What they got Wrong with Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

Ratchet’s first PS5 game is good. Very good. As good as almost any other game in the series - and yes, the PS4 remake is on the ‘good’ end of that spectrum. It was disappointing, but still good, especially now that you can play it at 60fps on the PS5. Now, you can read or watch reviews about any game you like, in about a hundred thousand places online, so that’s enough of that.

So what’s wrong with the game? Plenty!

Immersion-breaking in-shop weapon previews

In previous games, weapon previews were charming little cartoon-style animations made specifically to seem like an in-universe advertisement for any assortment of weapons available for purchase. It seemed like there was an actual weapons vendor, who existed to serve any customer who came his way, and you happened to be one of those customers. Also, the adorable little 30-second animation worked with the rest of the game to create a gritty-yet-cute haphazard image of a game that wasn’t yet completely devoured by cost/profit calculations, focus groups, and the minimum-viable-product nature of modern video game development.

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Now, we have in-game footage of the weapon in action with a stupid voiceover. It not only reeks of budget cuts and an “it doesn’t drive sales so don’t bother” attitude, but it completely ruins any immersion the player could have had when buying weapons in the game! No longer are you a customer buying gear from a thriving business, but you are the customer. The only customer, who was presumably drugged and made to film demonstrations of every weapon in existence - how else would have they gotten that footage?

Graphics issues and other nitpicks

Sony talked about the PS5 as if it was the second coming of tech Jesus; all this horsepower under the hood specifically to make the games look, feel, and play, out of this world. Why then, are we seeing pop-in and other minor graphics issues like it’s 2007? Why are we getting texture pop-in in multiple parts of the game, meters away from the character? Why does our character suddenly produce no shadow in a few specific spots in a few of the pocket dimensions? Why does Ratchet’s Praetorian Guard armour sort of glitch a little during the initial Ms Zurkon cutscene?? Answer me!!

Customisable button mapping issues

Rift apart lets you make all sorts of button customisations, and it doesn’t stop at changing what every single button on the controller does. I changed a few of mine around, specifically swapping L1 and triangle - and my reasons are my own. This isn’t much of a problem for most of the game. It keeps up and takes into account your customisations during button prompts for activating computer terminals and the like. The default button for activating Ms Zurkon is triangle, but if you swap triangle with another button, then that button will now activate her. This tracks for almost all of the ‘activate x’ button prompts that I came across over the entire game.

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All but one, that is. To enter the arena as a contestant, one needs to activate a computer terminal. This seems to be the only computer terminal in the entire game that isn’t activated with customised controls. For me, it shows L1 as the button used to activate it, which is correct as per my customisation options, but it only actually activates with the default triangle button. All L1 does it make a faint buzz sound.

Quite an oversight there, and it isn’t exactly obscure. The arena is a major feature of any Ratchet and Clank game. You’re telling me that QA just forgot to test it? Should they even need to? I thought that the days of developers hand-coding every single level, scene, dependency, trigger, and so on, from scratch, was behind us. Why the weirdly specific oversight??

Weapon previews refusing to load

This issue is similar to the button mapping issue in that the asset or item in question should be the same asset, taken from one central database, and simply inserted into a level when needed. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Ms Zurkon, because in more than one location, weapon previews just plain old fail to load. Just like that. No reasonable explanation given. It just is, and the players deal with it.

Ratchet/Rivet Story Inconsistencies

Rift Apart features two protagonists - lone Lombaxes from separate dimensions. The games does this thing wherein each character is assigned levels that only they can play, and selecting that level automatically puts you in the shoes of that character within that level. It’s pretty neat. When you select a level, your character even says something along the lines of “I wonder what Ratchet/Rivet is up to” before putting you in control of the other character. It really ties everything together.

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Only problem is that Ratchet and Rivet do not meet right away, nor do they know each other’s names, so it doesn’t make sense that Ratchet is talking about Rivet, or vice versa, in a way that implies that they’re friends, when they haven't even met yet!

Another problem that the “meanwhile at Ratchet’s location…” system introduces (that’s basically what it is) is that the character’s actions after the player selects a level make no sense. If you’re playing a Ratchet-specific level, and then move on to a Rivet level, Ratchet will say something like “I hope Rivet is doing okay” and then get in his ship and fly away. Ratchet. My man. Where are you going? You just signaled that it’s Rivet’s turn now. You are doing nothing.

I suppose one could rationalise this by saying that he’s getting ready for the level after the next level, since the levels progress in a Ratchet/Rivet/Ratchet kind of beat, but that’s reaching, and frankly, excuse making. Given the lack of polish in other areas of the game, it’s likely just an oversight.

Arena challenges

Specifically; the lack thereof. Rift Apart features 15 arena challenges - 5 each in bronze, silver, and gold. Crack in time had 20, but the real crime here is that there is still no horde mode. These weapons are sweet as hell - why can’t I play with them properly? Give me semi-random waves of enemies, infinite ammo, and no health refills. Let me go to town. See how long I last. Add online leaderboards. What’s wrong with that??

Dumbed down “discovery”

Collectables are supposed to be hard to find, but you don’t want your players spending days scouring a single area for one only to find out that none exists in that part of the game. Well not in this sort of game, anyway. Tools of Destruction and A Crack in Time did it right. You were told how many collectables exist on a level but you don’t know where. A perfect mix of “I want to find them on my own” and “I don’t want to waste my time”.

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Rift Apart, meanwhile, throws that all away and, as long as you have walked in the same general area as a collectable, it’ll be marked on your map. You aren’t consulted, and there’s no way to turn it off. Want to hunt for collectables? Better be the very first thing you do when you enter a level or you can forget about it Sonny Jim!

What’s worse, during the two collection side quests, once you return a certain number of items, the game just marks the rest on your map. No warning, no nothing. Those LORBS (Lombax knowledge spheres, if you only just started the game) are a delight to hunt down in the desert, and the game just took it away from me! Not even a shred of warning. I was well deflated.

There is a very simple solution to all of this: Don’t mark collectables on the map until after the New Game Plus, and make it explicitly known that it will happen on the “do you really want to do this there is no going back” screen that shows up before the final boss. The game hides Omega weapons away from you until after the New Game Plus, so why not this? Give us a chance to find stuff on our own and then leave it for later when we’re satisfied that we’ve done what we can. As for those side quests, just add a simple line of dialogue, and a yes/no choice: “Do you want me to mark them on your map yes/no”. It’s easy, if you actually care about your playerbase. Which is an iffy prospect at this point.

They neutered the RYNO

The Ryno used to be badass. It’s the most powerful weapon in the game, launching bullets and missiles and all matter of hell. It even had it’s own sound track in the PS3/4 era! This beast wreaked so much destruction whenever you pulled the trigger that it would play the explosive finale of Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812 Overture’ as you slaughtered the enemy! The PS4 game plays Bach’s ‘Fantasia and fugue in G minor BWV 542’, which is very good also.

What does it play now? Nothing. It’s like they sucked the soul right out of it for fear of offending any classical music deniers. First they turn the illegal conversation about acquiring high-powered weaponry in order to commit mass murder into a freggin joke! And now this.

The soulless and empty corporatisation of Ratchet and Clank is complete.