So saw a crossover ship with Jak and Ratchet and I wanna ask, since both are adults (assuming) and they have met (I assume it was when both were teens I think?) is it okay to ship? I saw your ratchet and clank age thing and it has helped me try figuring out the characters ages.
So Jak is 19 and all I just wanna make sure that
1. ratchet didn't meet Jax as a teen while ratchet was adult
2. that both are adults.
Hey, whatever floats your boat pal. So long as neither party is explicitly portrayed as underage, I'd say it's fair game. It's fictional pixel people in the end, do whatever brings you joy.
Consider this a review of Rift Apart (PC ver). After playing this game twice on Renegade Legend, I have... opinions. Being a fan of the franchise since Going Command/Locked & Loaded, I admittedly have some strong biases for both the PS2 saga and the Future Trilogy for various reasons. But before I go lambasting this entry into the franchise, a TLDR summary;
Pros:
The game is pretty and well executed on a technical level (for the most part).
The platforming and movement is refined and a step up from previous titles.
Cons:
Quite literally almost everything else.
Also has a propensity for crashing (both freezing and blue screen of death).
Movement & Platforming
One of the core aspects of RaC that I am happy RA got right. The movement is buttery smooth and chain daisying from one platform to the next using wall runs, dashes and rift pulls is excellently designed. The addition of the dash function adds an extra dodge ability that was absent in previous entries although granted we can still use the age-old side jumping while aiming/shooting.
I do wish however that the hoverboots were more integrated into the platforming since most of the time you only ever need it for super long leaps or the timed step puzzles. Something like the jump pads from ACIT would be nice to see paired with the new wall run and dash mechanic. You hardly need to use it outside of Savali and Torren IV and the last part of the Nef Mech fight.
What I wished they truncated however was the glide mechanic the hoverboots had. Given that the hoverboots could both glide and make you go fast, it makes this better than whatever Clank could possibly offer. @erablisme has done a wonderful breakdown on this matter (see here), but essentially having the hoverboots be an upgrade of both the charge boots and fulfilling Clankās contribution to Ratchetās mobility (gliding) renders Clank, from a gameplay standpoint, moot. It renders Clank into nothing more than a glorified backpack/exposition device, which beats the entire purpose of the franchiseās own title.
Gameplay
Weapons
The arsenal, while fun to use, is too bloated. A lot of the guns overlap in functionality:
Shotguns: Enforcer, Pixelizer, Void Repulser
Seeker/Turret weapons: Agents of Doom, Bombardier, Mr Fungi
Crowd Control: Topiary Sprinkler, Cold Snap
Grenades: Shatterbomb, Bouncer
Rapid fire: Burst Pistol, Blackhole Storm
Lock-on weapons: Drillhound, Richochet, Buzzsaw, Lightning Rod
Heavy hitter: RYNO, Negatron Collider, Warmonger
Do we really need multiple weapons that do the same thing just with different particle effects?
The level up mechanic, while a staple of RaC games, is frankly outdated by this point and actively hinders the game. If anything, it punishes players for sticking to guns they enjoy once they hit max level. It makes the motivator for using weapons not be its function but rather to chase that arbitrary level cap. Plus, thereās no telling what the level up actually did for a weapon aside from damage buffs.
Itās not like they couldnāt do away with this feature, Deadlocked made the guns increase so many levels it frankly deemphasises them in favour of choosing the best weapon for any given scenario, ItN decreased the max level to 3 (6 on challenge) in favour of more meaningful weapon upgrades, and ACiT had the Constructo weapons and mods (which Deadlocked also had called Omega Mods) that incentivises experimentation on what combos worked best while allowing you to spice things up post max level. Why not tie weapon upgrades to collectibles? They already had the Raritanium collection, sprinkling effect mods for weapons throughout the locations shouldnāt be too difficult. They already did this for the armour system, so why not do it for the weapons too? Heck, why not make all the weapons customisable like the Constructo weapons? It would solve the bloated arsenal problem.
