GAME CLEAR No. 28 -- Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (2007, PS3)

Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Clear Date: 5/29/2021

With Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart coming out imminently, I’m doing my best to loop back to the PS3 Future series and get it knocked out. The first stop was naturally 2007’s Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction.

I haven’t meaningfully played the series in about 5 years, when I beat Up Your Arsenal. I also bought Size Matters on PSP and Ratchet Deadlocked digitally for PS3. Since those are sort of side stories, I decided to skip them for now in order to at least get caught up on the Future games, which I understand will be helpful context for Rift Apart. With that in mind, it’s difficult for me to compare this to my previous experiences other than to say it felt pretty familiar? Tools of Destruction did not feel like a major generational leap, but that may have been influenced by multiple factors. For one thing, I played the PS2 trilogy on the PS3 HD collection, in which they actually output at higher frame rate and resolution than Tools of Destruction. So in that regard, it almost felt like a step back! The 720p resolution cap was especially noticeable on a fairly large 4K TV. I understand that was never the kind of display the game was expected to run on, and it didn’t really diminish the experience, but it was noticeable. I briefly considered playing it on a CRT (which is what I’d have used in 2007, which was a good number of years before I ever got an HD display), but the blurriness became less jarring over time. In any case, this digression is getting out of hand. My point is really that Tools of Destruction does not feel like a huge jump for the franchise, but a lot of that is coming from a perspective 14 years in the future.

The good thing is that there wasn’t a whole lot of bad stuff in the originals anyway! The 3rd person gunplay combat is good and often fairly challenging, the platforming is competent, and the occasional puzzles are adequate given the target age group of the series. As usual new crop of weapons are interesting and creative, and because the game rewards you for using each weapon with its use-based upgrade system, I found myself pretty constantly switching weapons (and having fun doing so). The only thing present here that really wasn’t on PS2 are some segments that use the SixAxis controller. These are usually in the form of mini-games and are generally well-handled even if I’m not sure the motion controls are any more compelling than using a stick would have been. They’re at least not worse, so they’re fine. As far as gameplay goes, I am curious to see if subsequent games in the Future series end up stepping things up a bit, but it won’t really be a problem if they don’t. Besides, by all apperances, Rift Apart certainly will.

Anyway, where the game does take a pretty substantial step forward is in terms of story. The game deals with Ratchet’s origins. He was abandoned as an infant and has never known another of his species (Lombax). This isn’t analyzed a great deal in the PS2 games, but it’s front and center in Tools of Destruction. The game opens with an invasion on Ratchet’s city of residence by antagonist Emperor Tachyon of the Cragmite race. He claims the Lombax wiped his people out. His final act of revenge would be to kill Ratchet, terminating the ostensible last of his kind. This won’t do, of course, so Ratchet & Clank escape their residential planet to regroup. Through their travels they learn more about the complicated history between Cragmites and the Lombax, and they learn of a mighty device known as the Dimensionator, which is capable of interdimensional travel. Multiple parties become interested in this device, causing our heroes to travel throughout the galaxy in search of it or to stop those also searching for it. On their way, they also encounter Talwyn Apogee, who is determined to find (or find the fate of) her missing father Max, who was researching Lombax secrets when last he was heard from. They become allies of convenience and later friends. Meanwhile, Clank also receives occasional visits from the mysterious Zoni, whom only he can perceive. I’ll avoid spoiling much beyond that, but suffice it to say this is a considerably thicker plot than was ever present in the first three games. It’s a nice change of pace, and Tools set the table well for the games I have ahead of me.

So the action platforming feels good and the story’s as good as ever. I think that probably makes it the best of the ones I’ve played so far? Let’s go with yes. Having said that, all the games so far lie in the “pretty good” category for me. Nothing wrong with that! That also means their quality is reliable, which is nice. If the remaining Future games stick to the same solid core gameplay and flesh out the solid story established so far, that’ll be fine! As always, I’ll report my thoughts here on the matter, hopefully soon.