Review - Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart

“Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart” is an action-adventure platformer released on the PS5 in 2021 and ported to Windows in 2023 by Nixxes Software. Although Ratchet & Clank isn't the sole reason I purchased a Steam Deck, it was absolutely a large influence and it was undeniably the game I was MOST looking forward to playing. That situation gives this review gravitas that other reviews for other games I've played, both on the Steam Deck and on other platforms, certainly haven't had. I've tried to be careful to maintain a balance between unnecessarily critical for a game that I've wanted to play for so long and almost reverential for a series that I love so much.

When I learned that Rift Apart was ported to PC, that would be my opportunity to play it without buying a PS5. I was already considering a Steam Deck, so that discovery clicked all the pieces into place. I WOULD get to play Rift Apart, and I WOULDN'T have to buy a whole console just for that one game; it was just a matter of time. I didn't want to buy the game before I bought the Steam Deck, especially since there was absolutely no way for me to play it before then. I was pretty sure I would eventually get a Steam Deck, but what if I didn't? What if a friend hooked me up with a PS5 for super cheap? There was still a world in which I might not play it on Steam, so I didn't want to buy the game until that was lined up.

After I pulled the trigger on the Steam Deck, I knew that I would buy Ratchet & Clank the very next time it went on sale. Much as I was eager to play it, I wasn't going to pay full price when Steam games are on sale so frequently. I had plenty of other stuff to play, so it wasn't like I was hurting for games. I had already waited four years after the game came out, what was a few more weeks or months to snag a good deal on it? On June 26, I got the opportunity. Rift Apart was on sale for $29.99 from the standard $59.99. I picked it up immediately, along with the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy for $3.99.

I was at work (who PHYSICALLY goes into the office anymore?) when I bought the game, and I happened to have my Steam Deck with me, but the guest network blocks Steam traffic. I would just have to wait until I got home to install the game. Fortunately, it isn't huge, so it didn't take forever. I started it up and tried to sync with my PSN account, but I couldn't get them to link. PSN isn't a hard requirement to play the game, but you do get some bonus stuff by linking the account. I figured I would postpone until I could get that sorted out, and hopefully have more than just a few minutes to play.

On July 1, I got started in earnest. I played consistently, but not constantly. I wanted to savor the experience. My oldest started watching me play and he got hooked as well. Once I finished the first run, I knew it would take at least one more time to finish all of the achievements, so I let him make a file and play while I took a break from the game. He ended up getting me a few achievements that I didn't want to grind out, most notably "Return Policy" (because the Void Reactor is a terrible weapon). When he was done, I went back and played through one more time on challenge mode to clean up the remaining achievements.

On August 6, I got the last spybot, claimed the RYNO 8, and unlocked the last achievement. It was very satisfying, and I was so glad to experience a game that I feared for a time I might never get to play. For me, PC availability of previously console exclusive titles is a HUGE win for everyone across all platforms. Studios keep making great games, gamers get to experience those games, and you don't have to pick up every single major console each generation just to play the most noteworthy titles. Even if there is a period of exclusivity like the June 2021 to July 2023 window that Ratchet & Clank was exclusive to PS5, that's fine with me. It just means I get to experience a better game when it does finally get ported with bugs fixed and improvements added.

Story -7/10

Although Ratchet and Clank are the namesake of the series, Rivet and Kit are fantastic characters and a very welcome addition to the cast. The concept of "dimensional counterparts" seems a little cliche, but it isn't heavy handed and it fortunately isn't the only point of the story. Mild spoilers, Ratchet and Clank get split up fairly early in the game, and Clank stays with Rivet for a time while Ratchet and Kit team up. I've seen a lot of criticism that the games could be called "Ratchet OR Clank" lately, but I really think it works well. It allows the characters to sort of develop on their own for a bit, sorta like the Family Guy episode where Brian and Stewie get locked in a bank vault for the whole episode. I obviously wouldn't want to spend the whole game without Ratchet and Clank teaming up, but the separation does give the opportunity to build out the respective characters in their own right.

My biggest gripe with the story is the continued obsession with Nefarious. When Dr. Nefarious was first introduced in Up Your Arsenal, he was a fine villain; good even. He was made even better with the contrast against Lawrence. Then, Insomniac brought him back in A Crack in Time (which, I confess, I don't love that game anyway). That's fine, plenty of intellectual properties do recycle villains over time. He wasn't my favorite villain, but I'm fine with another title featuring him as the main protagonist to give him a little more depth. But then, they released the re-imagining and retconned Nefarious in and significantly reduced Chairman Drek's role in the story. My opinion of that game has soured a bit in the years since I played it, namely due to the fact that they KEEP bringing Nefarious back.

So when Nefarious shows up at the very outset of Rift Apart, imagine my frustration. He's old hat. The series has disproportionately featured him above every other villain, and even shoehorned him into remakes of older games where he had no place going. The distinction of Dr. Nefarious and Emperor Nefarious makes sense, playing into the whole "dimensional counterparts" trope, but I'm frankly tired of Nefarious. I get it, he's had a long standing place in the series, but I think it's time to move on. This isn't the Bowser to Ratchet's Mario, and I really hope Insomniac doesn't continue to double down on him. The top of my wishlist for the next Ratchet & Clank game is absolutely, 100%, not having Nefarious as the main villain and hopefully not having him in the game at all.

I think Rivet is great, and I do want more of her story. I don't know if that would be a spinoff game like Secret Agent Clank, another main series game featuring BOTH Ratchet and Rivet, or maybe something like Metroid where the core series and the Prime series sort of take turns. I would be 100% fine with alternating Ratchet and Rivet games, provided there isn't another gap of five years between each game. One Ratchet game and one Rivet game per decade feels... inadequate. Ideally, I would love to see another local co-op Ratchet game in the style of Deadlocked, but allowing us to play as Ratchet and Rivet together. I realize local co-op is something of a dying breed, but I think that would be amazing.