Enemy Design
The enemy design in this game just isnāt great. While it makes sense considering youāre fighting an army so itās obvious theyāre gonna have standardised units, you would think they would spice up their combat stratagem when they know they couldnāt beat our protagonists by throwing the same old shtick over and over. Instead, we keep having to fight the same miniboss Juggernaut over and over and over again. Sometimes thereās two of them! Make it three during the Juice fight!
Itās not a problem with just the Nefarious troopers, itās an issue across multiple factions too. Across all three factions (Space Pirates, Goons & Nefās army), they all follow the same formula;Ā
the one with the gun: Pirate Corsair, Goon, Nef Lasertrooper
the one that does melee: Space Pirate & Shield Pirate, Goon Rusher & Undead Goon, Nef Slugger
the tiny short range/melee swarmer: Cutlassies, Robomutt, Nef Trooper
the rinse repeat miniboss: Pirate Marauder, Nef Juggernaut
While stylistically different, they donāt differ much from how they shoot/do damage at you. It would have been great if they did some things different from one another. Some really simple fixes;
While I think giving shields to pirates makes little sense, it is some variety at least. Expand on that. Maybe make the Goon Rusher actually rush towards you faster than the others, or make the Nefarious Slugger can do 360 attacks or have more range since itās a) a robot, and b) basically has the Scorpion Flail for arms.Ā
Make the Vroom Goons try to ram you instead of just having to avoid the taser things it shoots cuz thatās the exact same thing that the Nefarious Sniperbot does since all you need to do to avoid both attacks is sidestepping it.
Make the Pirate Corsair shoot high damage while the standard Goon does horizontal strafing rapid fire compared to the Nef Trooperās vertical one
Make the Zoom Goons dodge your attacks, maybe give it a ground pound that opens it up to attack so it's at least somewhat different from the Nef Peacekeeper other than being a slightly squishier variant.
For a game so pretty it is bizarre they couldnāt put more effort into gameplay itself. The repeating minibosses get stale very quickly since once youāve figured out a tactic that worked, it is rinse and repeat across the whole game.
Two Protagonists, Same Shtick
The gameplay doesnāt differentiate itself between Ratchet and Rivet. They play the exact same way, with the exact same arsenal, and the exact same progression. What is the point of having separate playable protagonists if theyāre just gonna end up the same? You could replace Rivet with Ratchet and vice versa for 90% of the game and nothing would change. It would be something if they had separate weapons or separate movement gimmicks that make them distinct, but we didnāt get that for some reason.
Character Issues
The character writing is just abysmal, even when compared to the Future trilogy. While the Future trilogy (and by extension A4O, FFA and ItN) had plenty, and I mean plenty, of plotholes from a worldbuilding standpoint, the character writing was solid and fairly consistent. I cannot say the same for RA. Some examples;
Ratchet(?) & Clank(?)
I can hardly recognise Ratchet as the same character we had over the PS2 and PS3 instalments. He feels more like the 2016 reboot version just haphazardly retconned as the ItN version that RA was supposedly a continuation of. Being afraid of being a washed-up hero was Qwarkās thing, not Ratchetās. Why would he even care? The man was downright tired of being a hero come ItN. And why is he even worried about meeting the Lombaxes? He saved Polaris multiple times and beat Tachyon, yāknow, the reason why they left in the first place? The reason he gave up searching for the Lombaxes was because he had more going on with Talwyn and was assured the Lombaxes would do just fine without him. Why the sudden change of reason? What, is acknowledging Talwyn one too many female characters for Insomniac?
