LogFAQs > #934309949

#49. Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal


For many people, this is the ultimate Ratchet & Clank game, and for good reason. It feels like this is where they really perfected the combat, and they give it plenty of opportunities to shine, such as various fighting tournaments that gradually ramp up the difficulty, as well as various setpieces throughout the game proper where you have to survive waves of enemies in order to progress. Up Your Arsenal also has more weapons and gadgets than ever, including some returning from previous games. They gain levels the more you use them, up to level 5 in the main game, and gain various upgrades as they level up, which is a really cool mechanic. Some of my favorites are the Disc Blade Gun, the Rift Inducer, the Plasma Coil, and the Agents of Doom. The combat was so good that it resulted in them creating a spinoff that was all about combat, but the less said about Deadlocked, the better.

Up Your Arsenal also has a lot of additional segments to diversify the gameplay. Clanks solo segments are better than ever here with his Secret Agent Clank persona. I always enjoy solving the puzzles for his parts because theyre fairly simple and generally frustration-free because the setback for screwing up is pretty minimal. Plus, Clank is just awesome, so I always welcome more opportunities to play as him! There were even 2-D sidescroller segments where you get to play as Captain Qwark and learn some of his backstory with Dr. Nefarious. There were just so many cool little additions to this game, as well as general quality of life improvements over the previous two games.

Speaking of Dr. Nefarious, Up Your Arsenal is his first appearance in the series, and he is unironically one of my favorite video game villains ever. Most Ratchet & Clank villains have been pretty whatever, but Nefarious is amazing. Part of it is the incredible voicework by Armin Shimerman, who, in a strange twist of fate, played a dude named Quark in Star Trek and is now the bitter nemesis of Captain Qwark. Nefarious hams is up in every scene hes in, and I love it. It just speaks to how good the comedic writing had gotten by this point in the series. However, Nefarious is no joke when you actually have to fight him. Id say that the boss battle against him at the end of Up Your Arsenal is one of the most difficult fights in the series. It took me several tries to finally take him down, which made it all the more satisfying.

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