Ratchet & Clank

The first game is definitely the peak of the series in terms of narrative but I don't think the narrative is so good that it makes up for its issues. The game lacked strafing which made mobility a lot more rigid and limited. Enemy ai was also far easier to cheese due to how easy it was to manipulate their aggression, not to mention enemy encounters were fairly subdued. The game also has a lot of one-note gimmicks that just waste time and are boring, crappy bosses, and unintuitive weapon design.

Eminently polished presentation, and a wide array of platforming challenges, with nicely cooperative controls (well, so long as you don't plan on relying on long-range weapons over much). Far more linear than it looks at first blush, as each level has two or three clearly defined paths, each with their own reward. I could have done without the hover-boarding levels (but it was 2002, everything needed its extreme sports hook).

Almost good. The movement is just awful, so slow, and the jumps are tiny, the double-jump is basically useless. Checkpoints are bad too for making you re-do bits a lot. And you only get 4 hearts. Despite all that, the game works around its bad movement. Later though when the game stops being easy, then it gets annoying cause you just want to blaze through it, not get put back constantly. Also the money system is grindy and tedious.

It was a good action platformer for the time, but these days it's mostly worth playing if you love later games in the series and want to see where they originated (like me). The weapon variety is fun, but lacks the fascinating upgrade systems that were introduced as soon as the second game. Another surprising downside is the story, as the characters spend a large chunk of the game bickering and hating each other, making it kind of a bummer to get through.

A solid little platformer/shooter hybrid that makes use of its varied and unique weapon design and some well-realized characters in a very stylized universe.

Mixing fast pace gunplay and old-school platforming, Ratchet and Clank is a brisk and incredibly fun successor to the Spyro series.