Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, titled as 'Ratchet & Clank 5: Gekitotsu! Dodeka Ginga no MiriMiri Gundan (激突! ドデカなしミリミリ軍団)' in Japan, is the 5th game in the Ratchet & Clank series, that was originally designed for the PlayStation Portable, but was later released on the PlayStation 2 as well. It was the first Ratchet & Clank game on the PlayStation Portable. Size Matters was developed by High Impact Games, a company spawning from the original Ratchet & Clank developer, Insomniac Games. It is also the first Ratchet & Clank game to get an E10+ rating by the ESRB and +7 by PEGI. The original PlayStation Portable version was released on February 14, 2007 in North America, and the PlayStation 2 port was released on March 11, 2008. It was also released for download to the PlayStation Portable through the PlayStation Store in April 2009.

Gameplay
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters contains most of the basic gameplay elements from the other Ratchet & Clank games. Like its predecessors, weapons can gain experience, and can be modded similarly to Up Your Arsenal.

Grinding has returned as well, but in a different form; Size Matters implements a shrink ray that allows Ratchet to complete a grind rail course to unlock doors.

Through the game, Ratchet will collect armor pieces for seven different sets of armor, two of which were exclusive to "challenge mode". While Ratchet can mix and match any of the four parts (helmet, body armor, gloves and boots) between any of the sets of armor, wearing a complete set gives Ratchet an additional advantage; for example, using the full Wildfire suit, Ratchet's wrench will set his enemies on fire for additional damage including the additional lowering damage by 28%. Certain combinations can also create new sets of armor with unique effects, as well as a boosted defense.

Mini-games include Skyboard Races, demolition matches with Clank vehicles, a basketball-like robot throwing competition, and a Lemmings-esque robot control minigame.

Multiplayer also made a return in Size Matters, being the third consecutive game in the series to do so. (This trend was broken with the release of Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, though.) It functioned similarly to the previous two iterations.

Plot
After the events of Ratchet: Deadlocked, Ratchet wanted to take a break and went on vacation to the tropical planet of Pokitaru. However, while he and Clank were relaxing, the duo met a young girl named Luna, who was writing a "school report on heroes". Ratchet agreed to help her, but shortly after, Luna was kidnapped by robots. After chasing and defeating the robots, Clank then stumbled upon a mysterious Technomite Artifact from an ancient race of the same name. Ratchet denied that the artifact was made from Technomites. The duo then set out to save Luna. In the process, they discovered a forgotten race of smart, but diminutive, inventors known as the Technomites. They traced the artifact that Luna dropped when she was captured to Ryllus. After some advice from Captain Qwark (who had followed them to Ryllus, wanting to find his lost family), they fought their way through the enemies and reached a mysterious building. Here, they came across a Technomite map room and also found the coordinates to Kalidon. Meanwhile, Qwark had looked up his family tree on a suspicious website and decided to followed the leads he came across, and continued to search for his family.



Ratchet met a Skyboarder on Kalidon, who gave him a Shrink Ray for beating him at a race. They entered the building on Kalidon and defeated Mungo. The duo caught up with Luna, but discovered that she had turned on them. Ratchet was knocked out by the robots, and sent to a space station for testing, while Clank was sent to fight against other robots alone, on the arid planet of Metalis. Clank managed to escape and made his way to find Ratchet.

On Medical Outpost Omega, Ratchet had a strange dream while unconscious. In the dream, he encountered odd hallucinations of characters and enemies from the past games, including Drek. Once Clank finds Ratchet, he is able to awake him from this dream. The duo then went on to destroy the space station, and soon found out that Luna was simply a robot puppet the Technomites used to lure Ratchet into a trap. The duo arrived on Dayni Moon, and disabled Luna in a boss-fight. Clank however, was also disabled and Ratchet had to shrink himself to enter the small robot's body and fix him. Afterwards, they discovered Otto's goal, which was to create an army of Ratchet clones, through the DNA testing on the space station. Otto planned for this army to capture other intelligent beings, so that he could transfer their knowledge to him and become the smartest being in the known universe. On Quodrona, Ratchet fought off the army of clones, and thanks to a confused Qwark (who was set-up by Faux-Family.com into thinking Otto was his father), they neutralized Otto, and switched his intelligence with Skrunch, forcing the former to lose all intelligent thought, and the latter to become super-intelligent. Qwark also found out that his real family were, in fact, great superheroes in their time, but were killed in a freak accident. Later, in Clank's apartment in Megapolis, Ratchet and Clank relax and watch a commercial about the Ratchet clones Otto created as a tiny Qwark tries to show off in front of miniature Ratchet clones.



