making many captures!

I will say that I didn't jell as well with the arsenal as I did with Rift Apart. That one had plenty more unique and/or useful weapons than this one. It took me longer here to find a few that worked for me, be they late-game acquisitions or upgraded versions.

The title is also harder I find. I died maybe once or twice in its successor but here I must've seen at least two dozen game over screens. Lots of it is because I got overwhelmed so easily by the enemies that just kept pouring into the confined battle arena, hence my love for the crowd control weapons.

Beyond this traditional core, we have a small number of other gameplay styles thrown in for good measure. Clank has its own playable sections as always. This time around they are puzzle sections in which Clank works together with his fellow robots to sneak around Drax's factory, just to name one. A fun distraction when they pop up that requires a bit more thought than I expected. I'm less enthusiastic about the lock-picking minigame whose 'rotate the rings so all lights hit the right spot' just didn't hit the spot. Too tedious, honestly. 

What I hadn't yet experienced in the series were the starship battles. and hoverboard races this title packs. They're not the most thought-out or polished aspects but they are a nice change of pace. While I prefer the starship sections, with nr. 2 being one of the few moments I still remember while I'm writing this, those races do have some neat loot. The big prizes are more trading cards that, when you collect a set, grant you certain bonuses. An increase in loot to upgrade your weapons with, for example. Good prizes for your efforts. 

Performance wise I've got two things worth mentioning. The first is that, like the other Insomniac titles I've played such as Spider-Man 2, the experience isn't bug/glitch-free. It´s mostly small fry stuff like camera clipping but I did get sotflocked during the final boss fight. I somehow jetpacked into one of the platforms and couldn´t get out, whatever I tried. I don´t think I´ll have to tell you how annoying such a thing is.

The second is more or less just a neat little tidbit. On the PS4 it runs at 30fps but on the PS5, after an update that came out a few years back, it runs at 60fps. Worth a mention for those who care about such things. It's all the same to me really as long as the framerate is stable. 

Conclusion

The 2016 Ratchet & Clank is a solid but unremarkable title. The narrative is a Frankenstein of the already weak plot of the movie this title adapts, but the core gameplay is well-made and fun. The gunplay is as solid as ever and I quite enjoyed seeing what each planet had to offer. From space battles to jetpack rides. It´s just that this game has as many highs as it has lows. I felt that while fun, the game wasn't what I'd call engaging. I kept on because I was enjoying but there was never a moment that got my blood plumping. There were no standout levels, boss fights or weapons. There's nothing that stuck with me now that the credits have rolled. 

When I add everything up, while this is not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, I don't see any reason to pick this game up over its sequel, the excellent Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, if that option is available to you.