Review - Ratchet & Clank (2002)

“Ratchet & Clank” is a third-person shooter platformer released on the PS2 in 2002. As the progenitor of a new intellectual property, this game kicked off a series that is now more than two decades old. This one entry has been released, re-released, and "re-imagined" to the degree that the original might have fallen into obscurity a bit. Going back and playing it in its unadulterated and unedited form, how is it?

Ratchet & Clank is a classic for me. It was one of the first games I got on my PS2, and I played every game in the series on that platform. The humor was a little edgy, the gameplay was simple yet satisfying, and there were explosions - TONS of explosions.

When the remaster collection released on PS3 in 2012, obviously I had to get it. I heard several complaints about the quality of the port, but personally I didn't mind it. My biggest issue was the exclusion of Deadlocked. It seems to be the red headed step child of the series, but the gameplay is great and it's the first to include a cooperative gameplay option. Alas, the first game was great on PS2 and it was great in the collection on PS3.

Keeping with the roughly once a decade trend, I started getting the itch to play again in the early 2020s. Rift Apart came out in 2021. It occurred to me that it might be super fun to play through the series again from the beginning. Maybe by the time I finished, I would have a device that could play Rift Apart, along with a better understanding of the story up to that point.

I had recently gotten Castlevania running on my Surface Pro 7, so I thought maybe I could just get a ROM of Ratchet and play it there. Where Castlevania played nearly as well as it did on the console, Ratchet did not. The first planet was sluggish, but it did play. I got through that, basically just a glorified tutorial, and then I got to the first REAL planet. Immediately, the framerate dropped to the teens and didn't get any better after a few minutes. That wouldn't work at all.

I could've gotten the PS2 or PS3 out of storage, but that was just too much work. Heck, I would've been willing to buy a port on PS4, but the PS2 era games simply aren't available on the platform. Instead, my only reasonable option was to wait until I got my Steam Deck and emulate it there. 

After that initial phase of installing and setting up random games just to see how they run, Ratchet & Clank was the first game I actually stuck with. It was the first game I played from start to finish on the Deck. Performance was incredible, with solid frame rates and none of the occasional graphical glitches that I saw with Castlevania on my Surface. It was like I was a preteen again.

I played through normally until I had the requirements to use the infinite bolt glitch on Rilgar. From the PS3 collection, I remembered that bolt management was the biggest hassle from the first game, and I decided to take advantage of the exploit to get enough bolts for the RYNO and all remaining weapons.

After getting the RYNO, combat became trivial. That isn't to say it was boring, I think it's genuinely more fun. It's like cheating to get the Master Sword early in Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Zelda is better without weapon degradation and Ratchet is better when you can blow stuff up without concerning yourself with ammo. I said what I said.

I played through the remainder of the game, picked up a few skill points and gold bolts, and started a New Game + just to remind myself how that worked in the original. Where I played through enough to get the platinum trophy in the collection, I didn't feel the need to do that here. I got a few retro achievements, but I wasn't gunning for completion; I just wanted to experience an old favorite again.

Story -7/10

As the very first game of the series, this is the beginning for both Ratchet and Clank. It was our first exposure, and since the characters MEET in this game, there isn't much of an origin story that Insomniac could make retroactively. There are places where the story could've been better, but I think it's a great first game, perhaps one of the best "originals" of any series I've played. The strangers to enemies to friends trope really works well, and the plumber was such an instant classic that he's been back in nearly every Ratchet & Clank game since.

In the years since the original Ratchet & Clank came out, I had forgotten just how crude and irreverent the humor in the first game was. There are quite a few questionable jokes and there's a lot of banter between the titular characters that's approaching edgy. This was 2002, so I should have anticipated it, but I forgot just how heavy handed it was.

Where subsequent games in the series have gotten progressively more polished, I do think they've suffered in regards to story. Sure, the stories have probably improved from a storytelling perspective, but they lost a lot of that.... anti-charm, I suppose? As I'll get to in a bit, I'll take the gameplay improvements over the original story, but I forgot how much I enjoyed the story then and now. Perhaps it was because I first experienced it as a preteen and nostalgia goggles do a lot to improve a game, but it got a few good chuckles out of me.

