Is the Rachet & Clank series still good

Always remember that Insomniac's excuse for selling Spyro like a cheap whore, was that they didn't know what to do with the character after the third Game, despite teasing us with a cliffhanger at the end of it.

But they had absolute no problem with making eleven(11!) fucking Rachet&Clank Games, plus giving the license to other developers for 3 more Games.

This is their fault.

R&C is better than Spyro.

Uh, spyro 3 didn't end on a cliffhanger unless you didn't 100% it.

Oh my god

According to the character design of the first R&K yes

The golden age. While Deadlocked is hit or miss, Insomniac made all good games.

Some of the games were good, some were average

A game to accompany a movie that is the remake of the first game? You must be kidding
I suppose stuff will start going downhill from here

I'm talking about the book page, that talks about Ripto and Gnasty Gnorc founding a Alliance to solve the "Spyro problem".

A Crack In Time is my favourite R&C

Unlike others here have said, all of the main Ratchet & Clank games (1,2,3,Deadlocked,Tools of Destruction, Quest for Booty, Crack in Time, Into the Nexus) are good and worth playing.
Quest for Booty and Into the Nexus are much shorter than the other games but both have some nice parts in them.

The new Remake apparently has the best gameplay in the series, but the story is hit and miss, since it's designed to be played with the movie. Worth getting if you have a PS4. Also vid related seems to be a problem. I haven't played it yet so don't take my words as fact

The PS4 game was actually pretty fun. Just a little short.

To be fair, it's quite fun. The people talking seem to just be a problem if you're blazing through it and the cutscenes don't last more than three minutes. Probably not worth full price but it's still smooth. Plus (a limited amount of) collectables.

First game was great.
Second game was better.
Third game is generally considered to be the best of the original three.
Deadlocked is alright.
ToD is okay.
QFB is kinda shit.
CiT goes back to being good.
ITN is okay.

All of the mainline R&C games are good(gameplay wise, I wasn't a fan of the cutscenes in R&C future). The problem is the gameplay has barely been improved upon over time so the games feel stale as fuck.

Which is resolved in the 100% ending. I'm so sorry I have to be the one to tell you this user

PS2 Ratchets are all great. Great gameplay, very funny, cool planets to explore and good music. Always felt like they were trying to push the limit and put new things into each game. The PS3 games killed the humor and added in a story no one cares about and characters that overstay their welcome for far too long and aren't funny. I always felt the weapons were less inspired and combat wasn't as well put together, too. They're okay since the combat is still decent and there's some okay setpieces but it's a significant step down. Crack in Time stands out among the PS3 games because the setpieces are a lot better than the other games and because exploring the small planets in each system is pretty fun. It captures some of the "pushing the limit" feeling that the PS2 games had, even if it's still not as fun to play and the story and characters are still crappy. They also put out a couple of shovelware spinoffs which were horrible and really pushed the new, awful designs for the characters to new levels.

I have no desire to play the PS4 game, the original games should've been left to rest and not redone in the modern style.

I think Ratchet just started wearing shoes with his armor past the first game, so you never see them.

...

Is there a memoriam of Dan Johnson?
3 and Crack in Time had the best Museums to be honest.

new PS4 game was fun
if you dunt think so you clearly didn't play it niglet :^)

...

I know and? Doesn't change the fact that they promised us a 4th game with Ripto and Gnasty, but that never happened because they sold Spyro like a child prostitute.

All 4 One was pretty good if you played it co-op. It was probably fine on its own, just too different from the formula for the standard Holla Forumsaggot.

Quest for Booty is standalone DLC, not worth getting in the slightest because it doesn't even add anything beyond levels. The weapons are from the game before it and you find most of them already levelled because of how damn short the game is.

Needing to play it with friends just so the game can be fun means the game is not fun at all.

But they didn't, which is his entire point. The entire Ripto and Gnasty alliance is resolved in the ending without there needing to be a game. There was no cliffhanger, because it was already concluded by the end of the game.

Deadlocked > Everything

Exterminate the squishies

What happened?

Anyone know the artist they hired to do the Japanese box art for the games? I always liked his style, shame they just went with generic renders for the box arts during the Future series.

Yeah, there's a statue of him with a unique camera angle, I think. At least they had that.

Here is more Japanese box arts.
hardcoregaming101.net/japanboxes/japanboxes2.htm

I'd argue Deadlicked was better than one.

The first four were good. The PSP spin-offs were meh, the future trilogy was hit or miss, the 4player co-op and tower defense games were shite, and Into the Nexus was… Odd.

