Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Review

After almost a full year of waiting and hoping for an opportunity to obtain a PS5, I was finally lucky enough to rip space-time a new one in the long-awaited latest instalment of the Ratchet & Clank series - Rift Apart. Five years since the last game (and twelve years since the last full-sized game), Insomniac Games had a lot of hype to live up to. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve knocked it out of the park. In my opinion, Rift Apart is not only the most visually stunning game there is at the moment, but is also extremely fun and engaging, and a worthy continuation of my favourite series. Jumping back into this universe, blasting foes with an arsenal of crazy guns and flying to new, weird and wonderful worlds made me feel like I was back in the early 2000’s, battling Dr. Nefarious on my old PS2 again.

Rift Apart has a surprising amount of depth in its story. The Ratchet & Clank series often has some genuine emotional themes hidden beneath the cartoony, explosive style, especially in the more recent games that focused more on serious, character-driven stories. But Rift Apart in particular features a story dealing with trauma, low self-esteem, self-doubt and anxiety. Each of the four main characters deal with one or more of these issues when they are introduced, and throughout the game they help each other work through them while simultaneously trying to save the universe. I actually found myself relating to a few of the issues - worrying that you aren’t living up to expectations, constantly blaming yourself for everything, and so on. Even the main villain gets a bit of therapy - not that he actually believes any of it, which naturally leads to it biting him in the ass. Sometimes it’s best to listen when other people try to help you! In the end, the central theme of the story is that there’s no such thing as a “perfect version” of yourself; you’ll always have flaws and fears, and spending your life trying to get rid of them (or pretending they aren’t there) is never going to help. The trick is to acknowledge that your flaws are a part of you, and by learning to live with them (with help from friends), you can grow to live above them. Bit heavier than the ridiculous guns and goofy enemies make it seem, isn’t it?

The game is very fun and engaging throughout, with a variety of enemies and mechanics that kept me on my toes for each level. The weapon selection was interesting and enjoyable to use; there’s something inherently hilarious about temporarily transforming the gargantuan final boss into a giant harmless shrubbery. Alternatively, you could use the game’s strongest gun to drop random junk on your foes, from exploding sheep to entire chunks of planet - or even drop stuff from other game franchises entirely, like a rampaging Thunderjaw from Horizon: Zero Dawn. Some of the boss fights can get a bit repetitive after a while after you’ve fought a rotation of the same three bosses a dozen times, and the game itself often holds your hand a bit too much which takes a bit of fun away from figuring out the puzzles by yourself.

Rift Apart constantly throws new mechanics at the player, one after the other in almost every level. The beginning of the game is a rapid-fire catch-up on the series’ staple mechanics like the Swingshot and the Magneboots. That said, I never felt confused or overwhelmed by the near-constant string of new gameplay tricks as they were well-tutorialised and ensured the player had plenty of opportunities to experiment with them on each planet. The controls are quick and responsive, although I did find myself getting caught on random terrain, props and NPCs every so often with the new Hoverboots, and the wall-running mechanic can get a little clunky sometimes. In a similar vein to the mini-planets from A Crack in Time, Rift Apart features small bonus challenge areas in each level called “rifts”. Each rift offers a unique challenge using the various traversal mechanics, and is a fun, short break from the main combat of the game.

Without a doubt, Rift Apart’s biggest strength is its’ absolutely stunning graphics. Making full use of the PS5’s power, Insomniac has crafted the most beautiful-looking planets in the game’s entire franchise. The cutscenes are rendered in-engine, and there’s practically no noticeable transition from cutscene to gameplay, creating a smooth continuous flow that truly makes you feel like you’re playing a game and watching a movie at the same time. A significant portion of my playtime was spent simply wandering around admiring the cities, swamps, oceans and plains throughout the game. Fittingly enough, Rift Apart is the first Ratchet & Clank game to feature a photo mode, and if you’re like me, you’ll be using it to create some wallpaper-worthy screenshots.

The game’s sound design is well done, making it easy for the player to recognise anything happening on or off-screen purely by sound alone. Each of the enemy types have distinct voices and tend to announce their attacks, and your various weapons all have their own unique sound cues for being fully charged, running out of ammo, inflicting their effects on enemies and so on. Some audio cues play from the controller rather than in the game, which did become mildly annoying for me after a while. Thankfully, there is an option to disable controller audio. While the soundtrack still doesn’t compare to David Bergeaud’s work on the first five games, the new composer Mark Mothersbaugh has combined the cinematic, orchestral-style music of the recent previous games with the more funky electronic music that Bergeaud used. The combination works surprisingly well, and I’m looking forward to seeing if Mothersbaugh continues working with Insomniac on future games.

For the most part, the cast of characters in the game (both returning characters and new ones) have very good voice acting, though there are a few exceptions. Captain Qwark in particular has a rather jarringly different-sounding voice, due to the usual actor being too unwell to continue voice work. Thankfully, his role in the game’s story is greatly limited compared to his usual heavy presence. Besides that case, and the occasional line sounding a little flat here and there, I could tell that the voice actors were definitely enjoying themselves in this game. In particular, Jennifer Hale voices Rivet, one of the most prominent new characters, and her award-winning voice acting experience is on full display in this game.

Like most of the previous games in the series, Rift Apart offers plenty of replay value in the form of upgrading your array of weapons as well as continuously-looping playthroughs via Challenge Mode. One of the things I enjoyed most from the previous games in the series was the ability to grind out resources in an action packed, gladiatorial style arena mode. The arena was painfully missing in the previous edition of the series. Thankfully, Insomniac has listened and brought back a fan favourite. I spent hours in Rift Apart’s arena levelling up my weapons. Even repeating the same fight over and over to grind Raritanium was fun. Challenge Mode also makes self-imposed challenge playthroughs easy to start, like a perma-death run or single-weapon runs. However, long-time Ratchet & Clank fans such as myself will be disappointed to see the absence of two particular staples of the series: skill points and an Insomniac Museum. The lack of an Insomniac Museum is especially disappointing to me considering the rather lackluster Museum in the 2016 game. Exploring the Museums throughout the series was always one of my favourite parts of the games, so Rift Apart loses some points for leaving that out.

As I said before, Ratchet & Clank is my favourite game series (I even watched the movie), and I was beyond excited when a new game was announced. Even the sheer unlikelihood of actually getting a PS5 to play the game didn’t slow down my hype. As such, I had a lot of high expectations for Rift Apart. Despite some (admittedly minor) nitpicks I had about a few clunky mechanics here and there, the final product still remains one of the best games in the series, and a necessity for any PS5 owner. The lack of skill points and an Insomniac Museum do hold the game back from beating out A Crack in Time as my favourite in the series, and I was a tad disappointed by the absence of an option to freely switch between the two playable characters in the postgame. That said, the breathtaking graphics, smooth gameplay and sheer fun of Rift Apart easily makes it the second-best Ratchet & Clank game - and believe me, that’s high praise indeed. 9/10.