@@mann-nova9392 If we were to keep Ratchet in character, like in range of Going Commando, Up Your Arsenal, and Deadlocked, then yes. Ratchet would write this off as Bad TV and change the channel, ignoring its existence. Or in a more modern day sense, not waste time streaming this shite. The first game/Size Matters Ratchet? He would KILL this fanfic writer, uninhibited and without restraint, if only to cement how unlikable this Ratchet is, honestly.
Waking up every Saturday and watching another one of your Ratchet re-reviews has been a fun little tradition this last month or so. I look forward to the thrilling conclusion.
You know what? These spinoff portable titles would have been a great chance to play as side characters with simplified mechanics so the portable games can have quick play sessions. One game can focus on quark and another can focus on Dr nefarious. Just my two cents.
Other than the complete Coldplay studio album CD collection, this is the best 100 dollars I ever spent. Great work, J. Despite being shorter, I think you outdid your original SAC review.
i feel the yt algorithm is sorting comments for me based on media I’ve seen, last night I was listening to coldplay and now I see a coldplay comment on something completely unrelated.. I don’t know what to believe atm.
Despite liking SAC when I was a kid, I only played it twice unlike the likes of Size Matters, Daxter or TLF even, games that I played multiple times. Years later, I can see why. The game at its core isn't that interesting and doesn't work on a fundamental basis. It's a shame that the "classic" Ratchet series went out on such a low note.
SAC is bizzare, like it can't decide if it's supposed to be a stealth platformer or a 3rd person arena shooter. Though as a kid I was forgiving because it didn't star Ratchet so it couldn't be as good but as I've matured it's really no excuse.
Playing it right now and I find it surprisingly good. It's nice to see Clank taking the spotlight for once and I love how it tries to pull off the segret agent movies vibe while keeping the comedy moments the series is known for. Stealth puzzles are not super hard but they at least require you to think, and I find both Ratchet's and Clank's weapons fun to use. Qwark and gadgebots levels are a cute change of pace. Honestly I'm really digging this, sorry to see so many people not appreciating it
Hmm, y'know what, I could try to give it another shot. Hopefully the Casino level will be a bit more intuitive once I get to it. I'm just worried about the following levels... my weapons never seem powerful enough in those.
Why "Secret Agent Clank" is the Game of the Century Released in 2008 for the PlayStation Portable (PSP), Secret Agent Clank stands out as a groundbreaking entry in the Ratchet & Clank series, redefining what fans expected from the franchise. This game is a bold departure from its predecessors, focusing on Clank, the sidekick, rather than Ratchet, the main hero. This shift brings a fresh perspective, immersing players in a spy-themed adventure reminiscent of classic James Bond films, with Clank assuming the role of a suave secret agent. The gameplay in Secret Agent Clank is a masterful blend of stealth, combat, and puzzle-solving, setting it apart from traditional platformers. Clank’s missions require sneaking past enemies and using an array of inventive gadgets like cufflink bombs and bowtie boomerangs. This variety ensures that the game remains engaging and dynamic, offering challenges that are both creative and fun. Additionally, rhythm-based mini-games add an unexpected twist, providing a unique blend of timing and style that enhances the overall experience. The storyline is another highlight, filled with humor, intrigue, and unexpected plot twists. Clank’s quest to clear Ratchet’s name after a wrongful accusation unfolds with a perfect balance of comedy and suspense. The narrative is rich with parodies of spy film clichés, adding a layer of entertainment that complements the action-packed gameplay. Visually, Secret Agent Clank impresses with its sleek and colorful graphics, which are remarkably polished for a handheld game. The attention to detail in character design and environments creates a vibrant and immersive world that pulls players into Clank’s espionage escapades. The sound design, featuring a catchy spy-themed soundtrack and immersive audio effects, further enhances the atmosphere, making each mission feel like a scene from a blockbuster spy film. Beyond its engaging gameplay and captivating storyline, Secret Agent Clank offers significant replayability. The variety of challenges, collectibles, and unlockable content encourage players to return, making each playthrough a new and exciting experience. Its influence extends beyond just being a fun game; it set a precedent for successful spin-offs in major franchises, showcasing how secondary characters can lead compelling adventures. In conclusion, Secret Agent Clank is not just a standout in the Ratchet & Clank series but a defining game of its era. Its innovative approach, blending stealth with action and humor, combined with its memorable characters and stylish presentation, make it a timeless classic. Secret Agent Clank is truly the game of the century, capturing the essence of what makes gaming both exciting and endlessly entertaining.
