PS5 gets a killer app from a classic franchise! (Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart review)

     A few weeks ago, I talked about how excited I was for the release of the latest game in the Ratchet and Clank franchise, and I discussed the history of it as well. I'm happy to report that now that he game has been out for a few weeks, I've had the pleasure of playing and beating this game, and I'm well into my second playthrough now. This game is a lot of fun, and in addition to being one of the first exclusive games for the PS5, it's a really impressive display of the capabilities of the system and it's interesting new controller, the DualSense! It's time to fire up the Dimensionator as we travel into this new world and new generation of gameplay!

A New Story for Some Old Heroes!

    This game begins with a celebration of Ratchet and Clank and all of their achievements and heroics, even though the duo hasn't done anything in quite a while (a little meta-commentary never hurt anyone, did it?). This parade held in Metropolis (hosted by Captain Qwark, Skid McMarks, and Rusty Pete) is a nice way to remind players of the story so far, and a way of interacting with the past in these float recreations of classic planets, abridging the story of the PS2 and PS3 titles in an interesting way. It doesn't take long for things to go wrong, however, when Goons-4-Hire begin to show up and spoil the celebration for the heroes. Chaos ensues, until Clank reveals the reason for the parade in the first place, which is to present Ratchet with a new Dimensionator, which will allow him to find all of the other Lombaxes, since he's the last one in this dimension. Unfortunately, this decision drew too many eyes to the festivities, including Dr. Nefarious, who is tired of losing every time he goes against them. Nefarious uses the Dimensionator to take himself as well as Ratchet and Clank to a dimension which he always wins, then the device is destroyed. Ratchet, Clank, and Nefarious are all stuck in this dimension ruled by "Emperor Nefarious," and while Nefarious is ecstatic to be there, the two heroes are not so much. The two of them are separated however when the Dimensionator is destroyed, and Clank loses an arm as well as the ability to walk on his own. Ratchet immediately goes looking for him, but he discovers that Clank has been picked up by another Lombax, which sends us off on our whole big adventure. Throughout the quest, we meet Rivet, our Lombax heroine and Ratchet's counterpart from another dimension, and Kit, a War-bot with a heart of gold, who is this dimension's version of Clank. The two of them are really interesting new characters, and I'm certainly happy for their inclusion, if for no other reason than to give Ratchet and Clank some new companions. I won't spoil anything about their two stories, or how they intertwined with our heroes, but I would love to see more of them in the future, as the voice acting is stellar all around. Rivet is every bit as charismatic and lovable as Ratchet is, and her back story is something really interesting just because it's quite a bit different from the titular protagonist, certainly a lot darker, due to the dimension she's from. The story is fine and all, but I'd like talk for a moment about the true star of this game, the gameplay!

A Rift-Tearin', Gun Shootin' Good Time! 

    Ratchet and Clank has always been known for having incredible weapons full of creativity and spectacle, and this game is certainly no different, but almost as impressive as the weapons is the different options and ways that you can move around, and the precise time for you to use these weapons. Weapons like Mr. Zurkon don't appear in this game, because he's retired and now works as a barkeep in this dimension, but there is the appropriately named, "Mr. Fungi" which is basically the same idea, but with a mushroom instead of a killer robot. There are a few in here that were stand outs, like the subatomic laser, which fires a huge beam of light, which was probably my favorite, but also the Drill Hound, which is a rocket launcher of sorts, but it acts like a dog and actually barks when you fire it, then jumps on to enemies. It's a hilarious weapon, and one that does a great job of showing the creativity of the team as a whole. While all of these weapons don't have the same amount of charm, like the enforcer, which is just a big shotgun, I still love to use all of them, and see how the PS5's adaptive triggers changed with each new weapon. My favorite one has to be the Ryno 8, which this time stands for "Rift You a New One," which makes sense, since this weapon has the ability to open rifts to other dimensions and drop things on enemies. What's amazing about this concept though, is that in other dimensions, other franchises exist, meaning that you have things from Sly Cooper or Horizon Zero Dawn falling from the sky! Just about any game that has Sly Cooper in it just about gets a stamp of approval by me, I would say, so this made me extremely excited, especially since he hasn't had a game since the PS3 era (and he hasn't had one made by Sucker Punch Studios since the PS2)! Before I finish off this section, I have to talk about the traversal goodness of this game. 

    It's pretty clear to me that this game took a lot of inspiration from its web-slinging cousin, Spider-Man, as well as the incredibly stylish Xbox One exclusive, Sunset Overdrive. While both games were created by Insomniac, they both had very different approaches to how they approached traversal. With a Spider-Man game, of course he could climb and run up walls, but there was a lot that they got right in his web-swinging mechanics that just made it a blast to "thwip" your way through New York City. In Sunset Overdrive, you relied on constant movement, whether that meant that you were bouncing on top of umbrellas, grinding on a telephone wire like a rail, or diving out of the way as bullets were riddling the terrain all around you. Which path did Insomniac take with Ratchet and Clank, though? Honestly, they used a little bit of both approaches. In this game, Ratchet has the ability to grapple to different rifts that have been created in the world with the explosion of the Dimensionator, and I couldn't help but think of a certain web-head zipping around the rooms in Marvel's Spider-Man. The speed and agility of ratchet in this game made me think a lot of Sunset Overdrive though, there are bounce pads all over the place, you get hoverboots that make you fly over the landscapes, and there are grind rails (as there always are in Ratchet and Clank games) to add to the high octane feelings of firefights. 

    The guns feel like they have always felt in Ratchet and Clank games, so the timing and speed of those feel as comfortable as ever. Though I've seen a lot of reviewers reporting that their finger would get tired because of the adaptive triggers, that wasn't an issue that I've run into in my playthroughs. I loved this game overall, and there were so many fun nods to different things which I won't spoil here, but I will say that you definitely should collect and listen to the Lorbs on Savali, as they contain some of the coolest easter eggs in the whole game, and ones that I sincerely hope are built upon sometime in the near future. Overall, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a fantastic game, and even though it's not super long, the content inside has kept me hooked for a really long time, and I look forward to what comes next in this team's adventures. As I've said before, I'm a big fan of anything that Insomniac makes, and this game is certainly no exception. If you have a PS5, I would highly suggest picking this game up, as it is already in the lead for my favorite games that I've played this year.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends, I hope you're all doing well! I really loved playing through this game and I'm so happy that I'm able to share my thoughts here, and though the Sheepinator can't be used in this game, all of the different weapons are really fun to use, and when added to the incredible traversal, it makes for a game that is really hard to put down. I'm your Self-Proclaimed Ratchet and Clank fanboy, and I'll talk to you next week!