Ratchet & Clank Review
A Journalistic Review by DefiantParrot
*Warning: Contains Spoilers*
Originally Written: 06/27/2019
Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: Playstation 2
Genre: Action, Platformer
Release: November 4, 2002
Time to go back to my childhood again. While playing the Jak and Daxter series is some of my fondest memories on the PlayStation 2, it wasn't the only platforming series featuring a dynamic duo I enjoyed.
Created by Insomniac a company I absolutely adore, I'm pretty sure I got this game at around the same time I picked up Jak and Daxter, so I've played this game off and on many times but now, it's time for my critical eye, The Parrot's Eye if you will... I should totally sell sunglasses under that brand name but anyway, let's look at Ratchet & Clank.
So on planet Veldin we see one of our protaganists Ratchet becoming visibly frustrated as he works on a ship.
As this is happening we cut to a robot assembly facility on the planet Quartu where a malfunction ends in the creation of not a large intimidating machine. but a tiny, intelligent, and downright cute robot, designated as Warbot Defect B-54296.
As the other warbots attempt to destroy him, the little guy takes a ship and flees as quickly as possible, he is however followed and shot down over Veldin.
Seeing the crash Ratchet checks out the site and scavenges the little robot from the wreckage.
Later after reawakening the robot asks Ratchet for help in a tiny scene that always makes me chuckle. He requests aid in finding the 'superhero' Captain Qwark in saving the solar system from a Blarg, known Ultimate Supreme Executive Chariman Drek, a man with a wonderfully long list of titles.
See his race, the aforementioned Blarg's planet Orxon has become extremely dangerous to survive on due to overpopulation and pollution. So Drek in his seemingly limitless wealth and power decides to construct a new planet for his people. Sounds fine at first until he mentions that he'll do this by taking pieces, chunks, and resources from other planets, destroying them in the process.
Drek is a delightful sleazebag also getting me to a smile a few times, whenever we check back in on this blue-eye dickhole.
That's the overarching story here, but there's plenty of tiny stories to coincide with this thanks to the various planets you travel too, and there's a good variety of them too. From being able to visit the poisonous Orxon, to visiting the facility our little robot buddy was built on, to the beautiful resort of the planet Pokitaru.
After helping Ratchet start his ship. he agrees to aid him and they leave the planet, properly introducing themselves. After bumping into the side of the ship, Ratchet dubs our metal mate as Clank.
As I stated a couple times before, this game made me laugh quite a bit. I love the humor in these games and even here in the very first installment I love the writing.
Y'know the conversation of how a game can make you feel does come up alot. Did you get angry, or feel joy or possible sadness? But few games can truly make me laugh on a consistent level.
I love to laugh that's why I love comedies, but I can't think of anything I would consider a comedy game, or at least a really good one.
Now Ratchet & Clank it's not a gutbuster sort of laugh admittedly, there was nothing that had me rolling in fits of giggles, but I never rolled my eyes either. I did appreciate everytime this game made me chuckle.
But the humor wouldn't mean much if I hated the characters, but I don't, I absolutely love this universe and its inhabitants. The bumbling and ridiculous Captain Qwark is a joy to behold whenever he shows up, expertly voiced by the talented Jim Ward.
Skid McMarx a pro hover boarder who isn't in the game alot admittedly, but still a cool character that I personally really enjoy and have to thank for reasons we'll discuss at another time.
The Plumber you meet on the first planet, is a recurring character in the series, and while he becomes more integral later on I did really enjoy him here. His interactions with Ratchet were pretty funny at first and I grin ear to ear everytime you reecounter him on Batalia.
But I also really love our two heroes here, obviously the game wouldn't work if these two weren't enjoyable. Clank is voiced by David Kaye who does a great job with this character and will continue to voice him throughout the series.
Ratchet on the other hand is voiced by Mikey Kelley here and call me nostalgic but I really like his performance here. I dunno I think surfer dude Ratchet just works and I enjoyed it, everytime he opened his mouth. Now James Arnold Taylor would voice Ratchet from the second game onward, and I have things to praise about his performance when we get there. But for this game I really enjoyed Mikey Kelleys performance.