Fun fact: this game will mark the last time that we will see Ratchet & Clank’s characters original looks, because after this game all of these characters looks will be reused from Ratchet and Clank future tools of destruction and onwards with the other ratchet and clank games. Also Secret Agent Clank is the final Ratchet and Clank game to be released in the ps2.
I have always found it odd when people say talking about canon is gatekeeping or that canon isn't important. I mean my GF loves friends, but she's taken out of the show when the vegetarian girl is shown digging into a meat lasagne. Plot holes and mistakes like that create cracks in your abiliy to suspend your disbelief and engross yourself in a story. Now there are some people are are always aware what they're seeing is just a series of images on a screen created by a group of people and performed by another, but humans by their nature are engrossed by stories and put stock in their believability.
Gatekeeping isnt even inherently bad. Gatekeeping keeps special things special and prevents them being normalised to the mass audience. It’s okay to say “this product isn’t for you”
@@MysteriousStranger50and we've all seen how no gatekeeping can turn something unrecognizable just look at the current state of comics and other "geek" media nowadays
The Qwark dam section and the casino level are so bad that they still haunt me a good 10 years after the fact. I didn't even dislike the game as a kid, but even then I knew those sections sucked.
I applaud all you blokes for your patience and tenacity. I didn't have enough of it as a kid by the time I got to the Foundry level. Also, apparently the game had a challenge mode that folks find even more insufferable, how did that go for you three?
@@artaihnandez4980y'know, it's funny to see folks that genuinely enjoy these sorta rhythm things in games. Even as a kid, I never found them either enjoyable or horrible. They just... were. They existed. They were an arbitrary something I had to do in order to continue the game otherwise I couldn't keep playing. But most of the ones I did do in this game were pretty pointless, honestly. The one where you cross the guards and lasers to get to the stand where the Eye of Infinity was? They're all obstacles I've been tackling during the regular game, why not let me cross them like normal too? Pointless. The dance with the baroness or whatever? That one is the only one that makes sense in context, and it's also funny with how you trick her into falling for the multiple traps, always found that one a hoot. The card game at the casino? I'd rather read a set of rules for 10 minutes to learn how to play a card game and then try to beat it. It would honestly be so much cooler. Heck, if it was fun, I could even try and play it with friends! But nah, let's push buttons while things happen on the screen. Exciting things too! Like... passing a card to your opponent. Riveting. But you know that it at least makes sense in context, because as we all know, better reflexes and timing is how you get good at poker- no it isn't.
I beaten this game like 30 times (not exaggerating), i really like it, but some of the things this guy says in the video, are true. This game is not the best, but who cares? I love it
@@josueayala1249 Yeah I know, I remember J saying that. Sly 4 seems to fall into the category of “decent standalone, bad sequel” games that Dissidia NT and the Ratchet & Clank Future Trilogy and 2016 seem to (not that I’ve actually played any of them, just what I’ve heard online). This was more of a poke to J’s joke hatred of Sly 4. He doesn’t outright hate the game, he just likes to take jabs at it.
@@maestrofeli4259 Yeah like I said I haven’t played them. But from what I’ve heard online, they’re decent games on their own, but become weaker when you compare them to what came before. This is why I used the term “decent standalone, bad sequel.” Of course, I’m not gonna stand in the way of your opinion, especially because I haven’t played any R&C games (I’ve only owned Nintendo systems), but this seems to be the general consensus online from what I gathered.
