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Secret Agent Clank: The Review


Secret Agent Clank: The Review

Score: 6 out of 10

Overview: "Secret Agent Clank is a fun, albeit uneven spin-off for the Ratchet & Clank series, where Clank finally gets his time to shine. The game features the usual charm and classic platforming elements, along with "so-so" puzzles and varied gameplay mechanics. However, its reliance on repetitive missions and a somewhat shallow storyline holds it back from reaching the heights of its predecessors. While the gameplay is enjoyable enough, the overall experience feels more like a side quest than the main adventure that Clank deserved. "

The Positives

  • Secret Agent Clank brings a couple of different game styles: the usual platforming, the vehicle sections, the Gadgetbots sections, the Ratchet arenas, the Qwark segments and the occasional rhythm sections. All of these segments bring some welcome variety throughout the game's runtime;
  • The whole "espionage" theme does make the game feel different from the rest of the franchise by adding some funny parodies and wacky scenarios that make the game stand on its own without removing itself from the whole Ratchet universe;
  • The plot concept (Ratchet is framed as a bad guy) is a great hook for the story. The execution might not be the best but, nonetheless it's one of the strongest hooks for a story in the franchise's history;
  • The musical score in Secret Agent Clank is, as usual, a high standout. David Bergeaud continues his winning streak on the franchise with yet another collection of cleverly composed tracks that blend the espionage theme with the usual Ratchet beats.

The Negatives

  • Every character introduced in the game feels severely under cooked, something that isn't usual for the franchise;
  • Even if it's not the game's fault, the camera controls really suck, even though they are majorly improved over Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters (the other PSP game). We know it's a limitation of the PSP but someone has to take one for the team;
  • Nothing is more annoying in this game than the rhythm sections. For some reason, the timing of these segments are off and it makes it extremely annoying thinking I'm doing a section completely right only to find out I'm failing them cause the timing is all wrong;
  • The Qwark segments deserve a section of its own. They are extremely tedious and extensive, breaking the game's pace in such an extreme manner that they really feel disconnected from anything happening in the main game. In the end, they attempt a "pretty weak" excuse to connect it to the main plot. It clearly shows that they wanted to have Qwark in the game but didn't know how to do it organically so they just added him without any real purpose;
  • The Ratchet arenas aren't bad, they're just average. For some reason, the arenas, that were such a standout in the mainline Ratchet games, do feel boring and awkward to play in. For us, it clearly shows that the "perfect formula" of every other Ratchet game does not work on the PSP due to the limited controls but we appreciate the developers for trying to incorporate them in this side adventure;

The Experience

Despite everything we mentioned above, we can't say our experience playing Secret Agent Clank was a bad one. Ratchet & Clank is a franchise very dear to our hearts and every game, even the ones with major flaws, do find a way to charm they way onto our hearts. It took us 11 hours to fully 100% the game and to obtain the platinum trophy and we had a blast going through this game again. It's clearly not a perfect game but even with it's limitations, the developers clearly attempted to build something worthy of the Ratchet mythos and we could never criticize that. In the coming months, we will be bringing a lot of content related to Ratchet & Clank: Part I of our retrospective of the entire series is dropping early 2025, with the remaining parts dropping throughout the rest of the year. A ranking of the entire series is also planned to release somewhere in 2025.
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