And why would Clank, despite knowing Ratchet not wanting to pursue the Lombaxes, go out of his way to make a whole ass parade about the Dimensionator? If he was just trying to cheer Ratchet up from his fear of being a washed-up hero (which, again, made no sense for his character) he would have just done the parade and given him the Dimensionator in private. The entire premise of Rift Apart hinges on the fact that Clank decides to give Ratchet what can be considered as a WMD since the Lombaxes used the Dimensionator to get rid of the Cragmites in an open public setting. Had he not done this, had he not told Qwark he wanted to surprise Ratchet, Nefarious probably wouldnāt have found out about the new Dimensionator, and the entire game wouldnāt have happened.
Another gripe I have with how Clank was handled was that his Zoni heritage was conveniently forgotten about. They could have tied the Zoni more deeply into the mysticism of the RaC universe and be the reason why he was able to fix the dimensional anomalies, but instead it was tied to Gary and... the Lombaxes. Huh.
Rivet, or as I like to call her, āFurbaitā
There is so much missed potential with Rivet. Where to start? Instead of a grizzled, closed-off survivor of a robot dystopia, we just get miss middle-of-the-road, clearly made for pandering, furbait. Design wise, she would have been perfectly serviceable had this NOT been a robot dystopia. The only physical giveaway to show that she was a survivor/rebel fighter was her arm. It is the only thing that shows sheās a rebel fighter survivor. Her suit is well made, her eyelashes are on fleek, her hair is silky smooth, her tail is all fluffy and clean. Nothing about her says she was a survivor. No scars, no dirt, nothing other than the obvious robot arm. It is lazy. Lazy and stupid.
Her personality doesnāt make sense for the universe she supposedly inhabits either. Heck, no one in this franchise fits well in this robot dystopia, tbh. She distrusts robots due to past experience, yetĀ is chummy with both Clank and Kit (and by some extension, the Zurkons & Pierre) relatively quickly. For someone who should have gone through a lot of adversity, she hardly acts like it. Sheās confident, has a lot of friends, and whatever negative aspect she does have (which is just distrust instead of the obvious robot racist she should have been) that would have given her an opportunity to grow as a character is watered down and conveniently forgotten, so she hardly grows as a character, if any.
Ultimately, Rivet boils down to being āWhat if Ratchet, but a girl?ā. Thereās work put into trying to make her her own thing, but thereās also the narrative yanking her by the collar to be Ratchetās other self. Sheās the last Lombax in her dimension, she also wonders where the Lombaxes went, and sheās trying to be a hero. At that point, how is she any different than Ratchet? They donāt even differ much personality wise for a version of Ratchet who never met her Clank, so to speak. One would think she would be the spunky RaC1 Ratchet since it was meeting Clank that got Ratchet to grow as a person. Instead sheās just your lovely neighbourhood Rivet, friend to all except robots except the ones she meets I guess. What is the point of having two main characters if they are just gonna end up the same?
Kit
While arguably the better other of the new duo, she has issues as well in the writing department. She had the most growth out of our titular cast, however how she got there is ramshackled at best.Ā
In comparison to Clank, he was a defective warbot, which made sense why he was small. Kit on the other hand was tailor made by the supposedly competent Emperor Nefarious, so why does she have a cutesy mode? Why does she even have a character crisis from hurting Rivet, for that matter? Stopping rebels was what she was designed to do, and she suddenly gained a conscience from doing her job? If Kit is so effective at what she did, why did Emp Nef stop at making just one of her? Shouldnāt there be multiple Kit models roaming about? She could mow down hordes of newer Nefarious Troopers and Juggernauts, so why didnāt Emp Nef expand on that?
These inconsistencies make Kit as a character start falling apart as soon as you give it more scrutiny than a surface level glance. The writers could have easily solved these issues by just alluding that she might have been an outdated model, or was damaged and abandoned on Savali where Gary and the monks fixed her up and gave her a new purpose ā protecting the Archives. Instead of an exterminator, she became a guardian. They could have taught her how to be more āhumanā as it were, too,Ā which would tie up nicely to why she regrets her actions in her previous line of work. Instead, they went with the āOh no, what have I done, I did my job and injured a trespasser, now Iām gonna be a recluse on Savaliā route.
