PS5 Ratchet & Clank: RIFT Apart&DualSense™ Charging Station – (Playstation®5)

Join Ratchet on a multi-dimensional adventure accompanied by Rivet, Clank and Kit. Your progress is ever thwarted by the comical maniac of a villain, Emperor Nefarious, who has managed to get his hands on a dimensional gun which can open portals to worlds beyond. His ultimate goal being to rule over all the dimensions.

Insomniac has done a marvellous job building this colourful and artistic world filled with things to do and explore. This game also does a great job portraying the sheer power of the PS5 by showcasing and loading dense worlds in the blink of an eye. There is ton of stuff flying around and breaking apart during fights which looks amazing.

Gameplay is quite straightforward. Shoot at the baddies, avoid getting shot by the baddies. Very easy to pick up and get started. There is some puzzle sequences thrown in for flavour and small dimensional worlds have platforming sequences, which upon completion, rewards you with new gear. Side quests take a back seat in this as there aren’t many of them.

There are a bunch of weapons, each with its own characteristics, which can be upgraded and add variety during combat. They sound good and show off great particle effects. The gunplay is greatly enhanced by the adaptive triggers.

Enemies come in different shapes and sizes forcing you to keep tabs on your arsenal and make use of appropriate weapons for crowd control and moving defensively / offensively.

The cast is bought to life with great voice acting and facial animations. The stills of which can be appreciated in the photo-mode.

Overall, a great game to keep you entertained for about 10-12 hours. And a fantastic addition to the shelve of the PS5 library’s must have titles.

Also noticed many complain about fake discs. Maybe they are just inserting it the wrong way round.

I wont give spoilers here. Just want to say that its THE GAME if youre looking to immerse into a blazing world! Just go for it!

For me personally, I played Sackboy, Spiderman Miles Morales, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and then this, and I feel like this crosses every limit to be called a next gen game playing up on a next gen console! 😄

Introduction

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is the sixteenth and latest installment in the series developed by Insomniac Games. Insomniac Games in recent times are more known for their role in developing the critically acclaimed PlayStation exclusive Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart was first revealed during Sony’s PlayStation 5 reveal event last year and now fast-forwarding a couple of months with the game officially releasing, how well does it fair? Read on to find out.

Story 10/10

The events of Rift Apart is set after Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus. Ratchet and Clank are revered galactic heroes and the city decides to host a parade in their honor. At the end of the event Clank surprises Ratchet with a device called the ‘Dimensionator’ which lets the user travel between alternate dimensions. Clank proposes him and Ratchet use the Demensionator to travel between dimensions to find other the “Lombaxes” as Ratchet is the last of the Limbaxes in his dimension. Before Ratchet but they are interrupted by Dr. Nefarious who steals the Dimensionator and travels to an alternate universe along with the Dimensionator. Ratchet & Clank give chase to stop him and run into some surprises.

The story in Rift Apart is well-written with great pacing and the experience more times than not aligns with what you’d expect from a Pixar movie. The journey was fun, funny; has a great presentation, interesting characters and experiments with the ideas of forgiveness and accepting oneself for who they are no matter how flawed they might seem. Rift Apart also introduces new characters into the mix such as Kit & Rivet along with alternate versions of familiar ones. These characters are well executed with their own personalities and are portrayed in ways that does mot make them seem one dimensional.

Gameplay 9.8/10

In Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart you control Ratchet and Clank or series new comers Rivet and Kit in a third-person perspective as you travel through the various worlds/levels. You cannot choose who you play as per world and is instead it is pre-determined by the game as it is tied to the main storyline. While venturing through each world, you encounter enemies that you engage with either by using close-range or long-range combat with long-range combat taking more priority over close-range.

As you progress through the story – you collect ‘Bolts’ and ‘Raritanium’. Bolts act as in-game currency which allows you buy new weapons from a weapons vendor, while Raritanium act as currency power-ups for each weapon.

While the weapons archetypes may be the same as other action adventure games ie, rapid-fire, lunchers, throwable and drones – each Weapon has its own flair to it which distinguishes it from other weapons. Once you unlock most all of the weapons and level them up and start using them in tandem – things will start to get really bombastic and that’s where the fun really lies in, mixing up the arsenal in your disposal to create a flow of mayhem.

The game also brings back Gold Bolts that are placed around the game world. Finding all of them unlocks additional features such as different skins for your close-range weapons, skins for your space ship, unlimited ammo/health etc. scattered throughout the world are also bonus or mini-levels called “Pocket Dimensions”. Each world will have one or two Pocket Dimensions which are small platforming levels/courses that contain rewards at the end such as new armor parts that both Ratchet and Rivet can equip.

There are also mini-puzzle sections during when you either take control of Clank or Kit. These mini-puzzles require Clank or Kit to get their multiple versions from one end of the the course to the other using elements such as low-gravity, mass, electricity and speed. Think of it as directing the flow of water from one end to another. The difficulty for solving each puzzle is relatively low but it’s not that low that it doesn’t feel satisfying to solve them.

Comparing the previous entries, Rift Apart offers a much more fluid gameplay experience with tighter controls and better character animations. Coupling all of this makes the game feel much more responsive, fast-paced and fun to play, especially once you get used to the controls and start mixing the game’s added maneuverability with your arsenal of weapons.

I tend to play games fast-paced and some of the issues I’ve noticed were that there are input rejections during certain animations. For instance, one of the new mechanics introduced in the game are the hover boots which increases your movement speed significantly but while using the hover boots – you can’t fire weapons or switch between them from the quick-menu at least not until you stop using the boot.

