4/5 ★ – JimboHarman's review of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

Insomniac are really starting to grow on me, they understand how to create near perfect gameplay and on top of that, surprise me time and time again with how well written their narratives tend to be. I’m glad to report that Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart follows both of these trends. To start with, the gameplay. Like I said earlier, it’s pretty much perfect. I can’t think of anything I’d change. The levels are gorgeous, varied, huge yet focused with all sorts of upgrades and secrets to find. They take full advantage of the interdimensional gimmick, allowing the player to open up pocket universes, seamlessly transporting you into completely different environments with no frame drops or performance issues. A couple levels even allow you to manually travel between dimensions to progress, for example, the planet you’re on in one dimension has been reduced to floating space rubble, so you better hop to a dimension where the planet is still intact. The game ran perfectly except from one big glitch where most of the ground didn’t load in after I switched dimension and one crash, apart from that it was smooth sailing. The platforming was surprisingly really great with plenty of movement options that allow you to chain together Ratchet’s various moves to reach places your own way rather than the way the game tells you to, it isn’t anywhere near as complex as Mario’s platforming but Ratchet and Clank isn’t a platformer, it’s primarily a third person shooter and in that I cannot fault it. The crazy weapons are a clear selling point with every single one having an upgrade tree and a levelling system which incentivised me to try and vary what weapons I use rather than stick to what works, it’s nice to feel like you’re constantly upgrading yourself and the only way to level up your weapons is to use them, so I tried to use them all which left me with plenty of highly powerful firepower for the final boss. I also think the Bolts are great, every single platformer-ish game has levels full of coins, rings etc but hardly any of them give you proper incentive to collect them but here you use your riches to buy weapons, which is a very worthy cause indeed. ————STORY SPOILERS BELLOW———— Like I mentioned earlier, the story is genuinely pretty well written. It could be a little tighter in some aspects but the positive outweighs the negative. The story centres on four main characters, Ratchet, Clank and their alternate dimension counterparts, Rivet and Kit. All of these characters have insecurities about themselves and as a result, have decided to reject togetherness. They all see themselves as broken, Ratchet worries that his glory days are behind him and is afraid that he’ll disappoint the rest of his lost species if he ever met them, Clank is the root cause of the multiverse messing up and feels responsible for all of the damage caused. Rivet lost her arm to one of the Emperor’s warbots because she thought she could do everything by herself and now struggles to trust machines, she is a Ratchet without her Clank. Last but certainly not least is Kit, who is probably my favourite character. She is the Warbot that took off Rivet’s arm, similarly fo Clank, she feels great guilt about the danger she puts others in and so lives in exile to keep others safe. All of them for some reason or another believe that they’d be better off alone. Even though Ratchet has Clank, he would rather never meet his family than meet them and risk disappointing them and unlike both Ratchet and Clank, Rivet and Kit have no one. In a way they haven’t found their soulmates and they both come very close to not finding each other after Rivet discovers that Kit was the warbot who took her arm off. Her trust issues bubble to the surface and they only reinforce Kit’s self loathing. This is all brilliant character setup but unfortunately I think that the writing stumbles when it comes to the payoff. For example, it would’ve been nice to see Ratchet facing his fears and meeting the other Lombaxes, you see that he’s confident enough to go through with the trip however it would’ve been good to actually see how his confidence has grown when he goes and meets them. I also feel like Kit’s arc resolved itself quite suddenly, you get that great scene of conflict between her and Rivet but the next time you see her she’s all better, it just feels weird to take a character from their lowest moment to their highest moment without something to bridge the gap. Despite a hiccup at the end however, the story is very solid.