Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is child’s play, not child’s nextgen
More often than not, it is our expectations that are the factor that leads to disappointment or the opposite effect after completing a particular game. I stepped on this rake several times. This effect was especially pronounced during the passage of the very first The Last Of Us – my expectations were at the level of “divine manifestation”, and the game just turned out to be “excellent”. Since then, I have tried not to overestimate my expectations, and, on the contrary, to keep a healthy dose of skepticism. As a result, over the past months I have played four games, which at least did not disappoint me. And the topic of expectations isn’t just about the experience of the game itself. For example, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice turned out to be much easier than I expected, as a result of four passes, four endings, a defeated demon of hatred, and one more platinum for my collection. Returnal, which I didn’t really count on, turned out to be much higher than my expectations. Resident Evil: Village – also pleasantly surprised. And now Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
At the same time, I expected something from Ratchet and Clank to the least extent, so much so that I was not, even sure, whether I would go through it in its entirety and review it. The plans were to post, to test a chip with displacements, and then we’ll see. The expectations were that low.
Expectations are reality
I will say right away that I did not go through the previous part, because I thought that Ratchet and Clank is some kind of children’s toy, let the children play with it. Didn’t pass it even when it was handed out for free. Yes, it’s all about my biases. However, according to many of you who went through the last part with the free distribution, in fact, the game, although childish in appearance, is very exciting. I decided to go through the new Ratchet without playing the old one, especially since even the developers themselves assured that knowledge of the past parts is not necessary. As a result – 16 hours of the game, a full walkthrough and two trophies are missing to platinum: find all the teddy bears, dunk enemies with some kind of cannon and the third trophy. Actually, that’s the platinum itself. This I mean that the game fascinated me so much that I did not just go through the plot, plus a couple of side effects, but went through very thoroughly. The thing is
So, we finished with the introduction. Now about the plot without spoilers: there is a hero, he is one of the last representatives of the Lombax race, and, no matter how difficult it is to guess, his name is Ratchet, he has a robot partner, whose name is Clank. As befits a cartoon story, this one also has a pictorial evil villain. He (spoiler) must be defeated. This villain has done something and some kind of game has begun to happen with space and dimensions. With all this (spoiler) we have to figure it out. In the course of the plot, another Lombax will appear (there is no spoiler) – it will also be possible to play for it. And if we talk about the plot and presentation, then I liked the pace of the storytelling and the abundance of cut scenes. Will pull a whole cartoon. The only thing I would like the last chapter to give answers to the questions that arose in the course of the passage.
And it turned out like events-events-events, everything is unhurried, measured and chewed well, and then once, everything, we won, we are great, end, credits! It was possible to show a little more, explain, tell, intrigue in the end – after all, as I understood, the continuation should be.
So where are those graphics?
You are probably wondering what it means Ratchet will make the Playstation 5 suffer. I’ll explain everything now. The game has three graphics presets: 60fps + tracing with variable resolution up to 1600p and simplified lighting. I played it. Second mode: tracing + 4k variables + scale light + 30fps. It looks nice, but 60 frames per second is somehow more comfortable. The last, third mode: 60 frames per second, no tracing, 4k variables. And in each of these modes, the PlayStation 5 fries all 10.28 teraflops. And fries in every sense of the word. According to my feelings, more precisely, according to the “exhaustive” hand test in Ratchet, the PS5 is the “hottest” of all the games I’ve played. My cat, a very thermophilic creature, cut this topic and settled right behind the console. And the PlayStation 5 fries in the sense that the graphon in the game is mine, more precisely grafon – my compliments – is to offend the graphics in this game. It is not fully appreciated by videos and even more so by streams. The level of the picture – the best Disney cartoons will envy.
How did DualSense perform?