This was frustrating at times for me as it caused me to lose the momentum I was having during gameplay. Then there is an that I’d call “magnetic attacks”. This seems to be a prevalent in previous games as I noticed it first in the PS4 remake of Ratchet and Clank. What it is that when an enemy is close enough to attack you and when they do the attack animation – the attack animation is sped up and the enemy tracks you like a magnet where unless you used the dodge move or moved away before the animation – you get hit. It makes dodging attacks by estimating hit-boxes really difficult if not impossible. But this is something that most players won’t even notice unless you play games where precision movement is important.

Another thing that you will noticed is the lack of variety between Ratchet & Rivet when it comes to their gameplay or weapons they carry. They share all of their weapons, abilities and upgrades.

Performance & Visuals 9.8/10

The game offers three performance options to choose from; Fidelity, Performance and Performance RT. Fidelity let’s you play the game in native 4K with Ray-Tracing but at a solid 30fps. Performance as well as Performance RT will reduce the visual quality slightly but will let you enjoy the game at 60fps. Performance RT is the same as Performance but with the added benefit of Ray-Tracing. Both modes manage to deliver a smooth 60fps experience without a single drop in frame-rate which is impressive considering closer to the end of the game things can get pretty hectic on-screen. I’ve personally tried to see if I could get the frame-rate to drop by trying to producing as many effects as possible on screen at a given time but the game just refuses to drop a single frame. I would personally recommend people play this game at Performance RT mode as you will definitely enjoy the game playing it at 60fps with the added benefit of Ray-tracing.

As for the visuals itself, there are definitely some of the best I’ve seen. You will have more than one moment where you wonder if you’re watching a Pixar movie instead of playing a game. Everything looks crisp and well details from facial animations to the fur on Ratchet and Rivet to the shine and rust you see how Clank, Kit and other robotic enemies & NPCs. Even not robotic NPCs and enemies look exceptionally well detailed.

The implementation of Ray-Tracing adds to the visuals polish and look of the game. Ray-Tracing is that feature that most people might not notice when it’s there cause the effects it produces are subtle but it’s something you notice immediately when it’s not there.

Environments, particle effects, the way god-rays bounce off objects the background even details on small things like environmental assets seem high quality. Environmental assets are objects added to the environmental to give it more life ie, tables in a room or trees in the open world. Details on these assets are what devs usually sacrifice in order to reduce file-size and the reduce load-stress for the system it’s being developed on. This could be partially due to the fact that Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is one the first games if not the only game that was designed with the PS5’s SSD (Solid-State Drive) in mind.

One of the most obvious benefits that people will experience, apart from the super-fast load times which are practically not existent is the wrapping between sections of the map using portals. Usually before if this idea was implemented – you would have to sit through some form of loading screen so that the game can load-in the assets but with the speed at which an SSD can read & write data – it is instantaneous, the easiest way to visualize the speed at which it loads in the area is that think of walking out from your bedroom and to the room outside your bedroom. It’s that fast using portals to jump around the map.

As much as the PS5 offers visual improvements and advantages over the PS4 – the thing that will really push the gaming experience this generation even further than any other generation is the inclusion of an SSD.

The Dualsense’s adaptive triggers and rumble features are also used to their full potential as well which just adds the immersion and experience. The triggers offer haptic vibrations/feedback when firing weapons like a machine gun to a two trigger function while firing weapons that mimic a shotgun. The haptic of the controller itself also offers great directional feedback along with variable sensitivity. Ratchets foot-steps give off subtle vibrates while a shot from a heavy gun or explosion gives off a quick strong vibration.

Now, that being said, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t face some technical issues during my time with the game. These issues ranged from games freezes to weird audio issues. As of writing this review Insomniac Games pushed out update 1.001.003 which in the patch notes seems to have fixed most of the issues I’ve faced with the game. But I still noticed audio issues particularly when using a weapon that acts like a chain machine gun. If I use the weapon and a cut-scene triggers – the gun sound does not stop and instead plays on a loop in the background till you get back to the gameplay and switch weapons. But these are minor issues if you ask and ones that Insomniac Games can fix with a few small patches. The game in its launch state is playable from start-to-finish.

Audio 10/10

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart uses the PS5’s 3D audio and I personally am not entirely sure if my headsets are providing the full experience that 3D audio is promising but from what I’ve experience so far, it is something that I’d compare to surround-sound. Sound emits based on the direction of the sound source. This works well as it helps you tell from which direction you are being attacked from during gameplay. Sound-mixing is also well balanced with neither vocals or music over-powering one another. In terms of voice-work. It produced and performed with exceptionally high-quality. Sound effects relating to Weapons, destruction, UI were also well detailed with the appropriate amount of bass.

Conclusion

Any game Insomniac Games create reflects some aspects of Ratchet and Clank in it, be it the critically acclaimed Marvel’s Spider-Man or the Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive, because Ratchet and Clank was developed with a goal and that goal was to not only make a game that’s great but fun to play and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart not only continues the companies philosophy of making fun games – it also incorporates the years of experience the company gained over the years. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is an exceptional game that is without a doubt one of the best titles available on Sony’s PlayStation 5.

Final Score

Story 10/10
Gameplay 9.8/10
Performance & Visuals 9.8
Audio 10/10

I’m giving the game a 39.6/40.

Notes: I played the game using a copy downloaded from PSN as Amazon is currently not delivering non-essential products to my location. I wrote this review after a 23 hour total play-session in which I completed the story twice along with completing 100% of all side-activities. All the images attached with this review were captured by me during my play-sessions.

Very disappointed after a long wait and game didn’t load up just kept saying Error?

Pros:
1. Nice game for PS5 platform.
2. Sturdy packaging without unnecessary bubble wrap.
3. Installation completed within 20-25 minutes unlike waiting for 2 hours of download.

Cons:
1. Require game disk to be inserted for playing (as usual) which I thought could be removed from PS5 onwards as there can be some better way to authenticate without having disk inserted every time.