Ratchet (Ratchet & Clank)

Note: Not to be confused with Ratchet from the 2005 film, Robots

Ratchet is the main character of the Ratchet & Clank franchise. He is a fictional species called a Lombax who was originally born in the home-world of Planet Fastoon in the Polaris Galaxy, but was later sent to Planet Veldin in the Solana Galaxy by his father to protect him from Emperor Tachyon. Growing up on Veldin, he longed to travel to new worlds and built his own ship. Shortly after making the ship, he met a diminutive robot fugitive whom he named Clank, who helped him to leave Veldin and fulfil his dream of travelling. From this point on, Ratchet and Clank traveled extensively through the Solana, Bogon and Polaris Galaxies, saving them on several occasions.

Why He Rocks

 * 1) Ratchet is a street-wise, headstrong lombax who shows immense bravery and enjoys challenges. If you were facing a challenge, what would you do?
 * Yes, he does care passionately about his close friends and his home-world of Veldin. However, he still does a good job at protecting people of the galaxy.
 * 1) He is a skilled mechanic who is a wielder of many powerful weapons and gadgets manufactured by Gadgetron, Megacorp, GrummelNet, the lombaxes, and others. In fact, didn't we forget to mention that he has invented powerful devices and built star-ships as well.
 * 2) Has a strong sense of humor throughout the series like when he could use some light sarcastic comments in the face of danger and enemies.
 * 3) He goes though this character development where he becomes more humble and compassionate throughout the course of the series. Basically, he does mature any many players can related to him due to his nature of him going through such drastic character development.
 * 4) He may not have a pilot's license, but it's surprising that he is a skilled pilot who can survive many dogfights in the galaxy and could easily win races.
 * 5) His relationship with Clank is that of a best friend or family member (like a brother). At first, they do argue about certain choices that can turn out to be stubborn yet Ratchet starts to agree that Clank is actually right at the end. Also as already mentioned, Ratchet and Clank did went to great lengths to save one another when in danger.
 * 6) Now let's talk about his relationship with Captain Qwark. Of course Qwark did turn his back on Ratchet in early years, but their relationship started to improve ever since they worked together since Up Your Arsenal. Wow, what a surprise!
 * 7) He does a good job at being the Galactic Rangers' sergeant as proven in Up Your Arsenal. What Ratchet just did is giving the rangers a moral boost and of course, rescue them when there is a need to do so.
 * 8) *Another instance is when he worked with Merc and Green in Deadlocked. This lead to Merc and Green have a trusting mindset to Ratchet.
 * 9) Even though Ratchet did have rivalry towards Ace Hardlight in Deadlocked, he actually listened to Ace's warning about not giving into Gleeman Vox's ways.
 * 10) His backstory is really sad because he was sent to the Solana Galaxy by his father in order to flee from Emperor Tachyon's attacks on the lombaxes. Oh boy, we do feel bad for him.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) In the first game, Ratchet is angrier, selfish, and arrogant character who behaves like an immature teenager. Though he does go through character development later on as already mentioned.
 * 2) In the 2016 movie, he was flanderized into a a wide-eyed goody two-shoes character who only experiences a bunch of things happen to him. In fact, Ratchet and Clank barley interacted with each other as well.
 * 3) *His personality in the 2016 game. Yes, he's stared to become noble yet his personality does not fit well when he uses his weapons thus believing that it would seem like that some would find him as a lombax with a heart of gold who randomly uses his weapons. Another thing his that while his noble personality is good to keep, he does look like a Gary-Stu where he does not even argue with Clank. (Even in Tools of Destruction, Ratchet did yell at Clank once).
 * 4) He does a lot of work, but not everything goes his way before, after, on in-between games. Though it slowly disappears in Deadlocked and the Future series.

Trivia

 * Ratchet was originally conceptualized by Insomniac employee Brian Hastings as a reptilian alien who traveled around planets collecting weapons. The concept behind had at some point evolved into that of a fuzzy caveman led to space by a robot on a mission to save the galaxy, before the caveman's club was replaced with the OmniWrench 8000, and the caveman became a mechanic
 * His cat-like form was decided upon after Insomniac looked at various terrestrial creatures, such as dogs and rats, and settled on feline features due to the sense of agility associated with them.
 * Ratchet was also given five fingers rather than three or four to appear more anthropomorphic but also to be better received in Japan, a decision made through conventional wisdom rather than one suggested by Sony of Japan
 * In the first game, Mikey Kelley still did a good job voicing Ratchet, but Ratchet's character was gotten negative feedback. This prompted a significant personality change for the sequel, Going Commando, in which Ratchet was instead voiced by James Arnold Taylor (the voice of Tidus from Final Fantasy X) from then onwards, and given a much more mature and affable personality.
 * In Tools of Destruction, Tachyon taunts Ratchet by saying that only he knows Ratchet's true name. This is because Ratchet's real lombax name was originally going to be revealed in A Crack in Time, but writer T.J. Fixman and Brian Allgeier opted not to reveal it as they realized that "Ratchet" is part of his identity, and wanted to continue to call him that. Fixman and Allgeier also know what happened to Ratchet's mother and Kaden, but have not revealed those stories in case they revisit them in a later game
 * When transitioning to the PlayStation 3 hardware, Ratchet's character model became far more detailed in terms of polygons and bones for his skeleton to animate the character. While the skeleton for Ratchet's character model used 110 bones in total in the PlayStation 2 entries, for Tools of Destruction, the skeleton featured 120 bones in the face alone
 * In the beta version of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Ratchet is seen using the OmniWrench 3000/8000/10K while in the final game he uses the OmniWrench Millennium 12 which made its first appearance in Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty and has become the iconic version of the wrench of the series and used in every game since, with the recent appearance in the 2016 reboot.