Family Guide to Ratchet And Clank: Rift Apart
If you are looking for an exuberant adventure game for children not old enough for games like Uncharted or Tomb Raider, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart might be what you are looking for. It's also great fun for players of all ages.
It's a platform game and the latest in the Ratchet & Clank series. What's unusual about this game is its focus on jumping between parallel worlds. Play is similar to other Ratchet & Clank games, retaining the dodging, gunplay, bold collection and upgrading weapons. You mostly play as Ratchet and his sidekick robotic friend Clank. This time you also play as another Lombax, Rivet and her robot Kit.
You work your way through diverse stages, defeating enemies as you go and solving some simple puzzles to open doors and access lifts. You can use a wide variety of weapons and gadgets that help you traverse obstacles to get to mission objectives. New to this game is the fast switching between different areas, planets and other worlds during gameplay. This multi-dimensional aspect enables players to revisit planets and characters from previous games. Only here they are changed in some way, in their different parallel universes.
The game uses the PlayStation 5 Dualsense controller. Firing guns has a tactile feel as the controller triggers change in tension as you fire. You can also feel different "notches" as you pull them to decide between different types of attack.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a lot of fun. It's a bombastic romp in blockbuster movie style. This not only offers children and parents a great game to play together but an exciting experience that is the perfect alternative to older rated adventures.
Themes
Along with the extra protagonists, the game expands into new emotional territory. Kit is an anxious character who finds it difficult to connect with new people. They live largely in self-imposed isolation.
Through the game, we see Kit not only soften to the idea of not destroying everything but also letting people in. It's a small part of the game but one that strikes a helpful note for young players. It seems that even dimension-hopping heroes need encouragement and validation.
Rating
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is rated PEGI 7 because it contains violence that lacks any apparent harm or injury to fantasy or mythical beings and creatures, mild violence that lacks any apparent harm or injury to human-like characters and non-realistic violence in a child-friendly setting or context.
The violence portrayed is unrealistic and has a cartoony and comical context. You use an array of fantastical weapons to take care of enemies, which when they die, generally explode or disintegrate and leave behind the in-game currency (bolts). The game features weird, hostile aliens that can look disturbing. The game does feature some violence towards human-like characters, but this is limited to unrealistic violence. The game has a bright colourful graphics scheme. Difficult or disturbing scenes are mostly always lightened up by a joke.
Accessibility
The game features an assortment of accessibility options, including a high contrast mode and toggles for simplified traversal, camera sensitivity, flight assistance. There are Game Speed Options to play the game at 70%, 50% or 30%.
You can adjust how shooting works so you can toggle or hold shooting. There is also assistance for aiming to make targeting easier. The Auto-aim and Lock-on features ensure you can target the nearest enemy. Other combat options can also be switched from holds to toggles: Weapon Wheel, Melee Mode and Aim mode.
You can adjust how you move around to make it easier. The Ledge Guard ensures you don't fall off ledges. Auto Glide ensures you hover in the air when you need to. You can set movement actions to toggle or hold: Sprint mode, Swing mode, Speetle Boost mode. The Simplified Traversal option moves all traversal actions to a single button input. This includes Rift Tether, Swingshot, Phantom Dash, and Hoverboots.
For more information check out the VSC's Accessibility Report for Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.
Similar Games
If you enjoyed this game and are looking for something to play next, here are some good options. This list includes younger rated games for those who find Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart too loud or overwhelming and older rated games for those looking for something more grownup:
