This is more of a 'unmistakably mid' review, than a hard 'no'.

I'm coming as someone who has been an all-time fan of Ratchet and Clank. I got 'Going Commando' as one of my first video games for the PS2 and I was hooked very quickly. I got the sequel on release, after going back and playing 1 of course. I came to immediately like Ratchet as a character that started out as an unsure mechanic on a backwater planet with nothing to his name or species. The main problem in the game was rightfully out of his scope, and he has to grapple with being moralized by a robot to actually understand why he's wrong. Its simplistic, but its okay because its also a trope you can work with.

That's my problem with 'modern' Ratchet and Clank. No disrespect to the writers and staff members who worked tirelessly on this game, but it feels as though your decisions aren't in line with the core ideas of what made Ratchet and Clank popular back in the mid-2000's. I know, I know, I'm not a kid, I'm no longer the target demographic. Its a risk to have Ratchet try and be someone who the player won't agree with initially. The anti-hero has been unwillingly disassembled by mediocre media over the last few decades. But I don't think it's understated how important it is having characters who have actual dynamic shifts in their morals and ethics.

It gives the story a sense of scope and purpose, and here, I feel as though absolutely nothing of note has happened in this universe. I have no idea why Clank and Kit didn't switch places at the end of the game. Simply that alone, would have been something worthwhile to the development of BOTH Rivet and Ratchet, who have to grapple with the possibility they might end up with partners being switched permanently before the idea is really known. I have no idea why this thread wasn't more developed, or maybe it got cut, but it's very disappointing. The new additions to the cast thankfully weren't too bad.

The whole cast being inverted was a neat idea that I wish was more expanded upon in ways that simply weren't just aesthetics. Everyone still ends up being a cookie cutter hero, even Nefarious has an incredibly predictable last minute change that doesn't feel very earned.

You had a lot of potential to do some cool ♥♥♥♥ here, you finally brought back a two full ass weapon wheels worth of guns. There's not much synchronization with the core gameplay when it comes to keeping them upgraded though. Ratchet constantly nags out loud when I'm trying to explore areas to get Raritanium and I'm not really even wasting that much time. A lot of the guns felt a little too same-y. I liked all of the single target, high ROF weapons. That is not a good thing though, I felt like you had many opportunities to give certain weapons an inherent strong advantage against shields, especially some of the CC weapons like the ricochet bonk gun and the PIERCING DEATH RAY THAT SPECIFICALLY TOUTS HOW GOOD IT IS ABOUT PENETRATION, but you chose to give no option other than flanking/stunning them outright.

There are very few enemy types in the game. They are not fun. I am not impressed with the boss hamburger enemy with the same sweeping beam, missile barrage, large sweeps with big finisher melee and leaping attack. I am not impressed with the three times you deviate from this formula (thankfully for the final bossfight, you were SUPREMELY close to being a teleporting version of the same miniboss you've copied at least seven plus times). I am also not impressed with hitscan enemies being crack addict trackers that DEMAND I only use the dodge to deal with them, and the i-frames it provides while dodging, while dealing with the barrage of the two other damage types also being whipped at me.

Many of the planets kinda have the problem of being just purely cinematic set-pieces now. They're all the same blend of whacky, colorful, alien worlds that feel a bit too interchangeable. Like I can remember the general idea but there wasn't anything that stood out that made me go "now that's what I call alien"; could be a problem that this series has in general with the sheer amount of real estate Ratchet has passed through. Its hard to even combat with the time and pacing of the original trilogy. They clearly had more time and money to work with, more freedom to take gambles on personalities that may just end up being genuinely grating (like old Captain Quark). There aren't any real side characters besides Phantom and Gary. Quantum and La Pierre came too little too late.

I kinda miss how much impact side characters had. Everyone was kinda forgettable except Gary (who I definitely want to bang), and is coincidentally related to one of the most interesting characters in Ratchet and Clank who got footnoted. The Plumber was kino, you had money here, he was that perfect level of abstract that reminded me this was meant to be fun. His inclusion never broke anything, but it also was never trivial, the perfect side character. Kit's character arc was just Clanks from the first game, not only that, but she ends up being responsible for Rivet's lost arm, but its resolved pretty much without incident. Rivet doesn't even question if Ratchet is real or just another plot by a way smarter Nefarious who is supposed to be an actual threat, not just an authoritarian weirdo.

It felt like Up Your Aresenal's Nefarious was harder than this, or even just a more involved fight in general. There wasn't much of a reason to use any of the interesting guns in any combinations since you're basically just spamming DPS as much as possible the whole fight. Maybe that was also a thing in the past, but this doesn't feel like it improves or adds on anything. I had no incentive to use the weapons I got at the beginning of the game, even fully upgraded, which takes away from the system as a whole when it hasn't fixed the problem of weapon scaling in these games.

Raritanium is a cool concept, hate its impossible to really farm for these in a way that's not doing the gold tier double boss fight over and over again or re-running old maps in the same areas looking for hints of 1-3 raritanium so I can MAYBE eek out another chain upgrade. Really feel like one or two of those open roam maps from your last games might have been a way to placate this issue, maybe you should think about those in the future. The side areas were incredibly easy, and felt like some of the most rushed content in the game. They explored mechanics in ways that didn't really feel abstract enough to justify the dimensional warping aspect.

Ran great for a PC port, didn't really have any issues, the FSR kinda looked like doggy bathwater in some places due to how long it would take for textures to load in on non-essential objects. I set it to high, I have a fairly old RX 480 that usually doesn't look too bad. I wouldn't mark it against the game though, I got a stable 144 frames in most places and that's all I really care about. Keyboard and mouse controls felt pretty good, default control scheme wasn't brainless psycho schizo behavior like some games (C is not crouch, alt is not sprint); the weapon wheel defaulting to assigning weapons to 1, 3, 5, 7, 2, 4, 6, 8 was though (if you are the Insomniac employee at fault, reading this essay, please tell me why)

Thank you for taking the time to read my essay, I'm sorry it wasn't very concise in many places. I promise that with every complaint I made, it was made from a place of love and respect for this series as a whole. Please, please, PLEASE, bring back the character and drive you had back in the days of Sly Cooper. I know its a huge gamble with the current market, but there is a dedicated group of nerds out here who still love this ♥♥♥♥ and will gladly throw down money, ON PC, for your product. Lose Sony, they are crippling your creativity. Big name-brand projects like Spider-man, cripple your creativity. Revert to AA studio, become silent king again with Naughty Dog.