There have been many mascots that have tried to make a name for themselves when it came to the Playstation systems. During the PS1 era, the two biggest mascot names that were dominant throughout the console’s runtime were Naughty Dog’s Crash Bandicoot and Insomniacs Spyro the Dragon. When the PS2 arrived, both companies had to part with their rights to Spyro and Crash respectively. By the time the early 2000s came around, both companies have found their grove again by creating two new platforming mascots with Naughty Dog putting out Jak and Daxter and Insomniacs Sci-Fi adventure that will be taking a look at simply titled Ratchet and Clank.
On a distant planet, there lives a robot factory that accidentally makes a defective robot. When the robot discovers the hidden evil plans of a business tycoon named Executive Chairman Drek he barely escapes the facility and uses an escape pod to launch himself into space. Meanwhile, on planet Veldin, we meet Ratchet, an average teenage Lombax trying to get his ship up and running so he can leave his planet and go exploring. Ratchet witnesses the escape pod crashing onto his home planet and goes to investigate only to find a small tiny robot who seems to be knocked unconscious.
Ratchet brings the little robot back to his ship only for it to come back to life and tell Ratchet about the evil plans of Chairman Drek. he makes a deal with Ratchet that if he takes him to the famed galactic hero named Captain Quark, he can use his robotic engineering skills to start his ship to help Ratchet get off planet Veldin. Ratchet decides to call the little robot Clank and the two set out on the adventure of a lifetime. However, Ratchet and Clank have different goals and agendas that will likely put their personalities and cooperative skills to the test.
The storytelling is overall wacky and cartoonish in the best way possible. Its messages of consumerism and business deals are over the top and make the world of Ratchet and Clank much more interesting. The Characters Ratchet and Clank meet along their journey have tons of personality and some of them have hidden secrets that can make them more mischievous than we as the audience were made to believe. There is also some really good character development for both our main leads. Ratchet starts as being selfish and egotistical but later finds it in himself to put aside his and Clank’s differences to work together and stop a common threat. Even Clank learns a thing or two about being a good companion even when someone is acting like a complete jerk. Ratchet and Clank don’t get along through a good chunk of the story which I will admit when I was younger I thought was rather annoying but looking back after a few years of playing I’m starting to see how great it is from a character development point of view. The story provides a lot of humor but also a good character dynamic with our two leads and the end product finalizes itself into an entertaining experience.
This game is a 3D sci-fi platformer and it takes full advantage of that fact by having a great atmosphere for every planet you visit, graphics that are definitely of the time but still have a lot of attention to detail covering every inch of the screen and great platforming that encourages you to explore every nook and cranny of every level to find bolts and collectibles. The gameplay is easy to understand and as you play through the story you’ll be able to unlock different upgrades and weapons that you can use to defeat enemies or get to areas you couldn’t get to otherwise. Some of the weapons they introduce have a lot of creative outcomes like the glove of doom can spawn mini-robots to destroy enemies or the Visabomb gun will allow you to shoot missiles from far away.
There are things that could have been improved upon. Things like the weapon selection and the jumping could have been worked on a little more but those are only minor nitpicks when compared to the final product. Some of the extra challenges tend to break up the gameplay from time to time. Things like using a ship and shooting down enemies in space are great while others like the hoverboard races could have been improved upon slightly. The music is spunky and sci-fi inspired to add to the tone and style of what the game goes for. The music is done by David Bergeaud who would go on to score the rest of the future Ratchet and Clank games in the series.
There is a reason why Ratchet and Clank have become PlayStation icons in their own right as this Insomniacs created platformer has great and likable characters a good story with nice character development, PS2 era graphics that may not have aged the best but are still a joy to take in and gameplay that does almost everything a cartoonish sci-fi adventure game should do. If you want to know why Ratchet and Clank are as popular as they are, do not hesitate to play this game cause it’s everything people say it is and more.
(Final Grade: A-)