Ratchet and Clank: Quest For Booty User Review

Unfair. If I’m being honest, I want to mark this game far lower than I have. Not because it is deserving of a lower score, no indeed. My reasoning is more that it feels so bare and barren after all that Tools of Destruction had to offer. I know that it is a lower budget downloadable title, and should be taken as such. It is not intended to be indicative of a full release, and yet I can’t help but feel a little miffed at the existence of the game. Considering the shorter gameplay length, I’m going to similarly keep this review short, so worry not.

Graphics:
The graphics of Quest for Booty are more or less what we’ve come to expect from Ratchet and Clank over the years. They’re vibrant and colourful, backed up by great designs, beautiful environments and a rock solid technical presentation, with absolutely no screen tearing, frame rate issues or other minor hiccups to be noted. The models for the characters are all well done, though enemy and NPC diversity is almost non-existent between a single model for each type. This is certainly disappointing. The overall tone and appearance of the game is consistent, as should be expected as the themes are limited in scope. There are really only four environments to play around in, each of these are compact and directed. Even though they’re each great, you have to backtrack through two of them, and this reduces their mysticism somewhat.

Sound:
A stellar part of the game. Voice acting is rock solid across the board, with clear, distinctive voices being key. Ambience seems to be less effective than it was in Tools of Destruction. Most of the soundtrack plays on the well-known tunes usually associated with pirate media, which really helps to back up the theme and tone of the game. Sound effects seem downplayed, though the weapons all sound quite good.

Gameplay/Controls:
The game controls very well, though can be hampered by slow responses from time to time. You sometimes get the feeling that distance is underutilised for platforming difficulty, making this surprisingly heavy focus far easier than it could have been. In a change of pace from earlier titles, there is a much stronger focus on platforming this time around, as you are stripped of your weapons fairly on in the game. This comes with a near complete lack of enemies, so makes sense. Good amount of variety, but you only get a single chance to do use some of the mechanics, leaving them feeling superfluous. A good pace sees you completing the game easily and makes it feel very fluid. Enemies return later, and the battles are overly difficult, feeling as though they’ve just been thrown in there willy-nilly, which doesn’t make for any particular fun, but it does offer a break from the platforming, and so is welcome. The new light/dark gameplay elements, the ability to pick up and throw things with your wrench, as well as being able to manipulate items from a distance all help to add something to the game, but it just feels as though it’s too little to redeem the barrenness.

Narrative:
This is, perhaps, where the game falls hardest. It does form a link in the chain of the Future trilogy, but this is tenuous at best, and the game ultimately ends up feeling worthless because nothing is achieved. In a spoiler for Tools of Destruction, Clank has been whisked away by the mysterious Zoni, and Ratchet is all of a dither as to why and where. Asking the IRIS computer introduced in ToD puts him on the path to notorious space pirate, Angstrom Darkwater, and so Ratchet travels to Planet Merdegraw to find him. Thanks to the inclusion of Rusty Pete and Captain Slag, Insomniac’s sense of humour manages to be in place, but it doesn’t feel as though this game was a labour of love. There’s very little about it that is inspired, or inspiring, and while you do find an answer at the end, it’s little more than a clue. ‘Tis a shame.

Replay:
While there are three difficulty levels, this only affects the combat, not the platforming, and because of the focal shift, it seems a little pointless. The campaign will last less than four hours for most players, and with no skill points, collectibles or real reason to play over the game again, there is nothing to pad it out. This is definitely the biggest disappointment, after the amount of time that a player can dump into Tools of Destruction, and it wouldn’t even have been all that difficult to implement, had Insomniac been willing.

Conclusion:
All that being said, this is the perfect game to give reason to hate a hundred point review system. It simply feels too lenient. There is nothing at all wrong with Quest for Booty. It feels like a stripped down version of Ratchet and Clank, and that is what you would expect from a downloadable offering. It’s short and diverting, but it could have been much, much more. If you managed to pick it up as part of Sony’s recent Welcome Back Programme, then you should really enjoy it. If you paid for it though… yeah, I can see where issues can spring from. It’s a good game, but that knowledge isn’t enough to balance against my disappointment. Insomniac: For shame. With a few tweaks, this could have been added as an epilogue to Tools of Destruction and been an excellent way to finish up the game, but it was not to be.

As always, thank you for reading. May you find Peace, Happiness and Contentedness going forward in your lives. Until next time, PSXE.