Ratchet & Clank - Megathread

[The Last Stand]

I genuinely miss the writing that the series had at the time.

And I second that notion about watching a film version of ToD, it at least has more oomph than the 2016 film…

…and now I’m reminded of the fact that the 2016 film originally had TJ Fixman (the Future series’ writer) on-staff until Kevin Munroe and Gary Swallow trimmed, ironed out, and rewrote a good majority of his writing. It was so extensive that he actually left the project and disowned the final version of the film due to a combination of creative differences and the amount of stress the project put him under.

You know how when a cartoon or TV series gets a movie, the movie is more dramatic in terms of writing, stakes, cinematography, acting? Example: Garfield with Garfield Gets Real, The Simpsons with The Simpsons Movie, Bob's Burger's with their movie, Back in the Barnyard with the cartoon series?

The original trilogy and the Future trilogy reminds me of that transition. I'm not saying the original trilogy has bad writing; I'm saying the tonal shift between the two is night and day. There's more spectacle happening within Tools of Destruction compared to the the first two games.

 

[starborn427614]

I basically skipped the entire Future trilogy, so Rift Apart felt fairly fresh for me. Hopefully we get new collections at some point so the entire franchise can be on one system (plus online co-op for Deadlocked would be amazing).

 

[The Early 2000s]

I basically skipped the entire Future trilogy, so Rift Apart felt fairly fresh for me. Hopefully we get new collections at some point so the entire franchise can be on one system (plus online co-op for Deadlocked would be amazing).

Insomniac does have a good relationship with nixxes, and they do have the source code for the PS2 games. IDK if nixxes has experience porting older titles to modern platforms, but is definitely possible. I hope they do it, there is demand for it and it would rock to have the classics on PC

 

[The Last Stand]

Insomniac does have a good relationship with nixxes, and they do have the source code for the PS2 games. IDK if nixxes has experience porting older titles to modern platforms, but is definitely possible. I hope they do it, there is demand for it and it would rock to have the classics on PC

Who is nixxes?

Vox reminds me of Sony during the PS3 era. They were milking R&C during that console's lifecycle after A Crack in Time. You could literally skip All 4 One onward and be fulfilled. The stories in those games remind me of fanfictions at best. Uninspired especially after A Crack in Time.

 

[Super Hans v2]

Who is nixxes?

One of those studios like Aspyr or Iron Galaxy that exist to be support for port jobs. Sony bought them a few years ago to port their games to Windows. Previously they worked with Eidos.

 

[KingofSomething]

This popped up in my recommendations. It's a cool look into how the original R&C Trilogy used adaptive difficulty. Subtle stuff like adding nanotech here and there or outright deleting encounters if you were getting your ass kicked. enough. Did the Future series do the same thing or was it flat difficulty choices?

I basically skipped the entire Future trilogy, so Rift Apart felt fairly fresh for me. Hopefully we get new collections at some point so the entire franchise can be on one system (plus online co-op for Deadlocked would be amazing).

I wasn't that into Deadlocked but I would definitely give Insomniac some cash if they revived the co-op for that shit. I never did get the chance to try it out when it was new, but I heard nothing but good things about it.

 

[The Last Stand]

This popped up in my recommendations. It's a cool look into how the original R&C Trilogy used adaptive difficulty. Subtle stuff like adding nanotech here and there or outright deleting encounters if you were getting your ass kicked. enough. Did the Future series do the same thing or was it flat difficulty choices?

I believe with the Future series, enemies' health and damage would "react" to yours. I think it's the same with Tools of Destruction where they would have less HP and deal less damage. If you did not have armor, you would die quickly without any accurate tell. One

Why did they add a difficulty mode in Rift Apart?

 

[Archeops]

I was playing TOD’s Challenge Mode and the free-fall glitch happened in Stratus City again, after doing some research it looks this is a known glitch whose cause hasn't been found yet. I wonder if it's reversal of the issue that affected first-run copies of Spyro: Year of the Dragon where the audio was glitched and caused some main level themes to be reused, AFAICR this free-fall glitch didn't occur on my OG copy of ToD.

Oh, and I also fired up A Crack in Time. That game is a real gem in R&C's PS3 entries, it has the right amount of good storytelling, decent character dialogue, good gameplay, and good graphics. My only complaints are the loss of ToD's mod system for weapons. One mild thing that bothers me is that, during Clank's gameplay sections in the Great Clock, one of the time anomaly-affected planets (barring Kreeli Comet, which is only available as a tutorial) you fix is never really explained. I have a feeling that repairing Fastoon's time anomalies is more of an easter egg than it is a proper hint at the future. It's in a hidden area and completing it nets you a Gold Bolt and a bolt prize that may-or-may-not be a reference to the first R&C game.