She doesnāt gel well with Rivet either because the only one actively having something to overcome was Kit. Had Rivet been written better (having to overcome her prejudices, letting go of her past trauma, solving her trust issues) it could work with Kit growing out of her self doubt and regrets, but it just isnāt there. Plus, there weren't enough scenes of them together to build towards that conflict resolution that would make their friendship more believable. She has more of a relationship with Ratchet than Rivet.
āEmPeRoRā Nefarious
He is boring. Simple as. There is no driving motivation to him other than āconquer everythingā. We could have gotten an Ultron (which would make a perfectly sensible callback to the Biobliterator shtick our Nef pulled from UYA) but we just end up with a sassy English bastard with the personality of wet bread. There was no fun interplay between him and our Neffy, anything to make both their personalities shine as they work together or grind against each other, it just sucks.
The Plot(holes)
Imma just list it down.
How does a helmet clearly designed to fit a Lombax head is supposedly āone size fits allā?
How did the fish kid Rivet saved in the intro made it around Nef City in the first place if this was supposedly a robot dystopia that eradicated all squishies? What, was he just having a stroll, taking some fresh dystopian air? Could have made it that this was a fellow rebel she was tasked to save cuz he had some intel that he swiped and Rivet decided to use herself as bait to draw attention away from him so he could get the intel out of there, but no.
On that matter, why do planets like Savali and Torren IV still have organic inhabitants?
What was Skidd trying to achieve by hacking the propaganda blimp? This served no purpose at all narratively since it didn't even turn any robots against the Neffies.
Why was Skidd even in Nef City, for that matter? What was his original mission that he was going undercover for? Busting Rivet out of prison? Couldnāt be, since he made no mention of it.
Why did none of Emp Nef's cronies question our Nef just popping in despite looking clearly different? Heās a whole head shorter and the wrong colour. What, do they not have colour vision?
How did Emp Nef know about the existence of the dimensional map? He barely knew about the Dimensionator so how does that make sense?
If Ratchet already has hoverboots, why couldnāt he dash/sprint with it until he gets to Savali?
Where and when did Rivet get a rift tether?
Where and when did Rivet get a pair of hoverboots?
Wasnāt the Space Pirates/Decadroids designed by Tachyon? Why do they exist in this dimension? Why arenāt they allied with Emp Nef since they too are robots? None of this is explained.
Where did the Lombaxes of Rivetās dimension disappear to? Did they have a Tachyon-like threat in this dimension too? Did Emp Nef wipe them out? Donāt know, and the game doesnāt bother explaining it cuz Rivet is supposed to be girl Ratchet and nothing beyond that.
Why would Emperor Nefarious announce for the whole galaxy to see where he was going during the finale? Did he lose that much intelligence in the short timeframe weāve known him? This is the guy who conquered the galaxy?
Why would he leave a portal for our protagonists to conveniently follow him through?Ā
Where did that telekinetic abilities of him suddenly disappear to?
Where was this dimensionās Lawrence counterpart? That stupid little secretary is so dumb as to not recognise her own boss she couldnāt possibly be the Lawrence replacement.
Environmental Storytelling & Worldbuilding
Environmental storytelling & worldbuilding has never really been Insomniacās strong suit. RA is pretty and all, but aside from Blizar Prime, none of the other locales did anything different from Ratchetās dimension. If this was supposed to be a galaxy where Emp Nef has conquered it all, you would think that thereād be more neon, more cyberpunk, more Emp Nef aesthetic, more robots flying about. Instead, we just got the same thing we had from Ratchetās dimension, just in prettier graphics. It is set dressing with no story to tell. It's a puddle pretending it was an ocean. While I appreciate seeing the graphical glow up the locations got, itās a missed opportunity to actually show the impact Emp Nef had.Ā
Take Nefarious City for example;
How was Ratchet able to move around Nef City without raising alarms? This negates the entire point of Rivet needing a robot disguise in the first place.
