Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty

Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty is the second game in the 'future' Saga and focuses primarily on tracking down Clank after he was taken at the end of the previous game. It serves as an epilogue to Tools of Destruction but also a prologue to A Crack in Time. This Ratchet title is much shorter than most, only taking around three to four hours to complete. This is mainly due to the fact that Quest for Booty was only really made to bridge the gap between Tools of Destruction and A Crack in Time. The game isn't great overall as it's hard to fit all of what a Ratchet game should be into three or four hours however what it does it actually does surprisingly well and even starts to fix some of the faults seen in Tools of Destruction and shows us a couple of mechanics that end up being heavily incorporated into A Crack in Time.

Quest for Booty takes the fan-favourite pirate side villains of Tools of Destruction and gives them their own game to be the main antagonists. After you defeat Captain Slag is defeated in the first game his faithful companion Rusty Pete takes his head and tricks Ratchet into helping him revive him using the body of long-dead Captain Darkwater. Ratchet trusts Rusty Pete as he also needs Darkwater to attempt to contact Clank. Upon finding Darkwater Rusty Pete betrays Ratchet and Talwyn by merging both Slag and Darkwater together. An army of undead robot zombies has risen and it's up to Ratchet and Talwyn to stop them.

After defeating Darkwater you are able to get somewhat of a fix on Clank's location but this cut scene also shows that Dr. Nefarious is behind Clank's kidnapping setting up the events of A Crack in Time. Once you get past the fact that the story of this game (and the future saga in general) is clearly a far cry from where the series began you actually start to enjoy the goofy cinematic nature. The story is also incredibly easy to follow so you won't need to worry about any of the plot holes made in Tools of Destruction. The only real gripe I have with the story is that it doesn't add any notable new characters and doesn't really do anything new for Ratchet or Talwyn. Again, this is a four-hour game so I'm not going to give much stick for this.

The gameplay of Quest for booty is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, you've got some cool new puzzles and platforming mechanics that actually make their way over to the next game. On the other hand, you have practically the exact same combat from Tools of Destruction with no new weapons at all and a couple of the weapons you get given were some of the worst in the previous game.

As much as I do appreciate the effort put into some fun new mechanics I can't ignore re-using the exact same weapons. The original titles only had a one-year development cycle (the same as this game) and managed to make brand new games with new planets, weapons and gadgets so I do find it hard to believe that in this game Insomniac couldn't add at least some original weapons.

Now in my Tools of Destruction review, I stated that I wouldn't do a section on soundtracks for the rest of the future saga but I'm going to make an exception here. The soundtrack for this game may not be unique but fits the pirate theme perfectly with a lot of the music being reminiscent of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. I'm not saying it that this music gets you going like the OG titles soundtrack used to but equally, I can't deny the fun of blasting robot pirates whilst a couple of epic music pieces play in the background.

Overall Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty does a lot of things really well and honestly does live up to that classic Ratchet formula however the downsides can be hard to ignore. Truly, I believe this game could've done better if it was released as DLC for Tools of Destruction instead of being a standalone title as that would explain the lack of new weapons and the shorter than normal length of the game.

Quest for Booty may not be perfect but acts as a lovely little filler title for the much larger overarching narrative.

Kane Oakes