Hello and welcome to platinum review, a series where we talk about amazing games, breakdown the roadmap to platinum trophy and I share you my thoughts on whether you should add another platinum trophy to your collection. This weeks article we will be talking about Ratchet and Clank 2016, and I know that Rift Apart would have come out by the time this article is published, but I didn’t platinum it yet, so that will be out as soon as I do.

Now, with all that out of the way, let’s dive right in.

My Thoughts about Ratchet & Clank

Now, I going to be honest, I’ve never played Ratchet and Clank game until a few weeks ago, when I finally decided to give it a chance prior to the launch of its sequel and oh boy, have I been missing out.

Ratchet and Clank PS4, or 2016 if you wish, is a really fun 3d platformer with a decent amount of humor that made me giggle more than once. It has amazing visuals and addictive gameplay, and as someone who’ve never been too much into platformers, this game actually made me reconsider that and even buy the sequel.

Gameplay is definitely its strongest part, and I am fully on board with that. I had a blast using my large arsenal of weapons to defeat countless enemies. Talking of enemies, they weren’t repetitive to me and every level had something unique, so it never felt dull. Weapons themselves offer great variety that will accommodate most playstyles, and by using them you will level them up to be even more powerful.

There are also some puzzle sections, and they were enjoyable as well, not too hard, but most of the time I did have to spend a few minutes to figure them out, which is good. One thing that I didn’t like about them is that the game sometimes was too eager to give me hints when I clearly didn’t want or need them, it’s like, come on, have faith in me, let me figure it out on my own. I just wish it would give me a button prompt before telling me, that’s all.

The story was okay. I mean, I might be a minority here, but I didn’t care for it as much as wanted too, but again, this was my first Ratchet and Clank experience, I didn’t grow up playing the original game, so I wasn’t that invested in it, but it’s definitely not bad by any means, I was never bored at any point and it definitely has its charm.

From the technical perspective it’s amazing. I didn’t encounter any bugs and glitches throughout both of my playthroughs, and visually it’s just a show case for the hardware. It even received a PS5 patch, so if you own that console, you can play it in 4K 60fps, but if you don’t, it still runs great on PS4.

Controls were snappy and intuitive, even for me, who doesn’t play as many platformers, so if you are new to the genre, you should be able to manage it without any issues. One small complaint that I have is, when riding rails, jumping to the side was annoying and if I didn’t pull my stick directly to the side it would register me jumping forward instead. This made one section a little frustrating, but other than that it was really good.

And I know that it might sound that I am being overly critical to this game, but it’s only because it’s just that good, so notice the little things more. I would say that it really is an incredible game and it’s definitely worth playing regardless of trophies.

Roadmap & Trophy List

Speaking of trophies, if you are interested in going for the platinum trophy you will have to finish the game at least twice and pay attention to a few missables. To be fair though, you can earn all of them on your second playthrough and just enjoy the game when playing it for the first time, as some of them are unobtainable until finishing the game anyway.

Overall, the structure is pretty simple, finish the story on any difficulty once while using as many different weapons as you can and get all the collectibles and miscellaneous trophies in freeroam after. Then finish it on the challenge mode while focusing on leveling all the weapons to maximum and getting all the trophies you missed. By the way, Challenge Mode name was a little confusing to me, because technically it’s more of a New Game Plus, and you can play it on any difficulty you want. All your weapons, weapon upgrades and bolts, that you use to get more weapons, carry over from your previous playthrough and you have a bolt multiplier that you can accumulate by defeating enemies without taking damage. Other than that, it’s pretty much the same.

Honestly, none of the trophies are hard, but you will need to pay attention to some of them, and I will talk about those. First of all, you have to level up your weapons. On your initial playthrough the level cap is 5, therefore I would recommend to try to get them as close to level 5 as you can to save time later. Also, at one point you will receive a tool called Trespasser and it’s used to open puzzle doors. It has an Auto-Hack feature that can solve those puzzles for you. Don’t use Auto-Hack on your first playthrough because there is a trophy to open every Trespasser door without using Auto-Hack. Honestly those puzzles are not too bad, I did struggle with a couple, but they never took me more than 5 minutes, and you can find solutions on YouTube if you are really struggling.

Another thing to keep an eye out for is cards that you get by exploring and defeating enemies and there are 108 different ones. But the thing is, they are random and you will be also getting duplicates, no worries though, you can trade every 5 duplicates for a card of your choice. Do that as soon as possible, because trading for a card is technically a missable trophy.

Getting collectibles overall is pretty easy in this game, because on planet Kalebo III, that you will visit later in the game, you will be able to get a map that will show you every collectible. None of them are missable, so you can do the collectible run after finishing the game for the first time. For collectibles on your first playthrough, you should get all the Gold Bolts and Telepathopus brains, which the map will reveal as well. As for cards, just keep collecting and trading them, you probably won’t have enough after the first playthrough anyway, I finished them in the middle of my challenge run.

Other than that, on this stage you should get all the miscellaneous trophies, which are pretty easy. The only one that can give you grief is for winning gold cups in 2 races under time constrains. Those actually took me a few tries, because the time is very unforgiving, so you will have to perform them almost perfect. You can cheese them a little though. If you collected all the 28 bolts you will be able to turn on Invincibility and Slow motion, and I have to admit, I did that after a bunch of unsuccessful attempts. Do I feel bad about it? No. Because this is not a racing game, so I didn’t mind making my life a little easier.

In the last stage you should complete the game on challenge mode, and you can do it on easy if you prefer, focus on the couple of missable trophies you have left, like “Not My Job” by letting your enemies kill each other in Rilgar. Another one is for using a Sheeponator weapon on a Helicopter, to turn it into a sheep, and yes, it is as fun as it sounds. And the last missable trophy is for using Groovitron, a weapon that makes your enemies dance, on every enemy.

Your last trophy is probably going to be to level all your weapons to level 10. Now, that part can actually be a bit grindy, because you will have to buy the upgraded versions first, and they are pricey. But don’t worry, I got your back, you can do it in no time by farming infinite enemies. Just make sure to build up your multiplier to x20 before picking up the bolts. Link to the guide in the description below.

As for leveling the weapons themselves, I actually wouldn’t recommend doing it here, and instead you should travel to the last level of the game and just run through it repeatedly, because tougher enemies will give you significantly more xp, and I found it to be a lot quicker.

I really enjoyed my platinum journey with this game, and I very excited to start playing Rift Apart.

Conclusions

So, should you platinum Ratchet and Clank?

Definitely! Despite it having a couple missable trophies they are pretty easy if you are aware of them and the game is just that good, so you are not wasting your time by playing it twice.

In fact, it might make it into my next best platinum trophy list, if I end up making one, so if it’s something that you might be interested in, let me know in the comment section below.