After Qwark betrays and tries to kill you, Ratchet becomes infuriated at Clank not seeing what Qwark was, and becomes deadset on revenge. While not as much fun as seeing these two be friends, I still feel this was well executed. It adds layers to Ratchets character and sets him apart from other mascot platformers such as Spyro, Crash, or Sly.
But look at me here, I haven't even mentioned one bit of the gameplay yet now have I?
Now for the most of this game you're going to be in combat. Sure there's platforming here, and exploring to be done obviously, but the main component of Ratchet & Clank is your arsenal of weapons.
This is what truly sets this series apart from other platformers, yeah you can platform around. dodge attacks, and fight with your melee weapon. But how about you leap onto that platform and set that enemy annoying you ablaze with the Pyrocitor, or summon tiny android minions with your new Glove of Doom?
These weapons are clearly the highlight of the game, this series became well known for it's fun and ridiculous weaponry, and while these aren't too off the wall they can be pretty fun to use.
Now these weapons can be purchased at vendors run by the corporation Gadgetron. They obviously vary in price but the most of them aren't too expensive. Your currency in this game is bolts. As in nuts and bolts, I'm not sure why I don't think they ever explain why this is the intergalactic currency, but I also have a gun that can turn enemies into chickens so I can't say it's the weirdest thing here.
I do love the sound of picking bolts up, it's like grabbing a gem in Spyro, the little ching when you gather these is like sex for my ears, and breaking a bunch of crates to get alot at once, ooh that's just, that's just pleasing.
Anyway you don't just have weapons to find and purchase there's also various gadgets you'll use for traversal, such as the Tespasser used for hacking, or an 02 mask for breathing underwater and in the depths of space. Because Ratchet needs air to breath outside, but for some reason can survive in the deep dark void without a fucking shirt.
My favorites being the Swingshot for obviously swinging across gaps and across to platforms. and the grind boots used for traversing on metal rails Sonic style.
But Ratchet isn't the only gameplay style here. There are a couple times where you take control of Clank and explore somewhere Ratchet cannot go. While Clank doesn't have the ludicrous arsenal that Ratchet does, he can find and lead these Gadgebots which are the same androids you summon from your Glove of Doom to aid him.
He can order them to attack enemies, open specifically locked doors, tell them to wait or follow him. The options are limited sure, and on my second playthrough I really wasn't looking forward to these sections again because I feel they can break the pace of the game right in half, but otherwise these are fine.
There's a couple turret sections such as on planet Batalia and while yes turret sections are the bane of many peoples existence they control fairly well, not saying I'm excited everytime I have to do one. But y'know they're fine.
There's a few moments where you can pilot a starship such as the boss fight against Captain Qwark, while the controls can be pretty finicky at times, these also work well, and for a game set in a large galaxy being able to pilot and fly one of these ships is pretty cool.
After rescuing Skid you can compete in a few hoverboard races, these also control pretty well. They're fun to play and if I made a bad jump or didn't turn in time it felt like my fault and not the games. Except for performing tricks you need to use all of the shoulder buttons for these and performing specific moves and trying to control yourself in mid-air can be downright annoying at times.
For most of the game Ratchet & Clank are together and there's several backpack upgrades you can buy for Clank to help you in platforming, but lategame there's a planet you go to where Clank is taken away from you and you suddenly have to platform and play without him after relying on him for so long. This was challenging but in a pretty fun way.
And finally on like two occasions I believe you can have Clank grow into a giant hulking monster Clank and go all Godzilla in a few sections. Destroy foes with your giant metal feet, firing missiles and super lasers that he suddenly has for some reason, this is no doubt alot of fun but this happens so few times like I said I wonder why they bothered. They even cocktease you in the final battle against Drek with it.
Now while I just praised the various different game styles to an extent I do have a few complaints here.
