Ratchet & Clank Future Retrospective & Development Deep Dive 

Angela Cross was being hunted by tachyon before tools of destruction. She joined up with the treasure hunter (Talwyn's father) and together they mysteriously disappeared after landing on Jasindu(Where the dimensionator was). Likely both she and Mr. Apogee escaped to the lombax dimension in an attempt to avoid tachyon. There, now you know what happened with that plot hole. It bothered me alot until it was off-handedly explained in a news story in a crack in time.

as for angela....... with rift apart being released insomaniac has pretty much said "angela cross is NOT a lombax" edited : if angela is a lombax then why does insomaniac refer to rivet "as the first female lombax in the series"

@The Golden Bolt. Your videos are always awesome. But I I was was curious as to why you skipped the other ratchet games that came out between deadlocked and tod? As I recall size matters and secret agent clank are a part of the timeline if I’m not mistaken. If not please explain to me. Can’t wait to see your next video.

I thought the entire point behind the emperor being bufoonish is because it leads people to underestimate him leading him to get away with alot more because he doesn't pose a significant threat. Like how Qwark subverts the typical hero, the emperor acts as the chosen one villain.

I like to think Sunset overdrive was a threat to Sony that insomniac could work with Microsoft after the nightmare that was ratchet and clank future.

Oh dear God, you're right

Writers: "I don't know, should we really bring uncy Palps back this far into the saga? Palps: "ᵈᵉʷ ᶦᵗ"

Except they didn’t have to resurrect a character that should’ve definitely died. Twice.

"Rocks fall, everyone dies."

Metal Gear resurrected a major villain through an attached limb and then retconned it to be nanomachines but of course, no one is allowed to insult MGS.

I never said I didn't _understand_ why it didn't come back! I just enjoy breaking things

@@PlebNC Hold my Razor Claws.

I miss when games actually let you play the game instead of force out any kind of emergent gameplay for the sake of "polish"

@@PlebNC there are plenty of games that arent RPG loot grinds, but a lot of people enjoy those games and it is why the market is skewed to them. But if you look for 5 seconds you will see plenty of games that arent that. Your bitching is stupid and pointless and just shows you're too lazy to actually look around for games.

@@PlebNC I'll take an actual video game over shitty fucking padded always online experiences or completely hollow roller coaster ride/movie style 2 hour experiences Any and every day of the week. I don't play games to watch movies, that's what movies are for.

AcIT is GOAT material, idc what anyone says.

@@Cykelpump33 A Crack In Time is in my opinion the greatest Ratchet and Clank game of all time and even one of the best games of all time.

But none of the future games felt like a complete ratchet and clank game... The music sucked too

@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 Ok elitist

@@Cykelpump33 🥴

The one thing I've tried to hammer in throughout this retrospective saga (and now that I'm thinking about it, I didn't exactly hammer it as well this time, oops), is that there's been a constantly evolving process at Insomniac to become better project managers. I know I used Ted Price's comment a bit snarkily as a joke at one point, but it seems unanimous that Tools was their smoothest production yet in spite of its issues, and that Resistance was the smoothest yet before that, and that (probably with the exception of QfB and CiT) every major project after that was handled better and more healthily than the one before it. It's why I try to present that info as more of a statement than a critique, because the studio has seemingly proven time and again that they're always trying to get better, even if they fall into some of the same pitfalls a couple times before it sticks.

I think you are mistaken. if you check what was said, most of the things that were said was not that they were poorly managed(we don't have time, let's remove it even before we start. anyone who has worked as a programmer knows that's the opposite of poorly managed), but instead a hole in the writting department that broke anything. THESE GUYS WERE CONCURRENTLY MAKING 4 GAMES A YEAR!!!!! would you be even able to IMAGINE Naughty Dog doing something like that???? in fact, most of the gameplay seems to be just fine in the own video. Ok, the armor sucks, so what? all games have defects. also they still allowed for creativity, the starfox missions, even if they are starfox missions, would be unthinkable nowadays for example. You can point fingers in every project of everything, that doesn't mean that it's a bad game. the poor writter just had an insane task without enough people behind it. Never forget what happens when a writter changes mid history. Even loving the last jedi as myself, I cannot deny that not having a planned trilogy was a f*cking stupid idea, AND THIS GUY HAD TO DO IT. Give them a break

