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

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is the latest entry in the long-running mascot platformer turned third-person shooter with platforming elements series. The Ratchet & Clank series has been one of my favorite series that I didn't play as a kid. I started playing through these for the first time several years ago and I enjoyed every minute of it. The question, however, is does this new one hold up? Well, firstly this is the first full Ratchet & Clank game since 2009. Yeah, it's been that long, over a decade. Everything since then has been spinoff material, a short bite-sized game, or a reboot that didn't feel quite full. So, for the series to finally be back, it feels great. The graphics too, look amazing. Much more detail and a higher fidelity than the 2016 reboot, but still not quite as nice looking as the CG film (although in some scenes it does get close). Gameplay-wise? It's pretty good. If you've played one of these genes before, you know what to expect. It's still your standard strafing back and forth while shooting enemies with the wild and imaginative arsenal in the game. Still very fun, and can create some somewhat challenging moments (especially on higher difficulties). My major gripe, however, is the removal of some series staples. Clank has pretty much none of his upgrades (thruster pack, hydro pack, etc.) and they even got rid of the high jump you could do with him. That in addition to some staple upgrades not being in the game (such as the bolt grabber/magnetizer) and I'm left a bit puzzled. I have no clue as to why they decided to get rid of these elements. I felt like the 2016 reboot had a perfect implementation of these, and them scrapping it feels odd. Gadgets in general have taken a back seat, with there only being a few items even being in the game. Another complaint is that certain things feel a bit too locked in or restrictive. Like the magneboot sections you can't fall off from, or how you kind of snap to grind rails. It feels a bit like playing bowling with the guard rails on. There's even a feature in the game that will prevent you from falling off of ledges during combat that can't be turned off. Not to say that you can't die, but that they have tried really hard to make it so you can succeed with too much struggle. So now, let's address the elephant in the room. Rivet is the brand new female Lombax character in this game. Unfortunately, gameplay-wise, she is just a Ratchet-clone. Now, this is justified in-universe, but it's still a bit disappointing to me. They are interchangeable and have no unique qualities. I was expecting to gadgets and weapons and such to be split between the two, but they share the exact same inventory. I would've liked them to have a bit more difference between them. The dimension switching and shifting is also pretty neat. Nothing that makes me go like "woah, that's cool." aside from when I first saw it in marketing materials, but still very cool. It's like a neat preview of what is possible with the SSD game-design wise and I can't wait to see the kinds of games are possible with this. The major addition in this game is some basic parkour elements via wallrunning. Now you can only do this on certain walls, but it's still a neat thing and helps bring the series a bit more closer to it's platforming roots. Would love to see this expanded and have a lot more freedom to use it in a future game. Now, addressing the story, we first have to go over a couple of things first. The series took a dramatic shift in tone when moving to the PS3. The original games on PS2 were much more edgy, sarcastic, and humor-driven. Not to say that they didn't have a story and characters, but more so that it wasn't the focus. This changed with the PS3 era games, known as the Future series. This started with making the story much more serious and much more grand, big and epic. With these games, the focus is very much on the story and the arcs Ratchet & Clank are going through. Now this game's story is much more in line with the Future series and how much you like it will probably depend on how much you like those games'. Me, however? I love those games, and (in turn) also loved this game's story. After the generic slog that was the 2016 reboot game, having Ratchet go back to this much better style of storytelling was great. Is this the best story the series ever told? Well, no (that was A Crack in Time), but it's still one of the best stories told in the franchise. Talking about the new characters Rivet and (spoiler) Kit, they really feel somewhat bland and generic. Now, some of that is definitely due to this being their debut game. With Ratchet & Clank, we have a history of ~20 years so we know these characters really well. With Rivet and Kit, I really did like them (especially Kit), but I just would like to get to know them some more. Honestly, I wouldn't even mind if Insomniac wanted to make some Rivet & Kit games instead of Ratchet & Clank games. Overall, this is a really good game. Not my favorite in the series, but it's definitely in the top 5. This definitely deserves your time if you're a fan of the series or not, and let's hope we get more of these in the future.