Can Insomniac Games be trusted with Ratchet and Clank ?

npzman

Many people including myself are hyped for Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart for the PS5. But I am only hyped with caution because in their previous game back in 2016 which was a reimaging of the orginal 2002 game. The 2016 had decent gameplay, great graphics but botched storytelling and writing. Insomniac should literally lift their game up and stop cutting corners.

Lack of interaction between Ratchet and Clank during cutscenes and bad character development. The Galactic rangers didn't have enough screen time, and the players didn't get to know the rangers well. Unfortuanlly the developers stills find edgy humor from earlier Ratchet and Clank titles cringeworthy. Yet Insomniac says they care a lot about story telling imao.
The trespasser should only be skippable during challenge mode. Just like the vid-comics in Up Your Arsenal. There was never a need to tell the players which trespasser puzzle was a bonus section as that should have been for the players to find out on their own.
The halo Jump should have been featured on Ratchet and Clank 2016 as a gameplay just like in UYA and TOD but was only depicted as a cutscene taken from the movie when Ratchet and the galactic rangers was freefalling in Quartu. Clank's gameplay overall is just annoying and just slow. You can't even glide anymore if I recall correctly. A crack in time had the best clank gameplay in the entire series. They should have inherited the double jump clank move from ACiT. There was also no area battle or death courses in the game they could have brought back Annihilation Nation as it was a combat sports in the Solana Galaxy where the reimaging has taken place or they could have made Drek run Dreadzone an illegal combat sports show. The ranger’s tryouts in veldin should not be counted as a deathcourse or arena. Another thing the game has lacked was a hub level the phoenix or the hall of heroes in Aleero City would have been great for that.
The insomniac museum in Ratchet and Clank 2016 didn’t show a single unused thing from any Ratchet and Clank game. Instead, it was just a place where they dumped a bunch of old assets from previous games. There was no developer commentary to boot. It merely became a place to view cutscenes something that could have been done anywhere via the extras menu just like how it was done in previous Ratchet titles. At the time of the game’s release, the last game to have an insomniac museum was ACiT back in 2009. We had three more games from insomniac between ACiT and RaC 2016. Where was the unused stuff from those games?

As a result, I don't think that Ratchet and Clank 2016 deserved a 9/10 from IGN but it's still a decent at best game either way. Let's hope Insomniac learns from their mistakes when Rift Apart comes out this June 11th.

npzman

There was no proper photo mode in Ratchet and Clank 2016 their "photo mode" patch was just them adding a option to hide the game's HUD and using the Plasma Striker to zoom in. Meanwhile another sony first party game Uncharted 4: A Thief's End had a actual photo mode which had came out in the same month as RaC 2016. Rift Apart does have a proper photo mode which can give Ratchet fans a glimmer of hope that insomniac is actually listening and improving.
No Multiple saves RaC2016 even after people complained about into the nexus not having multiple saves in the now closed insomniac game's forum site.
No weapon modding mechanics. When you change the armor or ship color in the extra menus. Close the game and play them game some more later. The armor and ship goes back to it's default colors. The game overall had lacked proper customization the predecessors had.
The game's length was too short and it was delayed by over an entire year.