However, if the graphics create an overall impression and visual aesthetics, and most gamers evaluate the game primarily with their eyes, they evaluate the graph first, and then everything else. Therefore, we can say that dualsens was created in order to involve even deeper into the gameplay. And for me, the example of using the capabilities of dualsense is, of course, Astro’s Playroom– a demo showing the possibilities of dualsens, then comes Returnal. But in third place I would place Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Why only on the third line. Yes, triggers are also used here, tactile recoil from different surfaces, sounds of reloading, blows and other chips. However, in those games, this is almost the main mechanism of engagement. Especially Astro’s Playroom. And this is by no means a rebuke to Retchet. Here dualsens is involved much more than in other, even exclusive ps5 games, it is rather a compliment to Astro’s Playroom and Returnal… Here, dualsens chips are also used as efficiently as possible. Indeed, on each gun, and there are about 20 types of them, dualsens works in its own way. Trigger release, recoil, some small vibrations, sounds of reloading – it is clear that the people who were doing this were not working with dualsens for show.
One of the main features that was used and attracted me to Retchet and Clank is instant movement. And this is what happened in the end: you can move short distances along the gaps, but all the gaps are stationary. And in some places on the map, we can go into spatial pockets. Between dimensions, movement occurs only in cut scenes. Well, I was counting on more – that it would be possible for the player himself, at least within one room, to create gaps. In general, the trick with space and fast movement is not new, a similar concept was used by the gaming industry earlier. Offhand, well, for example, back in Portal– in the legendary game from Valve itself, which I highly recommend everyone to go through. Portal used short-distance travel, where you could choose from where and where to move. Of course, these are not the same thing, but there it was played much more interestingly and without the capabilities of super fast SSDs. The game is over 10 years old.
This I mean, in my opinion, the idea of space and dimensions in Retchet was not squeezed. In the same battles, there is no particular need to use spatial breaks. They are rather optional, you can do without them. I played on the pre-max difficulty level, and I remember literally a couple of battles where they, well, at least a couple of times came in handy. Almost all battles can be completed without them. In some arenas, they are not at all. At locations, with free movement, they are also not often used, and usually the game forces you to use them. But there are no big riddles or puzzles with them that you can expect. I will repeat myself, but in the game of movement, you could and should have used better and more often.
Gameplay of the game
But in general, the gameplay in Ratchet is varied, you definitely won’t be bored, the game constantly throws up something new. In addition to Rivet, the second hero of the Lombax race, we will also play for Clank – for him it is necessary to solve rather simple, but very tricky puzzles. Here I would add “elephant” to make older gamers more interesting. Let’s play for Glitch – it’s something like an antivirus. For it, it is necessary to exterminate, in the literal sense, viruses directly in computers. Honestly – the most monotonous element of the game for my taste. You go through the fourth and subsequent times with much less enthusiasm. You can fight in the arena. There are fifteen tests in total and they become simple, even at high levels of difficulty, when you pump weapons.
How about the choice of weapons?
The pumping of guns is notable here. Even a real joker will envy and pumping here is not for show. The cannons are of different leveled, as different as heaven and earth. That makes it especially clear, in the course of the passage, that the game has problems with the balance. At the beginning of the game, at high difficulty levels, the game can even set the heat, but then new chips appear, you upgrade your weapon, you have more of it, you yourself have mastered the gameplay better, but the enemies remain the same and their behavior does not change. Therefore, the game, instead of the further the more difficult it becomes and throws new challenges to the player, as it progresses it only becomes easier. Pumping the hero is reduced to a set of experience, after which for each new level, they give +10 HP to the maximum. You can also collect a set of suits – for this not only visual, but also bonuses to receive, in the form of armor, from certain types of attacks.
What else I liked about Retchet is that we move between different planets and they are all diverse. Each one has its own secrets and nice bonuses.
As I said initially, I had no plans at all to play this game. But then I decided to try it anyway, rented it and passed it with pleasure. By the way, thanks to the RentGame game rental service. True, even if I bought it, I would not regret it.
Verdict
And to summarize, I want to say that in some places I evaluated the game as an adult: I paid attention to the balance, complained about the simplicity of the puzzles. But do not forget that Ratchet and Clank are still child’s play. This is not the case when there is deep morality behind the cartoon graphics and serious topics are raised. There are simple and understandable characters, a simple plot, simple morality, and in the end, good triumphs over evil. However, you can go through it with pleasure when you are tired of serious projects and you just want to relax in a relaxed way with a gamepad in your hands on the couch.
Therefore, I will rate it as a child’s game and give it 10 out of 10. If there were such a game in my childhood, I would be delighted.