Ratchet and Clank - Back to the Beginning

Recently theres been the release of Ratchet and Clank, a remake of the original Ps2 title, released onto the Ps4 in line with a (quite derided) movie and after watching some friends play through this, it got me thinking and wanting to play the original trilogy through again and then maybe even continue onto the Ratchet and Clank titles I haven't tried out. So with this in mind, I went forth to play the Ps3 versions of the games as they were on sale at the time, what did I find?

Well first of all is that the game mostly stands up well, the original plot is still fun (if a little on the predictable side) with Clank fleeing the evil business tycoon Drax with a warning message, Ratchet finds Clank and the two head out to find the legendary hero Captain Qwark, hoping he will assist in halting Drax. While the main story isn't too twisty, the relationship between Ratchet and Clank works brilliantly (something the remake cut out completely) with Ratchet snarking his way through scenes, clashing with Clark regarding what to do, the conflict between the two making them far more relatable than the toned down 'I'm a hero!' personalities that the remake throws in. Captain Qwark Brannigan also provides plenty of smirks along the way also via funny jerkass behaviour.

Over to the actual gameplay and its mostly good things, general platforming and battles work fine, action is fast and frantic and the jumping feels precise enough to make things feel fair and the sheer variety of weapons to play with helps to prevent battles from becoming too stale, the morph-o-ray turning enemies into chickens is still very amusing and once you upgrade the gun, getting giant chickens roaming all over the place is a sight to behold. The whole game flows from level to level as well with clear checkpoints and objectives across the various levels being easy to get to, along with said objectives and secrets being spread out enough to encourage exploration.

That said this is the first game in a long series and with that comes a heap of issues that got fixed in later games, the lack of strafing is a little bit annoying but thankfully there's very few areas which require such aim. One bigger issue is the lack of quick-weapon changing with gameplay still running as you select new weapons and gadgets, all of this basically requires either a death and reload cycle to determine what you need at any given moment or frantic (and for me, clumsy) switching mid-battle.

There's also some issues just based around this HD version, for some reason there's some minor graphical glitches across the game, mostly around the storefronts where vendor graphics look squished and distorted.

That said, for those who want to really play through some classic ps2 titles, the game is still rather fun and well worth playing before the others, if only to appreciate the series various improvements over its run.