I finished my first run through Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time last night, clocking about twenty hours. But that's me chasing down just about every imaginable bafmodad; the core plot events are probably considerably shorter.
I had some strange goings-on at the end, which I will try to detail. Something didn't seem quite right. Perhaps it should be said that I'm about to dive into some endgame spoilers... but come on, like you need me to tell you that the good guys won.
OK, so as I said, I'm pretty vigilant about finding all the hidden collectibles. R&CF2 has four categories of hidden treasures: Zoni, Constructo Mods, Gold Bolts and RYNO 5 blueprints. Once you beat the Gold Tournament over on the Agorian Battleplex, you get a treasure tracker for your map, so finding all of the collectibles is not difficult (except for a couple complicated moons where the map feature is not especially helpful.)
Plot-wise, I stopped myself on the Nefarious Space Station, right before what I anticipated to be a mid-boss or a major boss fight (and I was right... it was the big Dr. Nefarious showdown sequence, as I would discover later.) Neatly avoiding the time-sensitive pressure of the situation, I bailed out to go collect missing items.
By this time I had already assembled the RYNO 5. So I found all the Constructo Mods and Zoni. The Zoni collection was particularly noteworthy, because the game kept promising a "special surprise" once you do that. The surprise is, I think, the ability to challenge Lord Vorselon again (he's an early boss fight) and actually kill him. Once you find all 40 Zoni, though, how you do that is not immediately clear. The game says you need to confront him on his own turf, so I searched through the early galaxies for his ship. No dice. Than I thought maybe the game was reffing the first R&CF game - or maybe even the downloadable PSN game - and maybe I would have to go back to one of those games to fight Vorselon. Was Vorselon even in either of those?
Whatever, I gave up on the Vorselon hunt and tracked down a few more Gold Bolts. But then I noticed that my Bolt count was about six shy of completion... and the map was showing no more available Bolts to find. I reasoned that a new area would open up after I finished this bit at the Space Station. So that's what I did.
And yeah, it was a big epic boss fight with the Doc (who, by the way, is probably the only R&C villain that I don't actively dislike). Followed nigh-immediately by another boss fight back at the Great Clock. Followed by credits.
Hey, what? But I'm not done, right? What about those leftover Bolts?
As soon as the credits stopped, Lord Vorselon appeared on screen ranting about whatever. So the "surprise" seems not to activate until you beat the game.
But then you get the weird choice that has plagued every R&C game I can recall. You're asked if you want to "go back in time" to just before you defeated Nefarious and continue to collect items and go after Vorselon. Or you can start over with a new Challenge Mode save file, retaining all your bolts, money, weapons, etc.
Why the choice? Why can't I just go back into the game AFTER having bested the two big boss fights? What possible gameworld paradox exists that would demand the game rewind time?
And anyway, the choice is poorly explained. Is going back in time my only chance to beat Vorselon? If I don't start a Challenge Mode save now, do I have to finish the boss sequence again to re-offer the option?
I opted to go back in time. Both to find Vorselon and to see about those missing Gold Bolts. I had a sneaking suspicion that Trophies were at stake.
I found Vorselon's ship, now readily marked on the map. I also noted that the Great Clock was suddenly a warpable location (previously it was available only during the interim Clank-focused levels) and all my remaining Bolts were there. I killed Vorselon (Trophy!), then flew to the Clock.
Where it made me do the second half of the boss fight again! Like, not the Nefarious part, the part after that. Then credits rolled again! With no chance to go find those Bolts! That stupid choice screen popped up for a bare second before I was dropped back at the Clock... but without Ratchet. Just Clank. Clank standing at the Great Clock entrance, with a big time portal nearby that said I could "go back in time" AGAIN to fight Doc Nefarious. What? I thought I was already back in time!
That was entirely confusing. I was nervous about saving because the general presentational clumsiness made me not trust my actual position. Was I before the boss fight, or not? But, happily noting that those Gold Bolts were showing on my Great Clock map, I went after those.
Several of the Bolts are tied to all-new Pneumonic challenges, extremely advanced iterations of the time-based multi-Clank puzzles. They were bafflingly hard, but I eventually figured them all out and swept through the last of the Gold Bolts.
By this time I noticed that Challenge Mode was now available on the pause menu! Jesus. So, after being satisfied that I had collected everything and earned all the Trophies I thought I was owed, I started a Challenge Mode save. Which, of course, starts the game over but keeps all your accumulated wealth and collectibles. I think the only bit of advancement that I did not complete during this initial play was that I do not have absolutely every single weapon upgraded to level 5. My freeze glove is at 4 and the sniper rifle is at 3.
So I guess it all turned out OK.
Incidentally, I should point out that you win the Insomniac Museum Moon upon completion of the game. So that's not really such a GameStop Preorder exclusive, now is it? To make matters worse, if you got the Moon through GameStop code AND you beat the game, the stupid Moon shows up at TWO locations on your map.
All told, this puts me at 80% Trophy completion. I need to complete a Challenge Mode playthrough and complete the game on hard. Not sure how those two events conflate... I guess that means beat the game again, twice? I also need to get the Trophy for getting a 10,000+ score on the stupid retro minigame "My Blaster Runs Hot." Which is Robotron. My high score on it is only in the 4000s, so I hope that playing it two-player will get that score up where it needs to be.
Because if a goddamn Robotron clone keeps me from getting a Platinum Trophy on this game, I am going to be so pissed.
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