Just go play your Halo, faggot. I was mad that the rush to make every game a shooter ruined a perfectly good Ratchet game back then, and I'm still mad 10 years later. It's actually still a pretty good game, but definitely the worst on PS2. Up Your Arsenal suffered from the same problem, just to a slightly lesser degree. The single player, where the series excels, suffered as they tried to focus on tacked on multiplayer instead.

The recent game is probably the weakest non-spinoff in the series. But it's still good. Of course it's helped by the fact that games have become shit since the original Ratchet, so standards are lower.

Even the spinoffs are mostly pretty good though. Full Frontal Assault is probably the weakest, but it wasn't sold as a full priced game, and it comes with the Vita version for download, and the PS3 version of Deadlocked for download. So still a good deal. Quest for Booty is also only a few hours long but was sold for like $15 or something when it was new. Into the Nexus was another traditional style Ratchet game, but advertised as being shorter and cheaper. It's much longer than Quest for Booty and holds up reasonably well against the full length games.

Going Commando > Tools of Destruction > Ratchet & Clank 1 > A Crack in Time > Up Your Arsenal > Deadlocked > Ratchet & Clank (2016) > Into the Nexus > Secret Agent Clank > Size Matters > All 4 One > Full Frontal Assault > Quest for Booty

It got good again with Tools of Destruction. And even Up Your Arsenal and Deadlocked were still very good, even if they suffered for trying to focus on online instead of the single player the series was best at.

Going bananas with the weapon designs has always been the entire point of the series, you mongoloid. The first game has a gun that turns people into giant exploding chickens. It's the only gun in the game with infinite ammo. They expect you full well to run around filling every level with giant exploding chickens.

You never even liked Ratchet in the first place. Deadlocked is barely a Ratchet game at all. Still good, but it was clearly Insomniac just practicing for Resistance: Fall of Man.

Insomniac never owned Spyro. Universal did.

And what the fuck is the cliffhanger at the end of Spyro 3? It literally ends with them thanking you for playing the Spyro Trilogy, and the cast waving goodbye. They knew full well it was their final game.

That was a joke, obviously.

The new game is great for what's there. What's there is the original game with less levels. Some levels are expanded, some are completely different, but a lot of the best ones aren't there. Aside from being able to strafe and upgrade your weapons, the game doesn't add much that the original didn't have. Also the story was clearly made for the movie, it makes sense for the pacing of a movie, and scenes that were in the movie but left out of the game make the movie better. But as the game is, the story isn't as good as the story from the first game, which it is remaking. Although it does a couple interesting things.

That said, it's still one of the best games in years. But that just shows how shitty vidya has become.

Also people complaining about the voices are just memesters. There is almost no repetition in the game. They just say mostly story related stuff as you go through the levels. There's nothing wrong with that. The only repetition you'll hear is when you're repeating the hoverboard races, which you do have to do three times if you want the gold cup. But that's not a big deal at all.

The stories are fine and still have lots of humor. They just also tried to put more running plot threads in the series. Even if they never actually resolved one of those threads before the reboot they didn't say what happened to Max Apogee, right? All 4 One might be one of the worst in the series, but it's pretty funny. The comic is great in that regard, too. That said, I do still think the first two games in the series have the best stories.

And the only character with a significantly different design is Captain Qwark, because he has a nose. And oh I guess The Plumber has glasses now. Big deal. Definitely worth complaining about. If anything I'd be complaining that The Plumber is no longer The Janitor from Scrubs.

Dan is referenced in the game. He's the final skin you unlock for getting enough Skill Points. They even reference him in the movie. Nothing will ever be as good as the reference in Into the Nexus, though.

Why are you playing if not for levels? Quest for Booty is worth playing specifically because it is more levels. I mean most of the weapons in most of the games are just the same thing with different names anyway. The new game even acknowledges this in the cards you collect. Quest for Booty is standalone DLC, but if you like the game it's standalone DLC for, it's worth playing, even if it is short. Plus you can probably find it super cheap now.

And I played All 4 One by myself. It's still fun. Plays more like a traditional Ratchet & Clank game when you do, which makes it a bit of a different experience than the multiplayer. If you go in expecting a regular entry in the series you won't get it. But it's pretty good for what it is.

Up Your Arsenal was better than Going Commando, especially since they took away the ship battles. And Deadlocked was a fine Ratchet game, the only problem was how it split missions. If it just set you on a world and continuously gave you missions, it would've felt better.

I did actually. That's a record breaking jump to conclusions just because I like Deadlocked the most out of the ones I've played l.