This games camera cannot make up its mind sometimes. For the most part it's fine, and I know early PS2 title and all that. But during tight platforming or even better trying to platform around enemy fire, this thing can take way too long to look where you need to go, especially if you're trying run back or away from something in front of you. I died several times due to issues like this.
Also for combat as I said it's pretty fun at times, but later games let you strafe during combat, which made it alot easier and more fun. Yeah I know I'm comparing this game to something its sequels did better, but you can strafe in this game but it just sucks. It's no fun to use and you move so poorly there's no point in even trying. So alot of times battles turn out the same hop around until everything is dead, now alot of weapons are easy to aim, some even do the aiming for you but this still is a complaint I have here.
I do adore the music here though, each planet has a different track and I was swaying back and forth to the beat with every planet I went to. My favorites being Veldin and Pokitaru.
Now for replayability it wouldn't be a true platformer without collectibles and in this there's several. Aside from the weapons gadgets and bolts I mentioned earlier there are Gold Bolts hidden throughout the entire game. There's 40 of these and they carry over through every playthrough. After beating the game and starting again on New Game Plus, you can use these Gold Bolts to purchase Gold variants of your weapons. Now 40 Gold Bolts can get you these weapons along with a shit ton of bolts. I mean upwards to 50,000 sometimes. I'm not sure how many times you'd have to play through the game to be able to purchase these all legitmately. Especially since while on New Game Plus you get to keep all your bolts and weapons but the game takes the rest of your equipment away from you meaning you have to purchase alot of your gear again.
Returning from the Spyro series are also Skill Points, these were basically achievements that you could get in game by doing specific things. Some of these are off the wall and can be alot of fun to do, others are pretty basic and some like those hoverboard ones can blow me.
Collecting these will unlock concept art and stuff like that, collecting them all unlocks what the game calls an epilogue, which I thought was a new cutscene but was instead a few different magazine covers. These were pretty cool and funny admittedly but I'm not sure they're worth collecting.
And let's not neglect to mention the R.Y.N.O. The Rip Ya a New One here is described by Clank to be the most powerful missile launcher in the galaxy and you can buy it from a shady salesman in Blackwater City for a whopping 150,000 bolts goddamn, GODDAMN!
Now I said I played through this game twice, which I did. I collected everything. Every Gold Bolt, Gold Weapon and Skill Point. How? The bolt glitch... DON'T JUDGE ME!!!!!
So even though I gushed for most of this review, the few annoyances I had with this game did bring it down for me over time. I cannot stress enough how much being able to strafe would help in this game, or if the camera could have been fine tuned just a bit more.
Ratchet & Clank receives my Silver Seal of Recommendation
This is a great game and if you somehow have not played the series at this point. This game is on several collections for the PS3 the Vita or you could play the original like me. This is another great game in Insomniacs legendary lineup and I look forward to revisiting this series again.
 |
| Hello my friends |
Originally Written: 06/27/2019
Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: Playstation 2
Genre: Action, Platformer
Release: November 4, 2002
Time to go back to my childhood again. While playing the Jak and Daxter series is some of my fondest memories on the PlayStation 2, it wasn't the only platforming series featuring a dynamic duo I enjoyed.
Created by Insomniac a company I absolutely adore, I'm pretty sure I got this game at around the same time I picked up Jak and Daxter, so I've played this game off and on many times but now, it's time for my critical eye, The Parrot's Eye if you will... I should totally sell sunglasses under that brand name but anyway, let's look at Ratchet & Clank.
So on planet Veldin we see one of our protaganists Ratchet becoming visibly frustrated as he works on a ship.
As this is happening we cut to a robot assembly facility on the planet Quartu where a malfunction ends in the creation of not a large intimidating machine. but a tiny, intelligent, and downright cute robot, designated as Warbot Defect B-54296.
As the other warbots attempt to destroy him, the little guy takes a ship and flees as quickly as possible, he is however followed and shot down over Veldin.