Why does a static statue in the middle of a city have a terminal that activates a platform that leads to Emp Nef's office in the first place?
On that note, why is an EMPEROR working from an office? Whereās the throne? The grand palace and palisades? The royal guards? If heās an authoritarian that likes to take control, whereās the giant screen with a hundred monitors that watch every inch of Nef City?
Why does Emp Nef have a tiny four seater shuttle? If he needed to commute planet-side, wouldnāt he have something more posh? More grand? A Rolls Royce of shuttles instead of what can be considered a slightly pricier but still shitty Tesla model? They could have made Ratchet or Rivet have to steal a fighter jet and that would make infinitely more sense than what we got.
The same can be said with the inhabitants of this universe. They only exist to serve as plot devices or to point the protagonists to the next goal rather than actual people. There is no culture, no differing beliefs, nothing to tell you about what they are about or what they do. If all they exist to do is to be exposition devices/mission pointers, what was the point of even making distinct characters? Then again, the Future trilogy suffered the same problem with environmental characters being practically stand-in cardboards so points for consistency, I guess.
Verdict
Essentially, Rift Apart is a creatively bankrupt, designed-by-committee tech demo for Sony Playstation. What used to be a franchise that does satirical commentary on capitalism that later tried to delve into narrative/character driven sci-fi story, has ended up being the most capitalistic-designed entry imaginable. Which is unfortunate because I want to like this game. God, do I want to like it.
Did I enjoy playing it? When it works and doesn't crash on me, sure.
Do I like it enough as an entry to the franchise though? No, no I don't. The gameplay hardly expanded on the RaC formula, and the narrative just killed it for me.
But of course, that's just me. If you enjoyed RA, more power to ya. If you told me to play it again, I'll probably do it. It's just not for me for the long run.
An adopt I got from my good friend Saint (checkout his awesome Warhammer 40k account voices-of-favor, my man paints mighty fine minis} some time last year. Took my sweet ass time finishing this one but I'm happy he finally gets to see the light of day now.
A quick refresh of the old design to be more inline with more recent design trends in Ratchet and Clank. Garrison colours, very much inspired by the Praetorian armour which I have mixed feelings about.
My half of an art trade with @terra-drone - he asked me to draw his lombax OC, Yona, who I was delighted to take a crack at because he is my favourite of Terraās OCs! š
Thereās a protest going on against AI art over on artstation, so I feel like now is the time for me to make a statement on this issue!Ā
I wholeheartedly support the ongoing protest against AI art. Why? Because my artwork is included in the datasets used to train these image generators without my consent. I get zero compensation for the use of my art, even though these image generators cost money to use, and are a commercial product.Ā
Musicians are not being treated the same way. Stability has a music generator that only uses royalty free music in their dataset. Their words: āBecause diffusion models are prone to memorization and overfitting, releasing a model trained on copyrighted data could potentially result in legal issues.ā Why is the work of visual artists being treated differently?
Many have compared image generators to human artists seeking out inspiration. Those two are not the same. My art is literally being fed into these generators through the datasets, and spat back out of a program that has no inherent sense of what is respectful to artists. As long as my art is literally integrated into the system used to create the images, it is commercial use of my art without my consent.
Until there is an ethically sourced database that compensates artists for the use of their images, I am against AI art. I also think platforms should do everything they can to prevent scraping of their content for these databases.Ā
Artists, speak out against this predatory practice! Our art should not be exploited without our consent, and we deserve to be compensated when our art is exploited for commercial use.Ā
Some Primagen concepts from yesteryear. I wanted to make the difference between Primagens and Protogens more apparent since, lbr, theyāre kinda hard to distinguish on first glance. Not enough unique modifiers on their silhouette to set them apart. So I double dipped on the synthetic angle and made them completely mechanical and bestial.
Of course this is only my personal interpretation of Primagens and should not be taken as canonical material. If you wanna draw inspiration from this lil exploration of mine, feel free to do so.
