Every Ratchet & Clank Game, Ranked Worst to Best

Created nearly 20 years ago by Insomniac Games, the combat-laced buddy platformer franchise Ratchet & Clank has been charming gamers on Sony platforms ever since with its mix of humor, heart, story development, and over-the-top, cartoon-style action spanning multiple genres, outliving its main rival, Naughty Dog's similar Jak and Daxter series.
In the gallery on this page, we rank every* Ratchet & Clank game to date by Metascore, from worst- to best-reviewed. Some R&C games were issued on multiple platforms, and rather than clutter our list with countless versions of the same game, we limited our selection as follows:
• In general, the first release of each title is included.
• If a title was released simultaneously on multiple platforms, we only included the version that received the highest quantity of reviews from professional critics.
• If a title was later ported to other platforms, those ports are not included ...
• ... but if a title was substantially remade for another later-generation platform, the remake is treated as a separate game and included in our rankings. (We're looking at you, PS4 version of Ratchet & Clank.)
* We have omitted the 2005 cellphone (but not smartphone) game Going Mobile, which was not covered on Metacritic. (GameSpot has a review if you are curious.)
All photos courtesy of Sony Interactive Entertainment unless otherwise indicated.

PlayStation 3, 2012
also on PlayStation Vita (2013)
The lowest-scoring R&C game released for the PS3, Full Frontal Assault (known as QForce in Europe) deviates from the franchise's well-established formula by attempting to blend familiar characters and weaponry with tower defense gameplay and an emphasis on competitive multiplayer. The short, bargain-priced spinoff title was released to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the series, but reviewers found few reasons to celebrate, claiming that its platform/combat and tower defense halves didn't mesh well, resulting in a game that would disappoint fans of either genre or the series as a whole. That said, many critics felt that FFA worked better as a multiplayer game than as a solo affair.
“An odd mix of genres that doesn't capture the magic you usually get from a Ratchet & Clank title. A game that can be fun for a while but never really manages to create its own identity.” —Eurogamer Sweden