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Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart review – A World-Jumping trip Across Space and Dimensions!

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Ratchet and Clank have been saving the universe for quite some time since its first game back in 2002. Their latest adventure, Rift Apart acknowledges them for being the iconic heroes from the start of the game even till today. We got lucky and managed to get a PS5 console for ourselves, and it was just in time to try out its best games so far. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a gorgeous looking game, and it has been carefully crafted to showcase what the PS5 and the DualSense controller can do.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart – Beginnings

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart Gameplay Screenshot

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart starts off in their home world, Planet Veldin, where residents gather to celebrate Ratchet’s heroic acts for saving them. Upon finishing the basic tutorial and reaching the celebration stage, Clank presented Ratchet the Dimensionator, to aid him in his search of other Lombaxes. While Ratchet hesitated on the thought of it, Dr. Nefarious swooped in on the celebration and stole the Dimensionator for his own mischief, causing the time and space dimensions to rip apart.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart Gameplay Screenshot

Rift Apart took the multi-dimension approach very cleverly. Jumping from one dimension to another, Rivet, Ratchet’s counterpart appeared with her own parallel storyline. Despite being his counterpart, she shows a very different personality than him. The only similarity between them is that they are both Lombaxes fighting the same villain, Dr. Nefarious and his counterpart, Emperor Nefarious.

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Characters

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart Gameplay Screenshot

Rift Apart allows you to learn more about the characters, Rivet, and Ratchet included. You get to dive deeper into the lore and also their own subjective thoughts about what’s happening. There’s real character development that is somewhat relatable, like how Ratchet is indecisive if he should really set out to find other Lombaxes, or how Clank realizes he’s perfect the way he is even if he lost a limb.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart Gameplay Screenshot

In Rift Apart, there are a bunch of new characters introduced like Kit, who is Clank’s “female” counterpart. There’s also Glitch, a perky, shy cyberspider whose job is to help you tackle viruses in the digital world, down on a circuitry level. To aid you in your battles in the skies, we meet Trudi, who’s a dragon(?) that flies you around in aerial battle. Apart from that, we’ll also get to see counterpart characters to Qwark, Skidd, and more. But we’ll leave that to you to explore in the game.

PS5 Dualsense Controller

The Dualsense controller on the PS5 really brought the game to a whole new level, and in order to fully enjoy it, be sure to crank up the audio on the controller itself to enjoy an even more immersive gameplay. That’s because on the default setting, the controller’s passive audio/voices were a little soft compared to Astro’s Playroom and Sackboy: A Big Adventure.

Before starting the game, I was worried that the controller was going to be overwhelmed with all the sensory reactions from the game, but it turns out everything has a nice balance. The audio feedback from the controller (once increased) played very nicely with the heptic feedback. You can feel the different trigger levels with each weapon, and even feel where each explosion is happening on the controller. Shooting enemies has never been more fun when the L2 and R2 has a different tension with each weapon.

Also, I was expecting terrain vibrations like we experienced on Astro’s Playroom, but considering how big and different Ratchet and Clank’s world is, it might take a toll on the controller’s battery too.

Graphics

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In Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, graphics has definitely been kicked up a few notches. Not only has the overall textures, and elements been upgraded with Ray Tracing, you even get space warping effects that can be somewhat headache-inducing. In the game, Ratchet has the ability to pull himself towards Rifts, and that pulls in the entire screen’s visual towards you without moving the character. This is pretty cool, but can cause a little bit of dizzy-ness (at least for me, but I still enjoyed it very much!)

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Apart from that, Ratchet also gets a new dash mechanic which will leave a trail of phantom copies of Ratchet behind him. This is very cool, but again, can be very trippy. Oh, apart from just walking on flat surfaces, in the game, you’ll be walking the terrains in all sorts of directions – up, down, left, right, spinning – and at various speeds. Super awesome!

Weapons

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Apart from Ratchet’s default wrench and Rivet’s default hammer, Rift Apart introduces 16 new unlockable weapons to accommodate different playstyles. You are able to unlock new weapons as you progress through the game, and purchase these easily from Ms. Zurkon’s weapon store, which are basically anywhere. It is also at her store that you upgrade these weapons with the Raritanium that you collect in your journeys.

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Here’s a weapon list for Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and we really enjoyed playing with Mr. Fungi, Topiary Sprinkler, Negatron Collider, and RYNO 8. Glove of Doom also gets an honourable mention here too. Now you may know the names of these weapons, but we’ll let you discover what they do in the game itself.

  • Blast Pistol
  • Shatter Blast
  • Executor
  • Mr. Fungi
  • Topiary Sprinkler
  • Negatron Collider
  • Ricochet
  • Lightning Rod
  • Drillhound
  • Void Repulser
  • Cold Snap
  • Glove of Doom
  • Bombardier
  • Buzz Blades
  • Blackhole Storm
  • Headhunter
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A special weapon, RYNO 8 is given free as a collectable right before the final boss fight. Before you take on the final boss, you can go back to places you’ve visited before and collect all the Spybots in the game to obtain the RYNO 8. Not only does it open rifts and drop random items from other Sony games, it does a big deal of damage to help you in the boss stage too.

Once you’ve completed the game, you get to unlock two secret weapons when you play through the new game in Challenge Mode.

Collectables

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In the game, you can collect several items that are hidden throughout the game, such as the Golden Screw, Armour Pods, Lorbs, and Spybots. Golden Screw gives you a mod to certain elements of the game like changing the bolts you collect to orbs, or crystals, and more.

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Armour Pods gives you different sets of armour, and when you’ve collected and equipped a full set, you’ll receive a status bonus as well. Not to mention, you can even change the armour’s colour from a set of colour choices.

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As for the Lorbs, it is a record of stories about the Lombax Lore, while the Spybots are a collectible that details the history of the city, and a collectible that gives you the RYNO 8 once all has been collected.

Conclusion

Overall, throughout the three days of playing Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, travelling the different dimensions and collecting every possible collectible in the game, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, be it in the body of Ratchet, Rivet, Clank, or Kit. I took joy in trying out every new weapon, and learning more about the Ratchet and Clank universe. There’s also that mini part of the game where I could play as Clank to solve dimensional puzzles too.

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If you’re lucky enough to get a PS5, I’d highly recommend getting Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart to test out what the PS5 is capable of. It’s loads of fun travelling the world, and especially the weapons! Now, I’m already halfway through Challenge Mode at a higher difficulty, and boy is it fun.

Price and Availability

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is now available for purchase on the PS store for the digital version for RM 299. For those whom want a physical copy can get it from Shopee here for the same price.

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