Seeing the crash Ratchet checks out the site and scavenges the little robot from the wreckage.
 |
| He looks like he's about to kick a baby |
See his race, the aforementioned Blarg's planet Orxon has become extremely dangerous to survive on due to overpopulation and pollution. So Drek in his seemingly limitless wealth and power decides to construct a new planet for his people. Sounds fine at first until he mentions that he'll do this by taking pieces, chunks, and resources from other planets, destroying them in the process.
Drek is a delightful sleazebag also getting me to a smile a few times, whenever we check back in on this blue-eye dickhole.
That's the overarching story here, but there's plenty of tiny stories to coincide with this thanks to the various planets you travel too, and there's a good variety of them too. From being able to visit the poisonous Orxon, to visiting the facility our little robot buddy was built on, to the beautiful resort of the planet Pokitaru.
After helping Ratchet start his ship. he agrees to aid him and they leave the planet, properly introducing themselves. After bumping into the side of the ship, Ratchet dubs our metal mate as Clank.
As I stated a couple times before, this game made me laugh quite a bit. I love the humor in these games and even here in the very first installment I love the writing.
Y'know the conversation of how a game can make you feel does come up alot. Did you get angry, or feel joy or possible sadness? But few games can truly make me laugh on a consistent level.
I love to laugh that's why I love comedies, but I can't think of anything I would consider a comedy game, or at least a really good one.
 |
| Can I keep it, sir? |
But the humor wouldn't mean much if I hated the characters, but I don't, I absolutely love this universe and its inhabitants. The bumbling and ridiculous Captain Qwark is a joy to behold whenever he shows up, expertly voiced by the talented Jim Ward.
Skid McMarx a pro hover boarder who isn't in the game alot admittedly, but still a cool character that I personally really enjoy and have to thank for reasons we'll discuss at another time.
 |
| DOGGOS!! |
But I also really love our two heroes here, obviously the game wouldn't work if these two weren't enjoyable. Clank is voiced by David Kaye who does a great job with this character and will continue to voice him throughout the series.
Ratchet on the other hand is voiced by Mikey Kelley here and call me nostalgic but I really like his performance here. I dunno I think surfer dude Ratchet just works and I enjoyed it, everytime he opened his mouth. Now James Arnold Taylor would voice Ratchet from the second game onward, and I have things to praise about his performance when we get there. But for this game I really enjoyed Mikey Kelleys performance.
 |
| Hey! My Ex-Wife is in this game.... SHOOT IT!! |
But look at me here, I haven't even mentioned one bit of the gameplay yet now have I?
Now for the most of this game you're going to be in combat. Sure there's platforming here, and exploring to be done obviously, but the main component of Ratchet & Clank is your arsenal of weapons.
This is what truly sets this series apart from other platformers, yeah you can platform around. dodge attacks, and fight with your melee weapon. But how about you leap onto that platform and set that enemy annoying you ablaze with the Pyrocitor, or summon tiny android minions with your new Glove of Doom?
These weapons are clearly the highlight of the game, this series became well known for it's fun and ridiculous weaponry, and while these aren't too off the wall they can be pretty fun to use.
Now these weapons can be purchased at vendors run by the corporation Gadgetron. They obviously vary in price but the most of them aren't too expensive. Your currency in this game is bolts. As in nuts and bolts, I'm not sure why I don't think they ever explain why this is the intergalactic currency, but I also have a gun that can turn enemies into chickens so I can't say it's the weirdest thing here.
 |
| I love it when he calls me fuzzball |
Anyway you don't just have weapons to find and purchase there's also various gadgets you'll use for traversal, such as the Tespasser used for hacking, or an 02 mask for breathing underwater and in the depths of space. Because Ratchet needs air to breath outside, but for some reason can survive in the deep dark void without a fucking shirt.
My favorites being the Swingshot for obviously swinging across gaps and across to platforms. and the grind boots used for traversing on metal rails Sonic style.
But Ratchet isn't the only gameplay style here. There are a couple times where you take control of Clank and explore somewhere Ratchet cannot go. While Clank doesn't have the ludicrous arsenal that Ratchet does, he can find and lead these Gadgebots which are the same androids you summon from your Glove of Doom to aid him.
 |
| Ordinarily underwater sections suck.... but these are fine |
There's a couple turret sections such as on planet Batalia and while yes turret sections are the bane of many peoples existence they control fairly well, not saying I'm excited everytime I have to do one. But y'know they're fine.
