Rift Apart brings ray tracing - and not much else - to Ratchet & Clank

Forgiving action platforming. Non-frustrating puzzles (unlike in Fenyx Rising, which I had to bail on because I didn’t want to have to constantly consult a walk through while I played). An engaging new protagonist (Rivet). Enjoyable story beats.

I’m only about 40% through it right now but as a filthy casual, it hits all the right notes for me. You may just be too elite and jaded for it, Tom.

Also, just to chime in: I can’t remember any significant loading screens or filler. But I wasn’t looking for it.

I also just chose performance RT mode as the only way to play. Based on videos from Digital Foundry, it’s the perfect mixture of performance and eye candy. They surely would have made it the default if it hadn’t been a week 1 patch addition.

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

The raytracing in Rift Apart is mostly used for reflections. Both performance modes run at 60fps. Performance RT includes those reflections, but reduces the overall rendering resolution to achieve this compared to regular performance mode. The resolution difference is difficult to see, but the reflections make a huge difference in many scenes:

Performance-

Performance RT-

The game was designed to be a reflection showpiece, so there’s tons of glass, puddles, and metal surfaces all over that will get correct RT reflections.

Interesting screenshots. The reflection of the gold metal flower holders looks better in Performance than in Performance RT right?

I don’t have an opinion on the game, but I just popped in to say that I’m also not a fan of this new gen of console games inheriting a version of the variable quality settings from PCs. Either lock it down and don’t leave it to me to choose, or open it up completely and let me tweak everything like a PC.

I ordered a PS5 bundle yesterday morning with Ratchet and Clank just before this review came out. Horrible timing.

Guess I’ll just go back to playing more Old World. 😅

All this talk of ray tracing makes me feel like I’m reading a late-80s Amiga magazine. I’m assuming the difference is that now rays can be traced 60 times a second rather than once every 4 hours, or something.

It looks sharper, but less accurate. It’s probably being done with screen space reflections which basically just flips the image above upside-down to emulate a reflection. The RT one is fuzzier, but the actual vegetation look more 3 dimensional because the reflection is correct based on the way light is bouncing instead of being an approximation based on where the camera happens to be. The RT modes would also continue to show the reflection of the flower holder even if it was off screen. Without ray tracing those kinds of reflections mysteriously disappear. You can see that better in motion in lots of games where reflections will go away as you approach the edge of a scene, or if an object is briefly hidden behind a character, or the gun you’re holding in first person games.

It’s important for those of us that prefer smooth high framerate for action games. It allows developers to focus on graphics for the review scores and screenshots but they can still throw us a bone with a simple toggle that should be relatively easy to develop and test.

you think they maybe have dementia?

I own a Rift in Time, but have not have had time to play yet. I’m not expecting anything special, just something solid and good looking. It will help I’ve never played a Ratchet and Clank before.

But now you have a PS5, where is the Returnal review?

Having read this review, I honestly don’t know what to make of it. I have a hard time reconciling that the person who wrote this is the same person who write this and this.

Don’t mind the old jaded man. It’s a great game. You’re likely to enjoy it.

I honestly don’t understand how reflections got to be such a bullet point for graphics. I mean, it’s a reflection. I can just look at the thing being reflected instead! :)

I do get the importance of how light interacts with different surfaces as a subconscious way of tricking your brain that what it’s seeing is more real. But I don’t get why anyone would be willing to sacrifice half their framerate, especially when a game is specifically built to waste so much of that framerate to be a “reflection showpiece”. All that glass and metal, all those mudpuddles, just to sell Sony’s new PS5.

I mean, at least in Control, I didn’t feel that I was sacrificing framerate when I dropped an Nvidia 2070 into my system.

I think you mean Rift Apart. Crack in Time is two Ratchet & Clanks ago.

-Tom

I once bought a new video card just so I could get this water in Morrowind:

Reflections are the new water.

-Tom

I have the “My Blaster Runs Really Really Hot” trophy from a Crack in Time and you do not! Deal with it, Chick!

Gasp! You’re amazing. That’s the only trophy I’m missing in A Crack in Time.

Well yes, as you can see I’m not very well versed in Ratchet and Clank :)

Thanks! It was keeping me from my platinum for that game.
Any chance I can organically remind Tom I have it and he does not, I go for it!