@@javiergimenez40insomniac has always been one of the best developers calm down bro

Huh, what a small world! I haven't had the chance to chat with many of the series' focus testers since...well as you know, a lot of the focus groups were the children of those involved in the projects already, so thanks for sharing this story with us! I have heard a couple similar comments from folks involved in production - that a few of the upper brass types at the time were perhaps too insulated and didn't immediately grasp or accept critical feedback.

No way. You're Richard Steven Horvitz' son? That's awesome! Love your dad's work.

I'm going to hazard a guess and say they ultimately took your critique to heart, it's not often you have someone give a take so candid, so out of left field, that it leaves the production staff in a state of temporary shock. I love your dads work btw, zim, billy and raz all wouldn't leave as strong an impression without your old mans signature raspy voice, very unique. 👏

Your dad is one of my voice acting idols

I liked the game personally. It was a short one, but not that expensive to balance it out. The pirates were one of the best parts of TOD imo. There was a lot of variety here, with the standouts being hoolefar island, which put the focus on platforming and puzzles, and the dark morrow caverns with those walkways over bottomless pits. I would have been about that age (10) when I first played it. Didn’t notice any glitches, and I thought the new mechanics were good as they returned in CIT (the wrench’s ability to move things, and pick things up). Were there plot holes? I don’t remember any.

Nice pfp

well that's a little better at least

Lol I did the exact same thing

Lol i wasnt a kid anymore 😂

At the end of the day, _that's_ what matters! I can talk about development or break down stuff critically, but the point universally remains that I'm giving these breakdowns because I like all of the games - and my no-frills analytical take doesn't always align with what my deep-down lizard brain thinks (which is usually "game good yay").

@@TheGoldenBolt when looking at them with an analytical eye you can poke massive holes in most games. Nothing’s perfect (besides Spelunky), but the sum of a game’s parts generally outweigh most singular problems for me. Even “bad” games usually have some unique and interesting ideas, they were just too ambitious for the hardware or the team making it. It’s only when those problems start to really stack up that games lose that sense of fun. If every game was a masterpiece we wouldn’t be able to appreciate the ones that really knock it out of the park.

Music is among the best I’ve ever heard also tbh. Paul fucking Hardcastle is a legend

@@vicedm1145 The ending song for ToD, the one that sounds like a Daft Punk song gives me all the feels. I can't listen to it these days without immediately feeling nostalgia for the days I had my PS3. This was among the first couple of games I bought for it after I got my PS3 in 07.

When i played the trilogie first i cant like tools of destruction that much. It felt to me like a soft reboot. Where is the Phoenix where are the other characters ? Ratchets Design looks so ugly to me. The Story i liked it.

That's so weird, my dad didn't come to my birthday party today... d-dad?

@@TheGoldenBolt that's weird, my dad also didn't come to my brother's birthday party today... B-brother

Fuck dem kids, me and the homies playing Ratchet and Clank all night.

And he said he’d never make such a long video again in Ratchet 3’s Retrospective. So predictable 😎

Quest for Booty was amazing imo, just wanted it to be longer xd

Did you end up playing the PC port?

@@crispyjelly2485 I didn't know there was one! I did get the chance to play a little bit of Rift Apart on my friend's PS5 though

@@ZeroDividesByYOU right? It's on steam, a PS4/5 controller and a copy is probably better value then buying the whole console for one game. I'm going through and playing the PS3 games I didn't have a chance to play at the time so I can play rift apart, and I'm pretty excited for when I hit it

Spot-on, my friend. As critical as I am of specifically _how Future failed to achieve its own goals that it set,_ a lot of folks ended up missing that...y'know, I still really love these games for what they achieve anyway! But "game good" alone doesn't tell the whole story; we don't look at Mass Effect the same way after 3, or Game of Thrones the same way after Season 8, and I think there's a valuable perspective in acknowledging that hey, these games missed the very mark they were trying to set, despite being good anyway. After all, the fanbase just absolutely *trashes* the PS4 game for failing at its chief goals, despite that game otherwise being great fun too - if we're gonna do it in one spot, let's be fair and acknowledge that these games are _all_ great, but not A+ masterpieces.