The ship battles in Going Commando were great, too. So were the hoverbike races. Up Your Arsenal just removed a good deal of the exploring and platforming levels for big shooter maps. And the single player was shorter because they had to spend time working on the lackluster multiplayer instead, which doesn't even exist anymore.

Great, a R&C thread. I've been dusting off my PS2 and finally completed R&C3 after years of not playing it. Now I really want to get into the PS3 era, but I don't know which game should I take? I've heard there are "Future" which are the "real" ones and spin off coop games that are more DLCs than real games. So what would you recommend to me?

Thanks

Also, for information, it seems that Ratchet always had two claws on his feet

I'd let her exterminate my squishie if you know what I mean.

1 is the worst of the 4 in my book, mostly due to how dated everything feels.
Don't get me wrong, it was a supreme first game, but so many minor things needed fixing, nostalgia goggles tend to cover that shit.

Just play the games in order. The order is

Tools of Destruction
Quest for Booty
A Crack in Time
All 4 One
Full Frontal Assault
Into the Nexus

Of those, only Tools of Destruction and A Crack in Time are "main" games. Full size games that are the same genre as the PS2 games. Quest for Booty and Into the Nexus are the same genre, but shorter. Quest for Booty is very short, but Into the Nexus is much longer. I highly recommend Into the Nexus, and if you want what is basically standalone DLC for Tools of Destruction, then get Quest for Booty.

Quest for Booty provides a minor story bridge between Tools of Destruction and A Crack in Time. Into the Nexus, however, was clearly intended as the final game in the series, since they knew they were rebooting it after. The last level is especially very cathartic. Just don't go in expecting a game as long as the main series. Though it's a decent length anyway.

All 4 One is a co-op focused game that plays a bit different due to this. Everything is a little more shallow but if you're a big fan it's still worth playing. If you play single player it does play a little more like the main series, but it's certainly not as fleshed out. It isn't particularly important to the story or anything, so if you get bored you can just skip it. The Ratchet & Clank comic is also a prequel to All 4 One (though it does stand on its own very well) and makes the game's story more enjoyable. Maybe the best video game comic I've seen. All 4 One is the only one of the spinoff games that wasn't sold for very cheap when it was new. But I'm sure you can find it cheap now.

Full Frontal Assault is probably the worst in the series but still okay. It controls like the main Ratchet games but has a tower defense focus. It's also fairly short. Worth a try to see if you're into it. It was cheap on release and probably cheaper now, and it comes with downloads for the Vita version of itself and the PS3 version of Deadlocked, which I figure makes it worth the $10 or whatever you'd find it for.

I also recommend the PSP games. I think they were ported to PS2 as well. They're short but good. Not as good as the main series, of course, but definitely worth playing. Size Matters basically feels like if Ratchet was on PS1. Secret Agent Clank is pretty much the same shit but greatly expanded. It's a longer and more fleshed out game. Despite playing as Clank it pretty much controls the same as the other games, only with minor stealth elements. You also still play as Ratchet in arena levels, and Qwark for a few fun bits that I wouldn't want to spoil.

1 is hard to get used to if you're playing the series in the wrong order. It takes a second to get used to the lack of strafing, and the upgrade system introduced in the second game really does add a lot, but 1 still has fantastic levels, and I think that is the most important thing. It's not as good in some regards, but the levels still make it maybe the best in the series. The only one I think is arguably better is Going Commando. Maybe Tools of Destruction.

Have you not played Deadlocked? Go play it, it's far better than the PS3 games.

As for the PS3 games, don't bother with All 4 One/Full Frontal Assault, they're shit. You may as well play in release order and play both Quest for Booty and Into the Nexus, they're short enough. If ToD gets really boring just skip to Crack in Time, which does some pretty good things but is still definitely worse than the PS2 games.

i think 3 was better than 2 tbh. just seemed more refined and the new characters were more interesting (robo rangers, nefarious+lawrence, courtney, the qt who ran the spaceship) and the old ones were better executed (qwark and clank). and then the shit like the air drops and stuff, i think the weapons from number 2 were cooler though

what actually happened in deadlocked? i completed it but i seem to remember it was just like the battlezone from the other games but for the whole deal?

You're just talking about the characters in UYA and not the actual gameplay though. Gameplay wise, you got less levels, and the levels that were there were largely just boring multiplayer maps instead of levels that actually focused on what the series was good at. I'm so glad Insomniac stopped trying to push online in the PS3 era. But then All 4 One and Full Frontal Assault still do it. And look, everyone admits they're the worst ones.

