Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest For Booty (Review)

I really don't know how to feel about this one. Quest For Booty is a downloadable installment to the Ratchet & Clank Future saga, meant to bridge the gap between Tools of Destruction and A Crack in Time. Upon it's original release it was also suppose to tide people over for a whole year until ACIT was released and I think I would've have enjoyed it a lot more if I had been able to play back then instead of having to play it solely to gain full comprehension of the Future saga's narrative. I understand that Quest for Booty wasn't made to be the next big installment in the series, but even though it was a quick and enjoyable few hours of standard Ratchet fun, I still couldn't help but feel...underwhelmed.

As a roughly two hour outing, the experience is a bit more narrow and guided. You start the game with a select few weapons (none new, all of them are from Tools of Destruction), and after the first stage, they're all taking away and you slowly earn them back as the story progresses. You don't have to buy any of them (except for a bonus weapon for the last level) and they start off partially upgraded so not much effort going to weapon experience department. The game's actually pretty disappointing in this area as well as not being able to fully explore any of the levels, but the game design is still strong enough to overlook the limitations they placed on the gameplay for this outing.

The gameplay is actually a little more focused on platforming and puzzles than the usual, but with few exceptions, this shift in focus works mostly in the game's favor. In addition, the game is a bit more focused on the cut scenes and progressing what little story there is here forward. Usual you're allowed to goof off for a bit after completing an mission, but here you're thrown around from one interesting event to another, with some expeditionary cut scenes and some entertaining hand-drawn map screen images and somewhat amusing narrations thrown in for measure. Oddly enough, not much actually happens in terms of the story apart form a cliffhanger ending that reintroduces one my favorite characters in the franchise and sets things up for the saga's big finish. The game is not as good as proper Ratchet release, but I guess it does what it sets out do well and its a decent little time waster.