Platinum #18 - Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus (PS3)

 
The Pride of Fastoon (31.00% Rarity)
 
First Trophy: Leap for Your Life (Bronze) - October 12th, 2021 (12:59:45 AM PST)
Last Trophy (which popped the Platinum): Up Your Arsenal (Gold) - October 17th, 2021 (12:04:35 AM PST)
Gap (First to Last Trophy): 4 Days, 23 Hours, 4 Minutes

SOURCE: https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/2235-ratchet-clank-into-the-nexus/MossyOakRcn42

Game Review
For reasons that I still don't understand to this day, I never purchased this game back when it originally launched on the Playstation 3 just days before the impending launch of the Playstation 4 console. Considering that I am a big fan of the franchise (have owned/played pretty much all of the games in the franchise, outside of the four spin-off titles), I am somewhat shocked that I never picked up this game. After giving it some thought for several minutes, I guess I failed to remember about the game in November of 2013 due to the impending arrival of my Playstation 4 pre-order from Amazon. Shame that it took me nearly eight full years to finally try this game out, but at least I can finally check it off of my extensive gaming backlog list.

For those who don't know, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus is the last of the games that make up the Ratchet & Clank Future timeline (see below):
 
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3) Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (PS3) Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3) Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus (PS3)
Set in the years(?) after the events of A Crack in Time and months(?) after the events of the spin-off game Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault (PS3), the game starts with our heroic duo teaming up with friends Cronk & Zephyr to transport the highly dangerous "space witch" known as Vendra Prog to a high-security prison deep in a remote part of the Polaris Galaxy to serve her life sentence in the aftermath of the major crime spree she took part in with her twin brother, Neftin Prog. However, the simple escort mission aboard the massive Nebulox Seven cruiser takes a turn for the worst when Neftin and a small legion of hired mercenaries from the mercenary company Thugs-4-Less make their move to free Vendra from captivity, setting off a chain of events that quickly thrusts Ratchet & Clank into a new adventure deep within the haunted Zarkov Sector in their quest to not only recapture Vendra, but also capture her twin Neftin in order to put an end to their reign of terror in the Polaris Galaxy.

It took me just under eight hours to beat the main story for the game (set on "Hero" [Medium] difficulty). I found roughly half of the Gold Bolts and four of the RYNO VII holo-plans during my first playthrough (I never refer to a gameplay/trophy guide when playing through a game for the first time). On the second playthrough (difficulty set to "Legend' [Hard] for Challenge Mode), I finished the game in around seven hours. It took me a third playthrough (difficulty set to "Cadet" [Easy] for Challenge Mode) in order to track down the few Gold Bolts and RYNO VII holo-plans that I had missed in my first two playthroughs in order have the resources necessary to obtain the overpowered RYNO VII, upgrade all of my weapons to their Omega Variants (bumps weapon level cap from Lv. 3 to Lv. 6) so I could earn the final trophy (Up Your Arsenal) that I was missing in order to pop the platinum for the game.

As a whole, while short, the game was still a fun and enjoyable experience as a fan of the franchise. The story was decent, the in-game arsenal was a fun mix of returning weapons/gadgets from previous Ratchet & Clank games and new weapons/gadgets (Nightmare Box, Netherblades, Netherbeast, etc), the humor was so-so, and the cast of characters was interesting. However, it still sucked that the game itself was so short (went in expecting it to take 11 to 15 hours to beat, so I was moderately disappointed when I managed to beat the game in just under eight hours). Considering that I paid around $50 for a used copy of the game, it wasn't really worth the price I paid for it, but at least I had fun with the game, so that makes it worth it on my end.
 
The only major bummer for me was how uneven the performance of the game on my ancient "fat" PS3 was during my 23 hours with the game. Not sure if it was because the game is poorly optimized (pushing the abilities of the PS3 too hard/far) or if it had something to do with my 11 year old PS3, but there were parts of the game where the frame rate dropped down into the low teens with how much was taking place on the screen at various sections of the game. Whenever there were a large number of enemies (usually 5 or more Thugs, robots, or Nethers) on screen in active combat, flying around levels with the Jetpack, or a ton of effects popping up (explosions, flames, effects from weapons, etc), the frame rate began to suffer and would dip down into the 12 to 15 FPS range. I have not seen frame rate issues like this on my PS3 since I last played both Fallout 3 (PS3) and Fallout: New Vegas (PS3), but those games were notorious for having issues once the size of the save file exceeded a certain number (which I don't think was the case here for Into the Nexus).

In the end, outside of the frame rate issues that popped up from time to time, I didn't have any other major issues with the game. The only other issue that popped up twice was Ratchet's movement getting stuck in one direction (he would move in that direction and would not go in any other direction, no matter how much I moved the left stick around). This weird issue took place for the first time during the final planet (Igliak) near the end of my first playthrough This was easily fixed by turning off the controller and turning it back on, which seemed to clear the input issue and it didn't pop up again until near the end of my third playthrough (this time on the planet Thram). Again, this was rapidly fixed by repeating the same process (turn off/turn back on Dualshock 3 controller)

I can only recommend this game for fans of the franchise and for those who are fortunate enough to still have a PS3 in their possession. The game does not take very long to beat (six to ten hours, depending on your skill with these type of games) and the only hard time I had with it was the grind getting all of the EXP in order to level up my fully-upgraged weapons to Lv. 6 in order to pop the final trophy (Up Your Arsenal) and take home the platinum trophy.

Another R&C platinum down for the Project Platinum: Ratchet & Clank group that I am a member of (this is now my third platinum for an trophy-enabled R&C game). Next up is Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (which I beat many years ago, now just have to replay it several times in order to earn the missing trophies for the game so I can take home my fourth R&C platinum).

Final Score (out of 10): 6/10
Difficulty to Platinum: 3/10 (nothing too serious, outside of the time it takes getting all of your weapons fully upgraded and max leveled, which requires two or more playthroughs to make happen)
 

Started playing A Way Out yesterday and it's such a unique coop experience, it's so much fun!! I hope more games like this will be made because this is just awesome.

Far Cry 6 is boring...

So, I beat the Doom 3 campaign (PS4 stack) a few hours ago and trophies popped in this order: Doomed Marine, Doomed Recruit, Speedrun. However, when checking them here, it shows as if Speedrun was the first to pop. 
 
Something similar happened to me with Geometry Wars (Vita) with the trophies for beating the game in co-op and in co-op with all stars (max score). The trophy for beating the game in co-op (Best Friends) popped before the one for beating all co-op levels with 3 stars (BFF). Nonetheless, psnprofiles displayed them as if BFF was earned before Best Friends.
 
I guess that when trophies pop with a difference of a few seconds it could mess the order in which they are displayed at this site.

Morning