Characters

 * Clank
 * Clank's security backup
 * Cognito, Slim
 * Destruct, Otto
 * Luna
 * Professor Sprout
 * Qwark, Copernicus Leslie
 * Ratchet
 * Skrunch
 * Skyboarder

Weapons

 * OmniWrench 10K
 * Lacerator
 * Acid Bomb Glove
 * Concussion Gun
 * Agents of Doom
 * Scorcher
 * Bee Mine Glove
 * Suck Cannon
 * Sniper Mine
 * Mootator
 * Shock Rocket
 * Static Barrier
 * Laser Tracer
 * RYNO

Gadgets

 * Hypershot
 * Sprout-O-Matic
 * Polarizer
 * PDA
 * Shrink Ray
 * Bolt Grabber
 * Box Breaker
 * Map-o-Matic
 * Grind Boots
 * Gravity Boots

Items

 * Shrink Ray
 * Bolt Grabber
 * Box Breaker
 * Map-o-Matic

Armor

 * Old School Suit
 * Wildfire Armor
 * Sludge Mk. 9 Armor
 * Crystallix Armor
 * Electroshock Armor
 * Mega-Bomb Armor
 * Hyperborean Armor
 * Chameleon Armor
 * Fire-Bomb Armor
 * Shock Crystal Armor
 * Wildburst Armor
 * Triple Wave Armor
 * Ice II Armor
 * Stalker Armor

Skins

 * Tropical Vacation
 * Plumbering Pirate Captain
 * Ratchetzilla
 * Snowman Skin
 * Hot Bot
 * Qwark
 * Vacationing Robot
 * Nurse Bot
 * Otto Destruct
 * Dan

Planets and locations

 * Pokitaru - Jowai Resort
 * Ryllus - Vetega Jungle
 * Kalidon - Mechanoid Factory
 * Metalis - Junkyard LXIV
 * Dreamtime
 * Medical Outpost Omega - Surgical Facility
 * Challax - Technomite City
 * Dayni Moon - Farming Cooperative
 * Inside Clank
 * Quodrona - Clone Factory
 * California - HIG Treehouse

PlayStation Portable
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters on the PlayStation Portable received overall positive reviews. Game Informer rated it 9 out of 10 and awarded it the "Handheld Game of the Month" for April 2007. Metacritic has it rated at 85 out of 100 with 50 reviews taken into account. IGN gave the game a 9.0 out of 10 particularly praising the gameplay and graphics.

PlayStation 2
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters on the PlayStation 2 received lower scores, with IGN only giving it a score of 6.0 out of 10, due to its poor graphics, glitches, and difficulty. On Metacritic the game only reached 62 out of 100 based on 35 reviews.

Trivia

 * Size Matters was developed by High Impact Games, a company spawning off the original developer, Insomniac Games.


 * The Description of the Triple Wave Armor in the Armor Info section, "as one Gadgetron Research Scientist famously reported, 'It's Over Nine Thousaaand!!!' " is a reference to an infamous quote by the character Vegeta in the anime Dragon Ball Z.
 * In the movie The Invasion, Oliver (a main character), is seen playing Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters at his friend's front door while waiting for his mom's car.


 * In the PS2 version, the scene where Qwark tried to tell Ratchet and Clank that he found where his father (Otto Destruct) while the duo were heading for Dayni Moon was removed presumably due to time constraints.


 * There is only one location in the entire game where one can swim without dying or being eaten. This place is a small pond connected to a small river on Pokitaru.
 * Strangely, when Ratchet swam in that river, he swam with whatever weapon/gadget he was using at the time, and the part of the weapon/gadget underwater was invisible. ( including the Repulsor Field )
 * This is the first Ratchet and Clank game where you can mix and match different armor pieces (the 2nd game was Secret Agent Clank)