Another thing that's been bothering me is people feeling that Dr. Nefarious is overused as a villain. He's only been a true villain in a few titles (UYA, ACiT, and RF), in the other two entries he's present in he either plays a slightly-antagonistic role before being demoted to playable protagonist (A4O) or he's a mostly-offscreen antagonist before going full Starscream during the late-game (2016).

This popped up in my recommendations. It's a cool look into how the original R&C Trilogy used adaptive difficulty. Subtle stuff like adding nanotech here and there or outright deleting encounters if you were getting your ass kicked. enough.

Funnily enough this isn't the first time Insomniac has done something like this, IIRC Spyro: Year of the Dragon (the PS1 version) has a similar feature and it can be manipulated with two cheat codes.

 

[Basic Blond Boy]

I think part of the reason why the designs were so shit was due to Insomniac trying and failing to find a middle ground between the designs used in earlier titles and the ones used in A4O/FFA. At least they fixed it up to some extent in R&C 2016 and RA.

The actual reason was due to money. R&C was not very successful during the PS3 and Resistance wasn’t either. Insomniac was on the verge of bankruptcy for a bit, taking side gigs with companies like EA since they wouldn’t allow Sony to buy out the company.

 

[KingofSomething]

Funnily enough this isn't the first time Insomniac has done something like this, IIRC Spyro: Year of the Dragon (the PS1 version) has a similar feature and it can be manipulated with two cheat codes.

Yeah, I saw it mentioned in the comments. You could get locked out of getting all the gems because the game would delete one of the required enemies if you sucked and if you were crushing it, the hoverboard race in the bonus world would have rubber-band AI on crack.

 

[Archeops]

The actual reason was due to money. R&C was not very successful during the PS3 and Resistance wasn’t either. Insomniac was on the verge of bankruptcy for a bit, taking side gigs with companies like EA since they wouldn’t allow Sony to buy out the company.

That's actually kind of sad, and both games were later rereleased as Greatest Hits titles once the label's thresholds were reached.

Yeah, I saw it mentioned in the comments. You could get locked out of getting all the gems because the game would delete one of the required enemies if you sucked and if you were crushing it, the hoverboard race in the bonus world would have rubber-band AI on crack.

Are you sure about the gem loss bit being related to Year of the Dragon's adaptive difficulty? I've heard about gem loss occurring in the game but IIRC it's actually an anti-piracy feature.

 

[Basic Blond Boy]

That's actually kind of sad, and both games were later rereleased as Greatest Hits titles once the label's thresholds were reached.

The Golden Bolt has an entire series looking back at the games and their development history, all of which is extremely fascinating. As a TLDR, the PS3 era was a disaster for Insomniac. They went in with big promises and goals all of which ended up killing them.

When Ratchet & Clank’s Future titles were pitched, only two games were to be made, being TOD and CIT. Every other title from Quest to All 4 One was a result of mandates by Sony thanks to a more than hopeful initial pitch for these two titles. Insomniac promised Sony on multiplayer and online capabilities in TOD, which never made it in as we know.
Quest was the substitute for the online promise. It may not have used Sony’s servers, but it did make use of the PlayStation store as a download only title. The production of this game heavily cut into Crack’s development and made large portions of the game go unused.
All 4 One was the multiplayer promise. R&C was supposed to end with Crack, but given the deal, they had to make this one. From here, the series continued and they seemed to just roll with it.

Another damning factor was that Insomniac was working to get a game out a year, so multiple productions would bleed into each other. Entire chunks of staff would be removed from R&C to get Resistance 2 to make launch.

R&C and Resistance were decent sellers at best, but the rushed natures lead to games getting poorer and entries such as All 4 One, Nexus and Full Frontal, which lead to poorer sales and diminished income for a mid-sized studio. By early 2010s, Insomniac was very out of money, unwilling to lose independence with Sony and would hit a major low with the bomb that was Sunset Overdrive. R&C 2016 and Spider-Man saved the company.

 

[Super Hans v2]

Are you sure about the gem loss bit being related to Year of the Dragon's adaptive difficulty? I've heard about gem loss occurring in the game but IIRC it's actually an anti-piracy feature.