One notable thing to point out is how the 2016 "reimagining" differs from the 2002 original. Since Dr. Nefarious was such a hit in Up Your Arsenal, Insomniac has shoehorned him into way more games, and I thought his appearance in 2016 was unnecessary and ultimately harmed the game. The frame story is Captain Qwark retelling his experience, so that would explain some of the differences: effectively suggesting that Qwark is changing the actual events to make himself look better. Still, I feel like Dr. Nefarious is just alright as a villain, and it was nice to play the unadulterated original again without his presence.

Toward the end, Ratchet & Clank can feel like it gets a little long in the tooth. The gameplay loop is effectively the same: explore a new planet, find a new gadget or weapon, pick up an infobot that will give you coordinates to a new planet. There's some amount of backtracking required, a la Metroidvania games, but to nowhere near the same magnitude. There are probably two or three times in the whole game that you have to backtrack to a previous planet for something, maybe less. If a couple of planets were removed, I think the length would land in that goldilocks zone where you have enough content to satisfy without getting bored toward the end. Still, for a first attempt, I think they got real close to the mark.

General Gameplay - 6/10

At its core, Ratchet & Clank has a lot of platformer elements. In that regard, it's decent but it isn't amazing. Early 3D platformers were all a little clunky and this one is no exception. There are a lot of movement tech options that you unlock via Clank upgrades. The helipack upgrade gives Ratchet a long jump and a high jump option pretty early in the game. Other improvements come later that make you progressively more agile and able to traverse new obstacles. It's a nice balance of giving you new abilities at a pace that allows you to perfect the skill before you have to learn a new skill.

Additionally, the sequels added better strafing and camera control. Without that sort of intuitive and responsive control, it can be a little frustrating to quickly navigate when you're under fire and trying to avoid dying. It was rarely a substantial frustration, more of a mild annoyance. When you've died a few times and you know you would be doing better with improved controls and camera movement, though, it stands to reason that the later games in the series improved pretty significantly in that regard.

One thing that did start with this game (and I think is a great thing they've continued in later games) is the gold bolt collectibles and an eventual upgrade that shows secret areas on the map. If you know what you're looking for, you can get most or all of the gold bolts on the first pass through. They'll be hidden around a corner that you didn't realize you could get behind, or up above a platform that you don't notice on the standard path. Late in the game, you can pick up an item that highlights those secret areas in green, so you can go back and search a little more specifically for the collectibles without having to explicitly look up a guide. That ability to tease a little more content out and provide small hints is a really nice system, and I think Insomniac killed it there.

Although he is part of the titular duo, Clank segments are not fun in my opinion. They were included, I presume, to break up the same gameplay loop of the rest of the game. I understand and respect the attempt, but it just feels clunky and frustrating. This isn't unique to the first game, I hate Clank segments in pretty much EVERY game. Still, I do want to call out that they aren't very fun. Fortunately, there aren't very many of them.

Combat - 6/10

The primary selling point of Ratchet & Clank from the beginning was the ability to blow stuff up. That's pretty much the whole focus of combat: use big guns to make things explode. It's simple, yes, but beautiful in the simplicity. Your main goal from start to finish is to use interesting and novel weapons to blow up enemies, crates, and vehicles in creative ways. The game does that very well.

One HUGE facet of later Ratchet & Clank games that I forgot was missing from the first one was weapon leveling and upgrades. In every game since, using a weapon gives it experience, and as those weapons gain experience, they level up and gain new abilities and increased damage potential. It gives you a lot of incentive to use different weapons and level them up, which might help you find your new favorite gun.

NOT having that weapon growth in the first game was disappointing. Sure, the guns are still fun to use, but you don't get that experience of progression. Furthermore, you start to gravitate to particular weapons and completely ignore others. Every game in the series has had its fair share of good weapons and awful weapons, but not getting the opportunity to level them up and improve them makes the combat in this game pale in comparison to its successors.

There are gold versions of each weapon, unlocked when you replay the game in challenge mode and purchased with gold bolts. These are typically substantial improvements over the original version, but it is the total extent of weapon upgrades. It doesn't matter how much you used the original weapon, you just pick one and buy it. It's nice to have something else to do in a second run through the game, but the whole system was substantially improved later in the series.

