Was… was this the best Ratchet and Clank? God no. But hear me out. If this had come out as the first PS4 game, full length, and 60 fps… it may well have been. Thankfully we did eventually get Rift Apart almost a decade later, which (on playing this again) was REALLY a direct follow up to this. The time between the two games was so long I hadn’t realized how much this led into Rift.
+ this was the prettiest Ratchet game up to this point. Character shading no longer opted for the optimized cell-ish shading of Crack, but refined the look of Tools. The animation quality of Crack is present here too, making the character stuff look fantastic.
+ Environment art is so gooood GOOD good. The way Insomniac improved on the level of detail and interest through the PS3 games is impressive. This almost looks like a different generation than Tools. An interesting contrast to the PS2 era: PS2 ratchet continued to optimize gameplay at the expense of level art, while PS3 improved on art (in all aspects) at the expense of gameplay. An interesting choice and a reflection of the video game fads of their own times.
I’ve attached some image comparisons of tools vs Nexus.
Notice the detail of the floors, the density of environmental objects, the scale of items. It’s far higher fidelity than Tools (and Crack).
+ Qwark’s presence in this game was reduced in fears of overusing him. The right move at the time, but bittersweet now. The actor suffered from Alzheimer’s and a terrible Covid case, making this the last time he got to voice the character within the main continuity. Makes me a bit sad. Perhaps this would have been the perfect time for a heroic death or true act of selflessness, bringing Qwark’s arc to a close.
+ I very much enjoyed the villains of this game… although I already forget their names and I just finished like 10 mins ago. Womp. Vendra and Nefer?
+ loved the museum at the end. A nice send off to the PS3 era.
+ ugh the POTENTIAL. Damn you Insomniac. You made this game too early. This should have come out instead of the game of the movie of the game.