Secret Agent Clank Review(Updated)

I decided to replay Secret Agent Clank again since it showed up on the PS Premium Classics recently and I'd still say it's a decent enough game all though I originally prefered this game over Size Matters but now I'm not so sure.

The camera controls for shooting is much better even the PSP version itself controls pretty decently and I didn't need to tinker in the PS5 emulation settings menu to customize the controls and the D pad for strafing felt pretty fine here maybe it was also good in Size Matters, who knows SM's camera was bad enough.

The game has a more unique identity of being a more stealth oriented Ratchet game rather than a heavy emphasis on shooting. It certainly has more going for it than Ratchet on a smaller screen but at the same time, where Size Matters went by at a brisk pace with barely any section lasting overly long, Secret Agent Clank feels much more dragged out and takes a while until you get anywhere.

The stealth while not too bad and can be decent has an issue that a lot of stealth game without detection arrows have is that you can bump into or enemies can or screw up a stealth run because you mentioned the QTE takedowns, admittedly rewind on PS5 does mitigate the issues that stealth can have but there will be come instances where you get spotted and you just wondered how it happened like many games pre Splinter Cell Conviction's detection arrows can feel like. Speaking of the aforementioned QTEs to do takedowns you have to do a QTE button press to do, sort of like Adam Jensen's takedown in Deus Ex HR except there is more steps with the QTE instead of just watching the takedown animation, time even freezes when it's happening too like HR. You also get a bonus for using stealth. They can be cool to watch but at the same time it can be boring seeing takedown animations play out and makes the stealth sequences longer since you got to do the QTE and watch the takedown animation play out and so much of stealth is basically this, in Deus Ex HR, you did at the very least had more options to takedown guards without using takedowns.

If there were enemies who kept spotting me no matter how I tried even with rewind, I just killed every enemy when the game gave me the chance.

I did like the disguise sections and it handles them better than the earlier Hitmans and would even include the certain guards can see you system before the 2016 Hitman game all though trying to get a disguise before the guard you stole the disguise from spots you can be a 50-50 guessing game due to this, it can get frustrating.

The shooting is decent but lacks the feedback that other Ratchets have on top of Clank's arsenal of just being fancy gadgets instead of cool guns, the cufflink bomb and PDA combo became my go to method for beating the game after a point since the Cufflink Bomb is a dominant strategy espeically when levelled up late game.

One big issue with the game is that the rhythm games are terrible and saps out all the enjoyment from it, the feels like the devs wanted to make something really cool but didn't want to spend too much time fleshing out the sequence due to budget or time. The first level of the game is especially ergregious of this since you think it's going to be a challenging stealth room but it's rhythm game instead. These sequences are bad due to how long they are and how much content you got to do just watching Clank play out the same motions depending on how many of the button presses you screw up luckily, you just need to get a good number of them right to move on.

However, the poker game rhythm section being the worst in how fast your reactions need to be and how long and dragged out it is in general and how many times you need to protect Clank with Gadgebots but the funny thing, get past the Casino rhythm game and the game gets pretty enjoyable. So if you can bear with those awful rthymn mini games, there is a decently enjoyable game here, afterwards but this can be a rage quitting moment especially without rewind. The other mini games are decent distractions with that said but they can drag on especially the gadgebot sections.

Here is the weird thing about Secret Agent Clank, much of these issues can apply to the Sly Cooper series, the whole game feels like a Sly game with a Ratchet skin, the barebones stealth, the rather basic combat mechanics, the mini games and how every character plays a specific role in the story instead of the protagonist driving everything(examples how Ratchet helps out Clank in some way while in jail or how Quark is used by Clunk to keep tabs on Clank). The whole game feels like one big audition for Sanzaru games to make Sly 4 and say what you want about it, the studio did have an understanding on what made the Sly games interesting from a gameplay perspective even if the their moment to moment writing isn't as strong as Sucker Punch's games.

Overall, I do enjoy SAC, I enjoyed years it back and I enjoy it now too. I've played worse games.