General Gameplay - 9/10

There is a very clear evolution of gameplay across the Ratchet & Clank series, and I think that Rift Apart has genuinely perfected it. The movement and controls are tight, but there is additional movement tech in the form of phasing, rift tether, and hoverboots that let you go absurdly fast. Platforming in the original trilogy could be a little dicey, and you were often fighting the camera angles and the controls more than the actual obstacles. Now, the controls feel amazing and Ratchet and Rivet do what I'm trying to do basically always. If you liked the way previous games played, you'll love Rift Apart gameplay.

The one complaint I will mention is that blizon made it difficult to navigate occasionally. On a few planets, blizon crystals allow you to swap back and forth between different dimensions of the same planet. A wall in one dimension might be demolished in the other dimension, allowing you to pass through. It's a cool idea, and it works if you're just passing through, but it becomes a little tedious when you're tracking down raritanium and collectibles. The maps overlay on each other, and it can be difficult to know which dimension certain things are in, or how to actually reach them. Nothing prohibitively difficult, but a minor annoyance that I did want to call out.

Some might also complain that the game is formulaic. You explore some, then you find yourself in an open area with spots for cover where you engage in a firefight. Repeat this a couple of times, fight a boss, then travel to the next planet. Some people get tired of that, but I personally don't mind a formulaic game when it's a good formula. For me, it's a compelling gameplay loop, and it's almost an improvement that I can anticipate the pattern rather than blindly wonder what's next.

Combat - 8/10

Ratchet & Clank has always been a series about blowing stuff up with absurd weapons, and that is absolutely still the case. There are lots of guns, and unlike a few games, they nearly all seem to be useful in some capacity. Personally, I loved the headhunter, a sniper rifle with the ability to zoom in and capitalize on weak points. The Void Reactor was neat in theory, and it did have niche use cases, but fell flat most of the time for me. None of the guns felt like a chore to use and level up.

I would probably rank the combat as a 10, except for the gimmick of the half-pull triggers. Basically every weapon has functionality for a half-pull of the trigger, and something different when you fully depress the trigger. The shotgun equivalent fires from one barrel with a half-pull or both barrels when you bottom out. Several weapons either show a throw arc or lock on to enemies at half, then launch at full. I get it, they wanted to show off the DualSense and the fancy stuff it could do. However, it was really frustrating to feather the trigger to try and get the half-pull without accidentally letting off or pulling too far. Maybe if I were playing it WITH a DualSense, I would have appreciated it more, but I was playing on my Steam Deck with either the included controls or my 8BitDo Ultimate. I could have done without that mechanic entirely, and I'm hoping they don't include it with the next game.

Difficulty - 4/10

Ratchet & Clank games aren't known for being particularly difficult, and that's a good thing. There were particular fights or segments that were tough, but never unforgiving. I played through the first time on the default normal difficulty, then ramped it up to the highest difficulty for challenge mode. The standard difficulty feels great, but higher or lower difficulties are fantastic options for veterans or new players respectively. On the easiest difficulty, "heroes cannot die during combat." I love that my kids can play the same game without getting unnecessarily frustrated. Plus, you can change the difficulty whenever you want throughout the game. Getting stuck at a particular fight? Drop it down a level. Breezing through without a challenge? Ramp it up. You aren't bound to a difficulty for the duration of the game, and there is no penalty for changing the difficulty to something more comfortable for you as the player. That results in a WAY more accessible game.

Graphics - 10/10

Ratchet & Clank games have looked good for basically the entire series, and Rift Apart is no different. Environments are detailed and intricate, enemies and NPCs look realistic, and the level of detail in Ratchet and Rivet is just absurd. You can make out individual strands of fur. I realize that the lombax is not a real species, but I can see exactly what one would look like if they were. I kept the settings on the default middle ground for performance purposes, but I can imagine that full specs would look incredible if I had a device that could handle it.

Music - 7/10

I was a huge fan of David Bergeaud, so recent Ratchet & Clank soundtracks have been disappointing to me. They aren't bad by any stretch of the imagine, just not the same quality as the original trilogy. The background music is fitting, but as with a lot of games lately, I'm not going out of my way to listen to it by itself. Nothing in particular stood out, but it did contribute to the whole experience.

Performance

Although I'm sure Rift Apart runs better on the PS5, it was perfectly playable. I seemed to hover in the 30-40 fps range for most of the game, getting up to 50 fps when still and dropping closer to 25 fps during intense action. My biggest issue was the loading time when switching dimensions. Rift tethering between two points in the same area was effectively instant, but shifting between dimensions always had a little bit of a stutter. Ratchet or Rivet would fall through ethereal purple space for just a bit longer than what felt reasonable. It's still incredible that Insomniac managed to not require loading zones, but it's slow enough that you can tell what's going on. Again, if I were on a PS5, I'm sure it's seamless. On the Steam Deck, it was only a mild annoyance.

My Take

The Good

The graphics are incredible, the gameplay is tight, and the story is interesting.

The Bad

The trigger gimmick feels more like a tech demo than a valid part of a real game.

The Ugly

I'm really tired of Nefarious as a villain, and I'm hoping that Insomniac can give him a rest for at least a few games.

Overall - 8/10

I love Ratchet & Clank, I've been looking forward to this game for months (if not years at this point), and it did not disappoint. As much as Nefarious is hackneyed and the trigger gimmick could be frustrating at points, they did not significantly detract from my experience with the game. Ratchet & Clank is back in the best way, and PC availability makes it more accessible than ever.