And yes, Deadlocked is basically a whole game of the Arena challenges from the previous games. Slightly expanded, but still. Insomniac wanted to move toward shooters the entire time. Their first game, that nobody remembers, was an FPS. They said they didn't care much about dropping Spyro because he couldn't even hold a gun. Agent 9 in Year of the Dragon was a practice run for Ratchet & Clank, and Ratchet: Deadlocked was a practice run for Resistance: Fall of Man. Except their attempts at franchises other than Ratchet & Clank keep failing, so they keep going back to Ratchet even though they just want to make shooters.

Tools of Destruction and A Crack in Time are far better than Deadlocked. Maybe Into the Nexus, too.

I have no idea how the "Deadlocked is just arena fights the entire time" meme got started because its absolutely false. Most of the missions in the game are missions on planets where you progress through the area. Doesn't really have anything to do with the traditional arena fights in other games where you stuck in one area the whole time which doesn't change aesthetically. There's also some vehicle missions and other types of gimmick missions which aren't just arena fights.

If you're asking about the plot, Ratchet, Clank, and Al get abducted by the Dreadzone corporation which is hosting deathmatches between super heroes in some lawless area of space. Ratchet fights in the deathmatches and gets much more popular than the other hero Vox (the CEO/owner/whatever of Dreadzone) is trying to push. Ratchet eventually kills that hero and there's exposition about how he used to be good but sold out or something like that. Vox tries to blow the place up along with all the fans after Ratchet tells him he doesn't want to do business with him, Ratchet and friends save everything and wreck Vox, Al gets captured at some point and gets a metal arm. That's probably a pretty messy summary though.

The cutscenes and commentary from Dallas and Juanita are pretty funny, and that's what really matters.

The "arenas" might not be just the Battlezone or whatever, where you're stuck in one room the whole time, but the point is they're basically all shooter maps instead of the types of levels Ratchet is known for. And a significant portion of the game is in more Battlezone style arenas.

The story is enjoyable though. Overall it's still a very good game. But people calling it the best just don't like what Ratchet traditionally is, then. They want more of a shooter. It's like someone who just really likes Tower Defense saying Full Frontal Assault is the best, or someone who just wants multiplayer saying All 4 One is the best. Granted, I do like Deadlocked better than them, but I come to the series for the main series gameplay. I might like Mario Tennis or whatever, but I'm not about to say it's the best Mario game.

yeah i guess

speaking of insomniac wanting to make shooters that reminds me of their ps3 abortion after resistance, i remember it was like some zany third person coop game at one e3 and then by the time it got to the next e3 it was maximum edgy gritty dubstep warsim

yeah i was more saying, i remember the plot and pretty much each level in order for 2 and 3 but i can literally only remember the like hub zone in deadlocked and that it involved the arena more. i cant remember any characters from deadlocked for example

Being a shooter is a big part of both Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal. Yes, it wasn't in 1 in the same way, but by the time Deadlocked came out the shooter gameplay was undeniably a part of the "main series gameplay".

Yeah, Fuse and whatever the hell it was called before/after bombed pretty badly. Who knows if EA fucked it or Insomniac screwed up too. Probably both. Sunset Overdrive was made as a kneejerk reaction to that game, but lol xbone. Supposedly it's not all that great anyway so maybe Fuse/whatever aren't worth mourning.

Vox and Ace Hardlight are the two main characters other than the heroes. Vox is greedy immoral CEO of Dreadzone and Ace Hardlight is the immoral hero he's trying to push as the next big Dreadzone fighter but is failing to take off. Besides Clank and Al you have the commentators and your combat bots who both provide some good humorous banter throughout the game. And then there's the other Exterminator bosses who aren't really all that interesting. There's definitely not as many characters in the game since they don't get the opportunity to have you do some random task for a guy on a planet to get something.

As for the levels, yeah, they're not as memorable because you the mission you have in them aren't as specific, there aren't any characters that are planet-specific, and there isn't much exploration to be done.

I still remember a lot of them pretty well, though. The Ice Temple and the dark futuristic city are both pretty cool.

