FASTER, MORE INTENSE
Also for: -
We live in an age of remakes, and as far as unnecessary remakes go, this
Ratchet & Clank-joint from 2016 is rather jolly fun. Taking
advantage of the PS4:s hardware, it reimagines the old cartoony sci-fi
adventure as something like a modern-day animated family movie, with the same
ironic wit and quirky dialogue. The new, highly detailed
surroundings are breathtaking, at least in the few interludes when the frantic gameplay gives you
enough time to soak them up.
This version is a tie-in with the feature film of the same title, released the
same year. I'm unsure which one exists to support the other, but critically,
the game outshines the movie by a landslide (the Metacritic score is currently
at 85 vs 29 in favor of the game).
I like this remake a lot, but don't find it an unmissable experience if you've
played through the original. That being said, though; if you're a newcomer to
the brand, start with this one. It's a quicker, more refined way to get
through the same story, with a smooth third-person control scheme and
well-balanced combat challenges. Having played four Ratchet titles, I'm
clearly starting to sense a formula that makes them all but interchangeable,
but this might be the best one to replay in my upcoming years.
In the spirit of our time of remakes, remasters and re-releases, let me just
rephrase what I stated in my hastily written stump-of-a-review on my
HowLongToBeat-profile and call it a
day:
"A good, tight gameplay experience full of spirit and goofy sci-fi adventurous
flair. It's a remake of the 2002 original, but although I played that version
fairly recently, I cannot exactly recall what remains intact and what's been
changed. As far as I can tell, a lot of the weapons are new, and very cool and
inventive, but the levels are felt eerily familiar apart from the standard
technical upgrades.
The remake is quite a bit shorter, easier and more condensed, making it a
great weekend game to power through. The varied levels fly by fast, but also
hold a lot of secrets for players wanting to dig deeper and grind for upgrade
materials for their expansive arsenal. Bolts and screws constitute the makeshift
currency, and by smashing everything around you gain boatloads of them. The
collecting cards - which allows for quicker resource gathering once you complete any
set of three - and weapon upgrade trees are nifty additions to the core
experience.
The visual gags comes into full fruition with some of the cool new guns.
The Pixelator is a makeshift shotgun which briefly turns all enemies into
pixellated 2D-versions of their polygonal selves. The Groovitron summons a big
disco ball, which forces all enemies, bosses included, to stop
attacking and start dancing for a while. It's such a comical way to present what is
essentially a paralyze function that you might be fooled into thinking
Insomniac invented something brand new. I also like the less useful
Sheepinator, which turns enemies into harmless sheep, and the frisbee-esque
buzz blade gun, but both of these I've seen in earlier entries.
Through varied gameplay, the game skillfully avoids tediousness. Lockpicking
puzzles, underwater exploration, ship-to-ship combat, twin-stick brawling, and
Clank's little puzzle-solving segments come interspersed with the standard
running, gunning and platforming. The story involves some classic nefarious
villains who wants to destroy planets, only to assemble their best parts into
some ultimate superplanet. It's entertainment that looks like something out of
Pixar Studios but registers as lower-tier storytelling. It's about as funny as
it is intentionally dumb.
I have no major complaints, apart from glitches that got me stuck a couple of
times between fixed, non-interactable objects. I can only justify my
surprisingly "modest" score with having played the original, which made this
remake seem a little superfluous. You only really need to play one of them, upon which the other one will feel like a replay.
But if you're totally new, I'd probably recommend this remake. It's shorter
and features a lot of quality-of-life improvements. And the hoverboard races
don't totally suck anymore."
And there you have it, easy as goblin pie, my fastest written review of all
time. Call it taking the easy way out if you wish. I personally wish they all could be this effortless.
[You can find my review of the original game
here (well, sort of - it's the PS3-port...)]
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