Fans of the series will appreciate that this is the first instance of the RYNO (Rip Ya a New One) and the Morph-o-ray. Each subsequent game has a variation of the RYNO, a ridiculously powerful rocket launcher and typically the best weapon in the game. Each variant is slightly different, so it's curious to see how the design has evolved over time, but none are as classic as the first one. The name of the Morph-o-ray has changed from game to game, but there is usually some kind of weapon to turn enemies into animals. In the original, they become chickens. If you upgrade to the Gold Morph-o-ray, you get bigger chickens that explode. It really fits with the somewhat juvenile humor of the game, and I always love discovering what the newest animal gun will be.

Difficulty - 5/10

It's tough to assign a difficulty to Ratchet & Clank. There are segments that are particularly punishing, and checkpoints are occasionally further back than what I would consider fair, but nothing is THAT rough. A few attempts at any one segment and you're bound to figure it out. Either that, or you'll earn enough bolts to go pick up a new weapon and try it out. The clunky 2002 platforming is probably the greater danger. Some areas have pools of whatever substance that can kill you as soon as you touch it. I accidentally walked off ledges multiple times and gently glided to my inevitable doom. The platforming isn't awful, but you can definitely tell this was an earlier 3D game.

Once you get the RYNO, enemies become trivial. You can kill just about everything in a single hit, often multiple things with just one barrage of rockets. Platforming and environment hazards obviously still pose a risk, but most levels become nothing more than rushing forward and spamming the trigger. You could argue that the game becomes trivial and boring at this point, but I think it's a reward for toughing through and saving up to get the best weapon. Sure, it gets old, but for a time it is so satisfying to dish out death and destruction so easily. It's great for a joyride.

Graphics - 9/10

The biggest praise that I can give Ratchet & Clank is for its graphics. This game is beautiful. And I don't mean... it was beautiful in 2002 and you can still appreciate the graphics as long as you play it with that in mind. No, it's STILL beautiful. Textures are low res, sure, but I've heard you can apply texture overhauls through emulators and even make those better. And really, how closely are you looking at the floor or walls to gripe about that?

But the graphics are far more than just the textures. It's the environments, the draw distances, the ships flying through the sky overhead, the buildings around that make you feel like you're in a real city. The guns are detailed, enemy models are unique and vibrant, every single planet is just rich in color and theme. Yes, this game old enough to legally drink. But man, it just looks SO good. You don't even need the HD collection from PS3, the original release on PS2 looks great. I don't know how Insomniac pulled it off, but it's a pretty game.

Music - 7/10

The soundtrack of Ratchet & Clank is good, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily memorable. David Bergeaud did great, the music fits every situation in the game. Planets have their own themes, and they click very well with the visual styling. And Bergeaud is kinda like Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie) in that if you've heard enough of his music, you can pick out his work by ear. There's an ambiance that the music provides that makes it great for the game, but it isn't one that I frequently go back and listen to on its own.

My Take

The Good

The graphics are beautiful, the guns are fun to use, and this particular game spawned a reasonably successful series that's still going strong.

The Bad

The mechanics are a little clunky, the lack of gun upgrades is disappointing, and I'd say the game is just a tad too long.

The Ugly

As much as I love the story, it's edgy enough that it might not land well with modern audiences and anyone who didn't play through when it originally came out.

Overall - 7/10

Ratchet & Clank is one of my favorite series of all time, and you don't get a series without that very first game. The original is a little clunky and it's missing some quality of life and mechanic improvements that I think benefitted later games substantially. Still, it would be remiss to say it didn't age well and leave it at that. It's a very pretty game, and I think you appreciate later titles more by seeing where the intellectual property started. I have my complaints about the movie and the 2016 reimagining, but this iconic duo is popular enough that the creators thought it worthwhile to make a movie and recreate the first game. To me, that speaks volumes to the quality and longevity of the game.

I can't say that everyone will love Ratchet & Clank, especially those who have only played the more recent games, or potentially none of the series. However, I do think it's worth another play through, and anyone with even moderate interest in the series owes it to themselves to give this one a shot.