@@JdRDMS yeah maybe. People might say that they are bad compared to the previous games because the future saga had a pretty forced history that didn't connect with the previous games and some planets weren't as interesting as the ones from the ps2 games
i actually loved this game as a kid and teen. maybe its because im an autistic weirdo and almost anything can be fun or entertaining to me, but i used to love it and am planning on replaying it. im sorry you couldn't appreciate it like i did.
Yeah, that's a pretty popular theory that I enjoy as it can kinda explain why the story of this game is so bad and nonsensical. It's a dream, it never happened, that's it.
@@AlexxxMYLSince2013 lol I'm pretty sure that the person that was running the twitter account hadn't even played the game or ask anyone in insomniac if that was the case, it was prolly just what he thought
6:32 Y'know, I just realised how horrifically ironic it is that Size Matters' weapons have "no impact", despite the game being made by High Impact Games. The fudge you couldn't even live up to your own frickin' name REALLY eurgh
This was a great time spent every week. You really have gotten me interested in so many different series of games, and it felt nice watching these videos every Saturday. I'm glad you enjoyed making them as much as we enjoyed watching them
Yeah, this game felt like it goes on forever! Aside from dying so many times that this game has psychologically scarred me because of being constantly spotted by the frustrating guards, being constantly ambushed by a f-ton of enemies in several areas within each mission and the crappy weapons that barely do any real damage at all to these punks, this game just kept going! Every time I feel like I’m at the homestretch for the end, it just popped in a new thing that made me go, “Oh Come On! Just End Dammit!”. Was even worse considering my Memory Card didn’t have enough memory for it, so I had to constantly start from the beginning each time I popped in the disk. And no one should go through that hell! Do yourself a favor and stay away from this game. For your own mental well-being, please!
I always thought the bad plot and dialogues were supposed to mimic a cheesy bad movie sequel from Clank's show. It sucks but at least you have beloved characters with their original voices.
Let me add just one more thing to this: getting every skill point in this game it's the absolute worst out of every Ratchet & Clank game. I gave up halfway through, 'cause frankly, fuck the rhytm minigames, but also because most of them were horribly designed. So far it's only game in the series I haven't got 100%, and god, I would never try it.
Excellent review, I feel the same way. It's sad that this was the last R&C game on the PS2 and the last game where the characters appeared in their original forms.
This series was so good. I hope you do the rest of the games (again) over along with the other spinoffs someday. Same for Jak! Can't wait for the re-re-reviews of Sly though lmao.
I feel like the Blackout Pen having limited ammo could be a good way to get players to use it conservatively, only disabling the lasers they need to, and just dodging the rest with the movement controls. If the devs actually gave a shit of course.
Clank can be a secret agent and still be a movie star playing the character. the movie would be a mask to make anyone claiming his status as an agent to be a crazy person.
Maybe I'm weird but I always loved the Clank segments in these games and am a huge stealth fan so when I heard there was a stealth game with Clank being the main character I jumped at it and I still have fun with this game to this day lol
Not trynna hate, but you also said that Size Matters' weapons were the worst, honestly that argument has less of an impact and now I doubt if you are just using hyperbolic words to make it seem worst than it is =/
When a flamethrower takes 5 seconds to kill a basic slime monster, when it takes one millisecond to kill the same kinda enemy in another game, you know you've balls'd it. These weapons are just not it. Only one is a ranged weapon (and it's not a fast shooting one either), all others are close combat, and more than half of them feel worse than your punches simply because they're slower and let you do less damage/inputs by the second. The actually powerful ones can't be used too much in each segment with enemies since you can only use like 10 of them before refilling.
