Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Main Review - by James (PS5)

I hadn’t played a game of this genre for many, many years, not least because I always kind of assumed that they were more aimed at children that middle-aged men! But having seen constant recommendations for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart online and with it being one of the highest-rated PS5 games (and the fact that it was included on PS Plus) I decided to see if it really was as good as everyone said it was.

In short, yes, it was. However, if you fancy a bit more detail, here we go…

First off, the graphics are excellent, which coupled with the really impressive framerate means that the game feels super-polished and super-fast – a combination that very few games manage to successfully achieve. It feels like it makes pretty decent use of the PS5’s capabilities and isn’t the kind of game that would look or play anywhere nearly as good on a PS4.

Secondly, it’s pretty much non-stop from start to finish with almost constant waves of enemies to battle against and then a lot of occasionally tricky parkour to deal with to get from one battle scene to the next. As long as you stay on track there is very little downtime, aside from the occasional cutscene, some pretty short flights from one location to another and a smattering of puzzles to overcome.

Most of the puzzles are pretty straightforward, but there are a collection involving floating power balls that can take a bit of brainpower to figure out, particularly later in the game.

Effectively you must put the various power balls, including electric and floating ones, in the correct locations to help guide the instances or Clank to the end, similar to the classic 90s game, Lemmings. I enjoyed these puzzle parts, as it gave me a bit of a break from the action, but I know Giles found them a bit odd and that they didn’t really fit in with the general flow of the game that well.

The storyline overall I really enjoyed. There’s lots in there about friendship, overcoming evil, not giving up and doing what’s right. There’s also a pretty good redemption arc in there for one of the characters but I won’t spoil that for you too much…

There is a great array of weapons you can unlock during the game, and each of these weapons are then upgradable by spending the bolts that you can collect throughout the game by smashing stuff up. This gives the weapons better range or better aim etc and really helps, particularly in some of the boss battles. Personally, I messed it up entirely as I forgot you could change your weapon for about half of the game so I was facing every enemy with a small laser gun and a hammer, which wasn’t ideal!

My inability to change weapon probably made my play through a bit longer than it might otherwise have been and I think I racked up around 11-12 hours just to complete the main mission with a handful of side quests. There are a lot more side quests I could have completed though, along with lots of things to collect, so I felt that the overall game length was pretty good for this type of game.

The only bit I really started to get frustrated at was the final boss battle. Again, I won’t spoil it, but it took a LOT of attempts, a lot of accuracy and a lot of patience!

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is definitely a game I’m glad I picked up. Although it’s not my normal thing, it was good fun, technically really strong, had a good storyline, was a decent overall length and contained a lot of strong action sequences and parkour throughout. Most importantly though, it’s just a lot of fun! Definitely something I would recommend to anyone or any age, even if it’s not your normal genre of game.