It was one of the antipiracy measures. Other things include not being able to pause and the PAL version randomly changing languages.

 

[Autistic Monkey]

I think the series should have stopped with crack in time.

 

[The Early 2000s]

By early 2010s, Insomniac was very out of money, unwilling to lose independence with Sony and would hit a major low with the bomb that was Sunset Overdrive.

Don't forget the disaster of Fuse, too. EA fucked them royally with that title, so they had 2 uber-flops back-to-back - having your next two big titles tank like SO and Fuse did is pretty much a death sentence. They were very lucky Sony was there to bail them out of the quagmire.

I think the series should have stopped with crack in time.

I'm one of the contrarians that say it should've stopped after Size Matters, but nonetheless I agree. Now that Insomniac is the designated capeshit game factory maybe they can put the series to rest or, even better, give it to the interns on a cheaper budget to get creative with.

 

[KingofSomething]

Are you sure about the gem loss bit being related to Year of the Dragon's adaptive difficulty? I've heard about gem loss occurring in the game but IIRC it's actually an anti-piracy feature.

I'll be honest, I was just going off youtube comments since I didn't even know Spyro had adaptive difficulty before that. Wouldn't have thought they needed to have it to be frank. Guess I was reading the comments of a pirate.

 

[starborn427614]

Don't forget the disaster of Fuse, too. EA fucked them royally with that title, so they had 2 uber-flops back-to-back - having your next two big titles tank like SO and Fuse did is pretty much a death sentence. They were very lucky Sony was there to bail them out of the quagmire.

I actually forgot all about that. Crazy how big the rebound was.

 

[The Last Stand]

Hardest skill point in Going Commando is arguably the Wrench Ninja II skill point from Planet Jabo. Take out all enemies with the wrench.

It wouldn't unlock for various reasons. Recently, the dos and don'ts regarding the skill point logic was posted on YouTube.

You don't have to JUST use the wrench. Nanotech blasts, turrets, friendly fire from enemies don't count against the skill point. Likely because enemies can hit themselves and the turret is needed to open doors. Great forward thinking, Insomniac.

Firing a weapon negates the skill point based on a binary flag with the skill point.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

Who is nixxes?

Vox reminds me of Sony during the PS3 era. They were milking R&C during that console's lifecycle after A Crack in Time. You could literally skip All 4 One onward and be fulfilled. The stories in those games remind me of fanfictions at best. Uninspired especially after A Crack in Time.

Have you gone back and listened to Deadlocked's OST? It's seriously one of the PS2's best. The old R&C games all had good music but the harder guitar added for Deadlocked's theming took it another level up.

 

[The Early 2000s]

Have you gone back and listened to Deadlocked's OST? It's seriously one of the PS2's best. The old R&C games all had good music but the harder guitar added for Deadlocked's theming took it another level up.

David's pretty damn talented with a wide variety of instruments, genuinely impressive. The fact he managed to compose an industrial, dark techno soundtrack and yet still make it feel like R&C is no small feat. Even outside of video games, this kicks ass. The composition, the space-like distorted guitars, the warbled violent synths, the heavy emphasis on leitmotif, it's fantastic.

Spoiler: Sample Sperging - check your volume

As far as I can tell, Deadlocked's OST makes use of the least samples; it is mostly Bergeaud's own work on the guitar/keyboard/etc. It could be that David used sample packs that were somewhat obscure. He DOES use at least one sample pack; I also happen to have it.

USB-Hard&Loud Techno Vol. 1.

Some examples of the samples he used:

25. Labyrinth of Death - Orxon Mining Facility - 0:38-0:50:

BLURP_LOW1 (trimmed):

BLURP_LOW8:

_________________________________________________________________________________
08. Grist for the Mill - 0:02-0:14:

(Above and below tracks share the same leitmotif)
17. King of the Leviathans - 0:26-0:32:

17. King of the Leviathans - 1:24-1:35:

08. Grist for the Mill - 0:40-0:47:

PACVOX_2:

PACVOX_5:

PACVOX_7:

(PACVOX samples appear multiple times in many tracks. Deadlocked's villian is Gleeman VOX. Coincidence?)
LARSTACK_5:

_________________________________________________________________________________
26. Node Overload - 0:00-0:06:

HD_BD_18 (not 100% sure):

_________________________________________________________________________________
There's probably more examples, but David probably filtered/edited them to a point that deciphering them would be a herculean task