There's a few moments where you can pilot a starship such as the boss fight against Captain Qwark, while the controls can be pretty finicky at times, these also work well, and for a game set in a large galaxy being able to pilot and fly one of these ships is pretty cool.
After rescuing Skid you can compete in a few hoverboard races, these also control pretty well. They're fun to play and if I made a bad jump or didn't turn in time it felt like my fault and not the games. Except for performing tricks you need to use all of the shoulder buttons for these and performing specific moves and trying to control yourself in mid-air can be downright annoying at times.
 |
| CLANK SMASH!!!!! |
And finally on like two occasions I believe you can have Clank grow into a giant hulking monster Clank and go all Godzilla in a few sections. Destroy foes with your giant metal feet, firing missiles and super lasers that he suddenly has for some reason, this is no doubt alot of fun but this happens so few times like I said I wonder why they bothered. They even cocktease you in the final battle against Drek with it.
Now while I just praised the various different game styles to an extent I do have a few complaints here.
This games camera cannot make up its mind sometimes. For the most part it's fine, and I know early PS2 title and all that. But during tight platforming or even better trying to platform around enemy fire, this thing can take way too long to look where you need to go, especially if you're trying run back or away from something in front of you. I died several times due to issues like this.
Also for combat as I said it's pretty fun at times, but later games let you strafe during combat, which made it alot easier and more fun. Yeah I know I'm comparing this game to something its sequels did better, but you can strafe in this game but it just sucks. It's no fun to use and you move so poorly there's no point in even trying. So alot of times battles turn out the same hop around until everything is dead, now alot of weapons are easy to aim, some even do the aiming for you but this still is a complaint I have here.
 |
| Hey Al |
Now for replayability it wouldn't be a true platformer without collectibles and in this there's several. Aside from the weapons gadgets and bolts I mentioned earlier there are Gold Bolts hidden throughout the entire game. There's 40 of these and they carry over through every playthrough. After beating the game and starting again on New Game Plus, you can use these Gold Bolts to purchase Gold variants of your weapons. Now 40 Gold Bolts can get you these weapons along with a shit ton of bolts. I mean upwards to 50,000 sometimes. I'm not sure how many times you'd have to play through the game to be able to purchase these all legitmately. Especially since while on New Game Plus you get to keep all your bolts and weapons but the game takes the rest of your equipment away from you meaning you have to purchase alot of your gear again.
Returning from the Spyro series are also Skill Points, these were basically achievements that you could get in game by doing specific things. Some of these are off the wall and can be alot of fun to do, others are pretty basic and some like those hoverboard ones can blow me.
 |
| I do love this pic though |
Collecting these will unlock concept art and stuff like that, collecting them all unlocks what the game calls an epilogue, which I thought was a new cutscene but was instead a few different magazine covers. These were pretty cool and funny admittedly but I'm not sure they're worth collecting.
And let's not neglect to mention the R.Y.N.O. The Rip Ya a New One here is described by Clank to be the most powerful missile launcher in the galaxy and you can buy it from a shady salesman in Blackwater City for a whopping 150,000 bolts goddamn, GODDAMN!
Now I said I played through this game twice, which I did. I collected everything. Every Gold Bolt, Gold Weapon and Skill Point. How? The bolt glitch... DON'T JUDGE ME!!!!!
So even though I gushed for most of this review, the few annoyances I had with this game did bring it down for me over time. I cannot stress enough how much being able to strafe would help in this game, or if the camera could have been fine tuned just a bit more.
 |
| For when you 'Rip Ya a New One' |
This is a great game and if you somehow have not played the series at this point. This game is on several collections for the PS3 the Vita or you could play the original like me. This is another great game in Insomniacs legendary lineup and I look forward to revisiting this series again.
Comments
Post a Comment