I think there's a pretty interesting discussion to be had about what constitutes the "worst video game". Because like, I've played a few games like Hong Kong 97 or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the NES that are barely even video games, and as a kid I played quite a few licensed games that were downright unplayable (there was this one penguins of madagascar game I had for the DS that you literally couldn't even beat. Like, you got to the last level and there was no way for you to progress forward) but none of them managed to emotionally break me the way that Megaman X7 did
13:40 Somebody else has probably already explained it to you by now, but number woo and the lazer exploding the city was meant as a "made in china" joke
@@StationComics A month ago I started up Size Matters after YEARS of not playing it, I never truly finished it cuz of No More Varmints, one of the Giant Clank shooter skill points. Got it on the first try. Guess I was small and unexperienced?
The bad guy freeing himself, and the torrent gun destroying the city was a reference to the James Bond movies in my opinion. It could’ve been explained if they had a clip of Clank laughing, and saying how he sabotaged the gun
My only experience with this game was nabbing my brothers psp and playing it, but I don't think I played it for very long. I actually kinda liked the Clank sections in previous games too
the thing that bothers me the most about this game is that it ruined the ratchet and clank series for me. it's the first ratchet game i ever played as a kid, so i grew ACCUSTOMED to playing as clank for most of the game. when i tried out size matters later on as a teen, it felt SO weird to play as ratchet. it was so offputting i genuinely couldn't get past the first few stages of the game. thanks secret agent, look what you've done! 😭
Secret Agent Clank is the only R&C game I've played ONCE and this video made me remember why... Devs usually add "variety" into the game to keep the core gameplay from getting boring. They must've figured that out REALLY early, because all the Ratchet, Gadgebots, Quark (I even forgot those were in here), Vehicle, rhythm AND Giant Clank sections really show they didn't have a lot of faith in the game focussing on Clank alone... This almost feels more like a R&C minigame collection lol Also, congrats on getting the Patreon stretch goal!!
Great job on this review J, can’t wait to see and watch your Sonic Riders and Sonic Riders Zero Gravity review. When is that review coming out? Next Saturday?
one addendum: while not as weirdly hard on the first run as Size Matters' endgame, the NG+ modifier is completely broken im pretty sure Clunk is straight up impossible on challenge mode
So the way I’ve reconciled the TV show vs references to real event is basically like what we’ve seen in other TV shows. Take Big Bang Theory. Wil Wheaton is on the show as himself and references the fact that he did indeed play Wesley on TNG, but then all the events that happened to him in the show are pure fiction. So to create a SAC episode that feels ‘real’ (in the R&C universe at least) the show references ‘real’ events but creates a fictional narrative for the ‘real’ characters. At least that’s how I see it
Wow, I've really enjoyed watching this series. And I agree on a lot of your views too. I've never had the patience to finish Size Matters, but with Secret Agent Clank I just never even had the desire to play past the first level. Glad to see I really wasn't missing anything.
I really don't have anything to say on this one that you didn't in this video. The stealth is bad, the weapons are mostly bad, the writing is terribad. I regret having spent any time with this non-canon atrocity as a kid. At least I can say I beat it and never have to play it again even out of a sense of completionist duty.
Yo, you also lost your PSP with a lot of the games for it? I had mine stolen in a mall when I was 11-12 in 2012. My most crushing childhood memory/trauma.
I remember playing this game, having an alright time, but then reaching a point where the enemies were too tough for any strategy I came up with. The casino level was hell, yeah. I barely got through the toxic planet with the slimes, and I remained stuck in the bolt factory planet. Not gonna lie, hearing you complain about the stealth mechanics and the combat made me feel heard. The rhythm game things were... there, the Master Key puzzles were kinda ok, the vehicle parts were pretty fun to what I recall, I didn't run into any bugs either... But the stealth, if it was the focus, then it was a miserable mechanic that I had to work myself around, and the combat had to be too close to the enemies for how weak the weapons were, to the point the regular punches were better simply because they were actually faster. I always tried to go for the quiet takedowns, but it was never a guarantee through all sections of enemies (and yes, their duration got tiring, especially after multiple tries through the same segments of a level). I kinda wonder how would a better version of this game look like. Now, not all was bad to me, at least back then. I liked the segments with the three little bots alright (from what I recall at least), and _some_ of the Quark segments wete pretty enjoyable due to how silly they were, you were always doing something different in each!... but I also remember the Opera one lasting way too long for my liking. As for the Ratchet segments, I could say I was just not good at these parts, or blame the "one-analog only" PSP controls, or the same issue in Size Matters with the weaker weapons... but I can't say for sure. I wasn't super good at them, and they were always something I "had to do" in order to continue.