@@TheGoldenBolt I dunno, the way this video was put together made me feel like it was a terrible game with lots of shortcomings half the time, while I know for a fact that it's a good game from playing it several times (and plan to play it again on a plat marathon even though there are no trophies in this game) and that is general opinion of the reviewer anyway. It was kind of hard to watch the nitpicking for much of the video, which drowns out the positive elements. Talking about the knock on effects of the series ambitious and rushed development probably should have been explored fully in a separate video, rather than mixed into this retrospective, even if it is particularly relevent to this game, since it affected the whole future trilogy and beyond. This is the sort of thing which would be really interesting as a one off topic explored thoroughly in itself. What did go wrong and what are the key takeaways for game development in general. What *could* have been the full fleshed out games if they had time. *How* could it have been better than they are already, rather than just pointing out the holes in what was made. Perhaps Insomniac has taken on board many of its past mistakes which is why they are doing so well recently. I'm surprised they managed to produce what they did given the circumstances, every game seemed to have some hiccup along the way, and that is commendable in itself. If the situation were perfect then I'm sure we would have had better games, but that wasn't and rarely is the case. I think it's better to build anew, including repairing the old, rather than tearing it down. I have my own headcannon figured out for a lot of the inconsistencies in the lore, a lot introduced in the future series and the difficulty in tieing all the games together. Not yet having a conclusion to the future series set up is not a problem for me, just an unfortunate side effect of the poor performance of the late PS3 games and the 2016 game being hamstrung by the movie (I wouldn't be surprised if they just wanted to start over given all the issues); look now you made me nitpicky and critical of the series. Plot holes are opportunities to fill with new imagination. How satisfying will it be when it finally is tied up in a nice bow?

That was an angle I originally had scripted out, too! I ended up cutting it with a couple other side points since they're random dropped opportunities of little substance, and I didn't want to go COMPLETELY in the weeds when my point was already more than made by that point. I'm sure there are even others like this that you and I have both missed or forgotten, too! I love the Future saga but man, if you dig into it at all, it's Swiss cheese sometimes

Definitely sounds like a) a last minute scamble for endgame "balance" or b) a micommunication between the level and battle designers.

Every time I hear it I die laughing.

Tip me over and I’ll smash everything!

@@ChristianFrates1997 “he’s all twitchy and bug eyed”

Oh hey Punky, didn't know you loved Ratchet and Clank.

I knew I forgot something during my pre-publish checklist, good shout!

@@TheGoldenBolt you're welcome!

You're far too kind, my fr- Aphelion...huh, well, that's fitting! You're fat too kind, Aphelion, I really appreciate the nice words!

@@TheGoldenBolt I actually had forgotten that my username was named after Aphelion from this game. I miss that character in Rift Apart :( lol

It's actually quite interesting, as a kid I fell in love with the idea of Aphelion as a character, and just kept hoping they'd do something with it, and they never did. Kind of a shame now that you mention it.

You can hear it even in the name ”nexus” every other has some sort of pun in the name ”up in arsenal” ”going commando” which is interesting to me. Like yeah lets not bother with the title coz we did not with the game.

