Ratchet & Clank's addictive fan mod: My new favorite way to play R&C - The Golden Bolt

This is the story and behind-the-scenes development of Ratchet & Clank's most addictive fan mod, and my new favorite way to play Ratchet & Clank 1.

I didn't expect to come back to Ratchet & Clank so soon after my retrospective series had finished, but then while working on my Rift Apart video, I found a new thread that I had to keep pulling on: The Ratchet & Clank Randomizer mod. A fan-made (sort-of-)mod that technically isn't a mod at all, this Randomizer completely rewrote how I saw the first R&C game, and it took me from not wanting to think about the games after two years of working on videos about them...to not being able to get enough of playing the first game over and over again.

This video is not intended for viewers under 13 years of age, and may contain content inappropriate for such viewers. Parental guidance suggested.

#RatchetAndClank #TheGoldenBolt

[TheGoldenBolt]

As a quick note, for whatever reason the contrast ended up being a little funky when I recorded the Randomizer run. The other runs I'd recorded were fine, just the livestreamed one had this issue; outside of the couple stream clips I used, this is all direct capture. I did some correcting where possible, but the most astute viewers may notice that it looks a little darker than normal - that's why!

[MuchWhittering]

My biggest hope for Ratchet and Clank is that someone makes a PC port like Jak and Daxter has.

[catisyellen]

I’m an OG R&C fan, and I hate that the original game is hardly talked about online and doesn’t have any merch. More of this please!

[Joeevr]

1:05 Just to note: Randomizers that are finishable without advanced tricks or glitches are in fact the standard, not a rarity.

[gjmarks]

I happy that there is another person that loves this game franchise as much as I do. Keep the content coming!

[HPA]

Imagine if we one day could mod the trilogy together into one "game" somehow

[FlapHedge]

I personally believe that the only way that the movie and the PS4 Ratchet & Clank game can be considered a part of the series is if you take into account the fact that they are the story of Ratchet and Clank 1 as told by Captain Qwark to a fellow prisoner.
Qwark just had to make himself look better.

[Ratchetpower]

So you made Ratchet drink so much soda that the vendor could detect that Ratchet was about to piss himself enough to fill an entire swimming pool so it gave him the hydrodisplacer to empty his overflowing bladder into. How nice of that vendor.

[benkrusher]

Loved the video and I’m glad that people can mess with such a “delicately” put together game to make a randomizer. Also your family is safe as long as you play the handheld games ok thank you

[TheHutchIsOn]

Me seeing the infobot for this mod:

“I have GOT to get me one of those!”

[TheTechnician]

10:55 I like how he gave you the item that lets you farm bolts on that very same planet.

[TheTolnoc]

Size Matters has issues, but man it has some really sick ideas about Armor Combos.

[docgron]

R&C randomizer or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Glove

[Bittsy]

Fun fact randomizers for most games have a Logic/No Logic option which let's a casual audience enjoy them without worry of soft lock or use of Speedrun glitches to complete the run making them a fun way to enjoy your favorite games again. It's a good way to get addicted for possibly months or just a good run :)

[StormEagleCH]

“Only for me to be rewarded with an actual rock for my efforts and suffering”
Me: IT’S NOT JUST A BOULDER

[andreapareti]

This is fantastic; RC1 was already my favorite in the series, but, if I go through with installing this and trying it out, I'm sure my enjoyment will reach even greater levels, if it's even possible. As usual, great job on the video!

[SkyBlueFox]

I don't really have any experience with R&C period, but for what it's worth, that idea of finding a new appreciation for a game's structure and design/thought process is one of the reasons I love Zelda randomizers so much, particularly Ocarina of Time's. I had a healthy respect for OoT beforehand, of course, but playing rando after rando ended making me love and appreciate it way, way more than I ever expected, and it really showed me how different it is from later games.

Like, here's an example. In Wind Waker's forest dungeon, there's a room with a thorn-maze and the thorns only pop up when you get close. You're supposed to navigate it, grab a bomb flower, toss it past the thorns to blow up a wooden barrier, and then go all the way around to get the chest behind said barrier.
But during a recent randomizer run, I had Fire Arrows with me, and thought "oh, hey! why don't I just use those and cut out the middleman"? So I pulled out my bow and launched a fire arrow at the wooden barrier... only for the arrow to bounce off of literally nothing. It turns out that the maze is just made of invisible walls, and the thorns are just for visual indication.
This is a really small thing, and you'd never realize it normally since you can't get Fire Arrows until way later, but it highlights how the devs were focused on making sure you solved puzzles the way they intended.

Compare the Master Quest version of OoT's Water Temple. There's some rooms in that where you have to light multiple torches at once to unlock doors or grates. At that point in the game, your only source of fire on-demand is Din's Fire, and thus it's the obvious solution to those puzzles.
However, during a randomizer run, Din's Fire was out of reach, and so I was forced to head into the MQ Water Temple with just Fire Arrows. I had to light each torch individually, while also going fast enough to hit them all before any one of 'em fizzled out. It's a bit annoying, but certainly doable.
Again, it's a really small thing, but it highlights the difference in mindset. In OoT, those torches are simply objects in the dungeon, and there's nothing stopping you from using a different method to light them all up. The devs never intended it (beating the Water Temple is how you unlock Fire Arrows in the first place), but when put into a randomizer situation, it highlights how malleable and open-ended OoT's design is.

[minionman]

18:34 "There I am, Gary! There I am!"

[zubbworks]

The levels and worlds from these era of games are just beautiful to me. The levels in jak, the levels in ratchet(all of them). Ty the tasmanian tiger.
There really isn't much in them, and I know theres not, but they just feel like there is. I don't even know how to say it, I just feel wonder, and stuff in them. They make my imagination work.

[NGPlusVideos]

Bordplate's work is great, and they've helped me out too. Props! Great video too 😁

Edit: 16:56 oh I beg to differ 😉