I think you are overthinking and making a mess in your head about things being cannon or not. Yes they refrence past games because thats why they got the show in the first place? Like becoming famous and getting a show was BECAUSE of the heroics they did?
This is oftern called the worst ratchet and clank game (excluding mobile games), but I got to admit the Quark opera scene is pretty awesome. Also if I had to admit again, I personally think that every game in the series is good, though obviously some are greater than the other such as the beloved ACIT, Rift and GC.
The fact that this was the first game i played in my life and that everyone hates it makes me feel bad for high impact, because i have some kind of love to that company (like, i didnt even knew that Ratchet is the main character of the series until i was 10) I also beated this game on the same savefile like 5 times, actually i think i beated the game to the 100% accidentally lol I guess i just had a lot of free time (Also it was the PS2 version, so its even worse)
I have more love for them simply because they made Phineas and Ferb Into the Second Dimension for the Wii. Definitely not thanks to this game, sorry to say.
This game was basically how I got introduced to the ratchet and clank series and I liked it a lot when I played it on my psp. Then I played size matters and liked it too, never got to play the ps2 ones though.
My condolences. I honestly wished I had at least seen the PS2 games as a kid, at least I'd know what I was missing out on back then instead of only knowing the PSP games. To think they looked pretty awesome as a kid, having seen others play them... until I actually played this one myself. And it took me a while before I started actually disliking the game too.
Pretty sure Number Woo (The guy Clank pinned to a wall) is voiced by Lex Lang (Or someone who sounds like him) because I hear his version of Dr Cortex when I hear Woo's voice.
I remember playing this on my Vita a few years back through two plane rides and a car trip, there were some good moments, like the over the top snowboarding section, and the dancing rhythm section before, but besides that it was kinda eh
When I last played the game ages ago I thought it was the gadgebots in the section before the Japanese city level that sabotaged the turret, making it explode.
Ratchet and clank always being the games I end up playing first for a new console. First it was OG Ratchet and clank. Secret agent clank for psp, all for one on PS4. And now rift apart on ps5.
I enjoy your content, getting a subscribe and a like for me but I respectfully disagree with that take on ported versions of games. Porting a game is not a general thing. The process and content varies depending on what hardware it is moving to. A game made for a *portable* device which has extremely limited capabilities being ported to a home console will most definetly impact the perception of the gameplay when compared to games that were made, tooled, tested and refined on the console to begin with. PSP games at the time were made with the mindset that the games were marketed to a set audience which was mainly kids and teens. Developers werent too concerned with polishing and many details when it came to portable devices hence why they even outsourced it to other devs. You keep trying to see the R&C games as a straight line from a Wikipedia page instead of contextualizing the decisions that took to make a lot of the SPIN OFF games.
I remember saving money for this game as a kid and getting mad at my dad for forgeting the UMD at the store (It was in another town). I could never finish Size Matter so in retrospect, probably wasted the money if i'd got it or not
This was my favorite game and I can't say that its bad. I remember playing it so many times :) Its alright if someone has an other opinion about a game, but Its sad to hear when you don't like it ;( Still thumbs up for this video!
This game was definitely one of my favorite psp games when I was a kid. Once you're older yeah sure, it really doesn't look that amazing. But for me it introduced me to ratchet n clank and i'll be thankfull to it for that. It will still be one of my favorite psp games and will keep being regardless. Great video nonetheless though.