Recent reviews by Renabu

TL;DR Get it on sale. Don't get hype.

The writers clearly didn't know anything about the previous games(The trilogy especially), and the plot is rushed. Ratchet and clank both act overly nervous about doing most anything and it just doesn't feel like the same duo we've come to know over the passed decade or so. Ratchet went from being a hothead to military trained to death defying gauntlet king and he's scared or amoeboids now?

Characters make pivotal decisions in seconds that make it very clear that there were plans to stretch certain character developments across a longer game, but we ended up with a handful of planets with too many scripted or uninteresting sections that drag down the game to a decent C grade or 6-7/10. Ratchet's effectively a boring nerd(Stronger words can describe this but I'll keep that to my friend circle), Kit's ok, and her being nervous actually made sense to me as a brand new character, but as another reviewer mentioned, she wouldn't hold up to scrutinyshe has her own personal issues that just "get resolved" with literally no explanation.

Rivet is unnecessarily a jerk at random, despite the very obvious things that happen around her that should convince her to not be a jackass to the people who aren't outright trying to hurt her. Dr Nefarious is ok but is effectively put in time-out. Emperor Nefarious has a striking attitude(That I love) and has moments where it's clear that he doesn't mess around, but he still ends up messing around(Which becomes very disappointing in the end), and in general they clearly wanted to focus on Rivet's universe of characters, but not enough to commit any meaningful amount of time to exploring them except for their Skidd(Who also only has a short screen time).

Kit sits at the top in terms of characters I like, and both Ratchet and Clank sit firmly at the bottom. Which is insane to me. Kit, Emperor Nefarious, Rivet, Dr Nefarious, Ratchet, Clank from most to least liked.

Clank made a dumb decision bringing the dimensionator out in public, yes, but Ratchet kicks off the entire game by shooting it when it's in Nefarious' hands. This entire situation is Ratchet's fault and Clank blames himself for it.

Personally, the biggest draw in any game for me is the gameplay. I prefer to spend most of my time doing something rather than watching cutscenes or sitting through scripted sequences. Thankfully, you're allowed to skip the vast majority of cutscenes, and a lot of the miscellaneous stuff is very easy to find(I found all the bolts and lorbs and spy bots on my first run, before starting the first loop, make of that what you will, lack of challenge or easy to 100%), so I don't have any complaints about the cutscenes specifically(We'll get to this in a moment). While the devs clearly had fun and were very creative about a select number of weapons that are very satisfying to use, there are still a number of weapons that definitely overlap and become redundant through the game. Several of the mini ally weapons could have been combined or tossed, in all honesty. Or like, why couldn't the Blackhole Storm just be the Burst pistol's ultimate form, like how the N60 Storm becomes the Hurricane? Yeah the explosion trait would be odd but it's effectively two different rapid fire weapons that could have just been one minigun in the end. My personal favorites are probably the Void Reactor(The shield gun that, while I see what they were going for, it's just not quite so good while leveling it up), and the Cold Front(It rivals the Ryno is how effectively it just clears the entire screen. It feels like a second, better Ryno because of how it functions in comparison(You'll want to find out for yourself because I was surprised when I found out, compared to it).

What I do have complaints about are these E3 Presentation style moments that suck any interactivity out of the game and bore me to death. One of the planets is halved by a long grinding section followed by a cutscene(Which has a large problem solved by a garbage single sentence that drains any sense of tension or danger from the entire section, and makes the planet feel very weak)It's Torren IV, that planet is the worst and the Fixer plot point is one of the weakest instances of having a seemingly giant and overwhelming problem solved by an asspull that I've ever seen. The flight sections aren't very interesting, and the big moments that are often punctuated by rift tethering generally put me to sleep. I'm sorry, but the rift gimmick doesn't really become all that interesting over time. It's a neat idea, but they don't really do anything truly innovative with it outside of giving you another place to move to. Could have had something like allowing your weapons to interact with the rifts, or anything really. The rift mechanic really only sees the use of moving from point A to point B and that's really all they do with it, outside of some hidden items.

Doing the mini puzzles is ok the first time, and to be fair, there's never been anything to really write home about when playing clank's sections in the original trilogy, but again, thankfully you can choose to just outright skip them. For the longest time, I was interested in Glitch right up until I did her puzzles. She won't shut up. Clanks are more interesting because they actually make you think about how to solve the puzzles, whereas Glitch's "puzzles" are more just stepping on buttons and mindlessly shooting the turrets and then the missiles and that's about it. I can give credit for the navigation, I liked moving around in her environments, but that's about it.


You'll never see people talking about this. The original trilogy clears it by a country mile. David Bergeaud cannot be topped because his music was extremely unique and experimental across every single planet. a good 90% of the songs will be more memorable than anything in this game, and it's mainly because the sound mixing is bad. The rift tethering sound is boosted, so it's loud, as well as the fighting, and very cluttered, so it tends to be drowned out. What the music actually is, is the kind of music you'd find in movies, the orchestral type. A lot of "Epic inspiring orchestral" pieces that mush together and beg to be noticed by your ears when the games default audio settings won't even give you the time of day on any of it, unless you're out of combat, or in the character menu(Which is one of the only decent pieces I liked and could hear). We had two different musicians on this game, and neither of them took any notes from the previous games to make anything unique, only to have a Nefarious theme and then everything else is just "Epic movie soundtrack" the album.

David's music is constantly remembered to this day because there was a general theme of weird, zany, and ear worm like moods across the board, with the occasional intense track that the game's audio respected enough to allow you to really take it in and get it stuck in your head. Rift Apart's music just sounds like any other song you'd hear if you watched a Marvel movie.
The credits song is alright though. I can't complain about that. Both Nefarious' singing was a big surprise.

Just go back. Get it on discount, or go back to the older games. This is kind of a let-down for anyone who's been a fan of the series for such a long time like myself, but an ok pick for someone who doesn't tend to think too hard about what's happening on the screen. Nobody feels like anyone you've known before, and you'll find yourself frustrated at the decisions people make, the music is unnoticeable, it's very easy to find everything if you're the type that enjoyed really going out of your way to find the secret collectibles, leaving good gameplay as the only stand out part. Only good, though.

This is literally the one game I've played all this year that's had the greatest story from start to finish, and there are multiple endings. Not going to spoil anything but the way the game plays out and how the story plays into it, makes the experience pretty deep in my opinion. Very much worth a look if you like a good story and a bit of bullet hell games as well.

Got put in a match where everyone literally ran at each other with axes and started chopping at players until they died.

10/10 would chop again.