It still hurts.

hatchet and crank 2 was by far the best in the series as it managed to introduce weapon upgrading system before all that V1-8 bullshit, had the most creative and best weapons, had that sharp blue neon lighting artstyle which was better than 3's puke green, the arenas were actually good except for the cage match bullshit where you lost your tesla barrier everytime you got shot up there in the impossible challenge, had mildly fun hoverbike racing, the female character was barely in it and not shit, fucking lovable evil corporation megacorp, more planets, more decent secrets like hidden bosses, good skill points which weren't fucking handed to you if you didn't use your brain, ace music, actual shitty twist, only 10% shitty captain qwark jokes as opposed to the normal 100%, dope space battles with space nukes, fun variety of gadgets, good difficulty, no mr zircon, immense amounts of things to spend on, the sweet desert level, actually good insomniac museum with fun way to enter, bolt multiplier, no need for thruster pack, and heaps of other good shit

the only problems were the broken ass yetis in that fucking ice level where even the developers said their attack should take 5 frames and lunge and home but there was no solution or something hilarious

3 was alright but the humour was lost so bad and it turned into cringey shit

that cringey shit never stopped after 3 and gadgetron is shit

if i came inside of her i would be exterminating millions of potential lives. thats gotta turn her on

Up Your Arsenal moreso. Because Up Your Arsenal and Deadlocked were both trying to be more like the fad games of the day, namely halo and other online focused shooters. Up Your Arsenal suffered for it, having a shorter single player campaign in exchange for tacked on multiplayer. Going Commando was pretty much the same as the first game. I have to imagine you're talking about the arenas, but they were only a minor part of the game, another form of minigame, as there were already a few in the game.

Obviously shooting is part of the main series. It's part of the core concept. The problem is when it starts to take focus away from everything else, as it started to do in Up Your Arsenal and then did almost entirely in Deadlocked.

Gadgetron is in the first game.

yeah but the first game isn't better than the second

I hate ratchet less in the first game because he's not fucking Tidus

gadgetron didn't wow me then either and i played them all in order, the helpdesk lady and the chicken gun were all they had going for them, along with the ceo, the salesman, and the general attitude in the first game and a few of the weapons were good but so basic

The old ruins of Bogon's Gadgetron HQ in Going Commando were cool. And the Employee Discount in 1/3 was a really cool bit.

In the first game when you meet the President of Gadgetron he gives you an employee discount but says it doesn't kick in for two years. Two years later, Up Your Arsenal comes out, and if you have a R&C1 save file that's passed the part where you meet the president, you actually get the employee discount.

Are we in the same universe? Playing R&C 2+3 anew after the memory card lost most of the data on it. I don`t know in the hell me and my father managed to get past even the first hoverbike race. However I will agree that the theme and plot is above the others in the main series even the first and the third mainly, because for me personally commando`s/spy stuff >> everything else.
Actually yes both of the PSP games were ported to the PS2.
So you basically want to expirence what happened to Skid?

I like that you share a good opinion of mine but i also cannot resist telling you about how easy the hoverbike races are.

However I respect that for someone playing an action platformer, suddenly being thrown into a race is jarring and a bit harsh on those who dont play those kind of games.

Personally the skateboard racing in one and the spaceship in two racing/fighting are way more easier to actually finish and more enjoyable than the hoverbike racing. Other than crashing into the background and spending a lot of hours very slowly figuring when to exactly hit the right pads at the right time/angle, how else is it possible to get through them?

Maybe i spent a lot of time playing racing games and assumed it was easier than it was, or perhaps you haven't played enough, but the mechanics seemed very simple, and maintaining a constant boost wasn't too difficult when i was 10 or whatever as a spegged to get all the skill points even then.

Well I have waited at least a few years before playing 2+3 again. Shame about the memory card but it is more than made up the with disks always working. I have the opposite problem with the PS3, which has caused me to hate Bluray at least as a disk format. Did you manage to get all of the skill points?

Get good, faggot. I bet you don't like Star Wars: Podracer, either. It's pretty much just that, but as a minigame.

You can't say you beat the game unless you beat all the skill points. I went the step further and upgraded all my weapons, too, even though it's not necessary in 2 and the fucking Bouncer took forever.

I remember one guy on Gamefaqs who spent like five years trying to max out his bolts. It took something like 256 billion. He eventually did it and Insomniac mentioned him in their podcast and I think sent him a t-shirt or something. His Gamefaqs ID was Rsmit. Cool guy.

To be more specific, he didn't really max them in that he hit a cap, he overflowed them into a negative value.

To my understanding bolts in the first game can also be overflowed in that way, but it's basically impossible to do legitimately since bolt gain is so much slower in that game. You'd have to leave your PS2 on for years if you tried to do it with that one method of walking and using the taunter on the hoverboard track. In UYA and Deadlocked there's a hard bolt cap, so no overflowing. They're also much easier to hit than overflowing in GC.