Says the guy whose only contribution to the thread is forgetting how many elevators there are. But I’m always around if you ever feel like having a conversation.
Well, yeah, depending on the difficulty level you’re playing on. But you don’t want to get me started on that discussion, do you? At any rate, I don’t see how the difficulty level is in any way a selling point unless you’ve somehow been forced to live in a cave with nothing but Souls-likes for the last ten years.
Otherwise, yes, classic action platforming! In that regard, this is every bit as good as any other Ratchet & Clank game. I can tell you that from experience because I went back to the 2016 PS4 game while playing Rift Apart. And guess what? If you just want classic action platforming, it holds up.
Oh, I’ll give you non-frustrating puzzles. That’s one way to put it! But to my mind, they were so “non-frustrating” that they felt like busywork. And doesn’t it strike you odd that the option to skip them is placed so prominently? That just feels like a concession that they’re filler.
But I’m glad you bought up Fenix, because I felt that game has a much better handle on how to integrate combat, traversal, and puzzles, all in one tight bundle. You mentioned referring to a walkthrough, and I always consider that a failure on the part of a game. If I resort to a walkthrough, the game has failed. Usually just by not holding my attention or interest enough for me to figure it out (so maybe it would be more accurate to say we failed together). But sometimes a game fails because the puzzle solutions are just so obscure or the mechanics are so obtuse, and if I want to keep playing, I have to resort to a walkthrough. However, in defense of my favorite game from last year, I don’t think I ever needed to look up a puzzle solution for Fenix. And I’m not saying that in as a way of claiming to be smarter or better than you, because I’m sure I’m not, and I suck at puzzles. But I’m saying that because it’s a sign to me that Ubisoft got the puzzle/action balance just right.
Whereas my feeling about Ratchet & Clank is that they’ve only ever been a combat game, and the traversal and puzzle stuff has never been very well integrated. They’re just kind of glommed on to the side, sitting there inert, until the script decides to jam them in your way like a commercial break. But, yes, I can understand the appeal of non-frustrating puzzles.
Don’t you miss the hacking minigames, though? You’re really okay with just jumping into another shooter when it comes to hacking?
I did like the Rivet voice actress a lot! Partly because I’m so sick of hearing everyone else, but also because she was actually energetic, as if she were excited to be there. But the Ratchet and Clank guys themselves? They sounded bored out of their skulls. The Dr. Nefarious guy, the Skids guy, and the Captain Quark guy are all capable voice actors, but they’ve been stuck on the same shrill note for the last, what?, four or five games. (Note that I reserve the right to exempt A Crack in Time from all complaints/whinges/observations about the series as a whole!)
But as for enjoyable story beats, that’s kind of vague. What are you liking?
The issue for me is that I feel the folks writing Ratchet & Clank are just so bad at dialogue, character development, and especially humor that the actual plot feels immaterial. And it can’t have helped that it played out so much like Loki, but without going to the lengths Loki went. The stuff with Rivet and Kit’s arm felt like a direct rip-off of How to Train Your Dragon. And the blatant Iron Giant killer robot stuff just felt gross given that Clank was already obviously copied from the Iron Giant design. I guess I didn’t mind so much back when I liked the games enough to tolerate the stories. :(
I hate to tell you this, but with the way it calculates percentage complete, you’re closer to the end than you think. At the end of my first playthrough, I think it showed me at less than 50%? I’d have to go back and check, but I was surprised when I got the “this is the last level, are you sure you want to play it?” message.
Dude, I’m too jaded for everything. I’m a critic. I’m not sure you can accuse me of being elite, though. Did you see my Top Ten List for 2021 (So Far)? There’s a whole lotta lowbrow on there. Including Rift Apart!
Well, that’s kind of the deal with the PS5, isn’t it? It sure sets it apart from the Switch. But I’m still not sure why anyone thinks I care about loading times, much less that I’m complaining about them. I haven’t said one word about loading time in Rift Apart.
Wait, what was a patch addition? Performance RT? So now they’re adding even more graphics settings? Ugh.
I didn’t look closely, but I didn’t really notice much difference, visually, between Performance RT and Performance. I just noticed how much smoother they were than Fidelity. Which gets back to me having no idea what ray tracing is. Ironic, given the amount of money I’ve spent on hardware that specifically supports ray tracing…
I was mainly toggling between Fidelity and Performance. But once I started on the second playthrough, I just decided “fuck it”, dialed it down to Performance, and then forced myself to leave it alone. I can adjust to sub-optimal graphics in a way that I can’t adjust to sub-optimal framerates.
-Tom