@@Hiihtopipa tools of destruction and gladiator didn't have an innuendoes

@@marvelanddcretrospective tools of destruction? C'mon :D

@@marvelanddcretrospective you can't be that simple

@@Hiihtopipa eh it's kind of there if you really stretch it

Yeah. That's how I found it. In Jak and Daxter for example I think they hit this balance pretty well: the story had lots of comedy but the core of the story remained serious and characters took it seriously. The entirity of Ratchet and Clank feels too much like a long poorly written excuse to tell bad jokes every two seconds and the jokes are all predictable. I don't think the games got me to laugh a single time; I just remember being bored watching the cutscenes whereas other games (J&D is an easy parallel purely because the pedigree of when both games came out etc) I can watch the cutscenes and be engaged every time./

I couldn't agree more

I actually wouldn't mind Insomniac pulling A Crack in Time Nefarious and have Tachyon make a comeback, there's seriously alot of potential with him. Not to mention that Tachyon will have a excuse to be a total beast in a round 2 against Ratchet and Clank knowing that he has been stranded on another dimension for nearly 10 years now.

@@BoydTheMilkmanX I disagree, the PS2 games were very funny

I see I’ve found the no fun zone

Thanks so much for the kind words, my friend!

If I have any say, we'll find out _exactly_ what the Future saga was meant to look like initially! Whether I get a say is a different story lol

I'm glad to have you on board, friend! But also, I do wanna say that if you have the means you should absolutely give the game(s) a shot yourself - as thorough as I try to be, nothing can replace experiencing something firsthand! (Especially when there are so many solid levels that I didn't discuss play by play, for the sake of avoiding repetition!)

@@TheGoldenBolt Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm well aware that hearing about it and experiencing it are two different things, but it's gonna take a while before I get my hands on a copy of it. But I am watching a let's play of it, and so far I can say it looks pretty fun (And really pretty for the PS3)

I don't mind either way lorewise. Leaving only 1 or 2 lombaxes left doesn't diminish what happened. Idk why Insomniac never just outright said "we forgot, we're sorry". Even the "we're sorry" line doesn't seem to have them admitting the real reason behind it. They seem so upforth about so many other worse things that happened back in the days.

To that end, it's not always fun to write or record, either, but like you said it's necessary! Plus, sometimes I've got to put aside my own personal stances too, in the name of taking a fair stance at points - so in another world I'd very much be the guy in the comments pointing out that a lot of it can be nitpicky lol. I'm glad to have you along for the journey, my friend!

I appreciate the kind words, my friend!

I don't know. I never really like to say adding "seriousness" makes anything more mature. It really just depends on whats done with that serious context. Tools doesn't do much with its serious aspects outside of have them there.

The PSP games are on the docket, although not right away! I skipped over them specifically to give myself time to get the full development story. Doing it with the Insomniac games was an incredible amount of work, but I at least had ideas of where to start. The only starting points I have for interviews and research with the PSP games...are actually a result of some of the interviews I did for Ratchets 2 and 3, funnily enough, so I've got a lot of work cut out for me!

​@@TheGoldenBolt yo that's epic looking forward to that Keep up the good work and take all the time you need :^)

I got it for Christmas.

First, thank you! And second, the short answer to what Insomniac could make without crunch is Spider-Man (presumably) and Rift Apart! Based on the developers that spoke out a few months back, we know with relative confidence that Rift Apart was crunch-free (at least, unless and until somebody speaks out saying otherwise, which you would anticipate would've happened given how some former team members spoke out about upper Insomniac staff wanting to make Rivet a bit more...let's say "eye candy" initially). I'd think that Spidey would likely be in the same boat, since it feels and seems like they've finally gotten their production process down to the science they wanted years ago, but obviously we can't confirm that without more research.

In a vacuum, I do enjoy Quest for Booty! But when I think about a finished version of Crack in Time, which we never exactly got because of one overly-excited optimistic Insomniac suggesting co-op? Man, I just can't separate the two anymore deep down, it stings!

I hate so much that ToD is the only Ratchet and Clank game from PS3 that's not on PSNow and I don't have a PS3 here. Hope so much for a port or something for the 20th anniversary 😢

@@Wolfstarzan play it on ps3 emulator if you have a powerful pc

Or better to say a softreboot

@@Rachebart But these games are meant to be canon to the originals.

@@kirbytheartist3318 yes i know thats why i said (Soft) reboot. Because we have no context of the last game.

@@Rachebart Oh okay.