Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Review
"Speedy Portals"
Campaign
The well loved duo of Ratchet and Clank return for their latest adventure, the first for them on the next generation hardware. This time they’re not alone, they’re joined by some dimensional counterparts and together the team aims to battle against the most intense Nefarious plot they’ve ever encountered.
It’s also one that may be a bit beyond what they’re used, as their Nefarious may not be the core problem along the way. With that, it’s a split story where you initially get a look at Rivet. This character is alone, trying to work within a rebellion against foes that control their current galaxy. It then shifts over to Ratchet and Clank, at a parade to honor them. They’re retired now, or have been for awhile and that thought is getting to Ratchet.
Things get a bit hectic as they always do and the fabric of reality is getting stretched beyond its limits due to some misuses of the Dimensionator. This is the catalyst for the adventures, splitting up friends and providing multiple perspectives to work through within this story. It’s a wild time as you battle through gorgeous areas, meeting twists on old friends and of course tackling a few bosses along the way.
It’s not necessarily the longest narrative in the series, but it feels dense with some real improvements to the general maturity of the story. Now with that, I do wish it was a tad longer as it felt somewhat shorter than I had expected. The game is also very straight forward, you work through the story and you’re basically done. There are some minimal extra side missions to take part in and an arena as well.
You could gather collectibles if that’s your thing, but it’s basically finished once you’re done the main story. I also wanted to mention that there are the strangest stop gap moments in the game. These parts where you do really boring puzzles that take you out of whatever you’re doing. I really hated those and they felt out of place, particularly with where they were slotted in. Basically killed the pacing and felt like padding.
Gameplay
This is very much your typical Ratchet and Clank setup. You’ve got weapons, you buy more as you collect points by defeating enemies or crates and then you upgrade them. There are some light platforming elements, and a boss or two to battle. These were honestly more like smaller stronger enemies though, with only a couple true boss type battles coming late within the story.
You do get some great movement options for traversal across expansive, yet linear environments. As mentioned there are a variety of ways to get around on the various planets, whether you’re on foot or perhaps in an animal vehicle of sorts too. You might find some dimensional portals to other areas and those were wild. There’s also basically no loading, you step into another world instantly which feels very next gen.
I honestly can’t even think of a moment where things loaded, it was miraculous in its delivery when it came to that feature. The worlds are also dripping with details and particle effects. Every area felt as though it was insanely detailed, and then adding enemies onto that was wild. You’d see shots being fired, items flying out into the air and maybe even environmental effects on top of that. It was seriously impressive, and looks like an animated movie in a game form. I also didn’t notice any pop-in which was lovely
This is seriously quite a step up for visuals, and a great way to kick off the generation. You do get a choice of visual options as well, three of them. All are dynamic in resolution scaling. You get a 4k 30fps option by default which has the best effects and some ray tracing. Then there’s a 4k 60fps option that looks really great, and finally another 4k 60fps option with ray tracing support. The latter two were my favorite choices for this one. No reason to give up the fluidity.
The Conclusion
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is an excellent new adventure for the duo and a beautiful showcase of just what the Playstation 5 can do. It reunites us with great characters, features a more mature story and sends us off hoping for further adventures within a growing team. It balances the new additions well and I was genuinely shocked by how much I enjoyed playing as Rivet.
A really fun, glowing personality that adds a nice and fresh dynamic for the team. I also very much appreciated the more fatherly type of role that Ratchet took on in how he interacted with certain individuals. Past that, I do wish that the campaign was longer as it felt somewhat short in comparison to what came prior and the padded puzzles were quite lame.
This was quite a technical achievement for the platform, it looks phenomenal and really just came across as playing an animated film. It’s seriously at that level of quality, just superb what they were able to achieve with the game’s visuals and style of play. I hope we see more adventures just like this in the years to come on the console platform.
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Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Review on Playstation 5
Review Code Provided by SIEC
Rating Overall: 9.0
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