Ratchet & Clank's Unsolved Mystery

orcs on one of ratchet and clank's most infamous planets the signature toxic waste level design its multiple choice pathways and sheer difficulty make it distinct from other planets within orcs on lies a mystery an unsolved puzzle that ratchet and clank speedrunners and glitch hunters have been trying to solve for over seven years ever since it was first theorized today we're going to dive into this game's most elusive challenge an enigma that remains unsolved to this day with everything the community has managed to find so far only a single piece of the puzzle remains unsolved this is the story of beating orcs on his clank better known as pokey skip to better understand how difficult of a puzzle this is to solve let's take a look at the bigger picture in wretched and clank you progress through the game by collecting infobots these little robots will give you the coordinates to the next planet while simultaneously showing you a small preview of what the planet has to offer in a short cutscene infobots are usually obtained by bribing characters reaching the end of the planet or beating bosses the mid game in ratchet and clank is very confusing in regards to the planet order and it all starts with battalia there are two infobots you can collect on this planet one from the main path and the other after completing a grind boot section the main path will give you the coordinates to the planet that's the focus of this video orcs on while the grind boot section will end with the gas bar infobot if we head to orcs on first a cutscene clearly displays that the air on the planet is so polluted that it's impossible for ratchets to breathe unaided which means that clank has to venture out on his own in context of the speed run you've been playing as only ratchet up until this point as clank we're now stripped of ratchet's acrobatic moveset and weaponry with fewer options at her disposal enemies become harder puzzles longer and as a result this clank section can take upwards of 6 minutes even for a speedrunner with experience if you've played this game casually you'll probably remember the notorious length this planet beholds the end of the clank section will give you the infobot to poketaru another new planet if we head straight for poketarou and escort the resort's owner aka the guy hey to his destination we're met with a jet fighter we can't operate without the pilot's helmet the helmet is located on gas bar and finding it is the only objective on the planet as a result it's wise to go to gas bar first to grab the pilot's helmet after it works on and then go to poketarou so you won't have the backtrack now with the pilot's helmet in our possession we can go back to poketarou to pilot the fighter jet in exchange for taking out the tankers that are dumping waste into the waters of the resort the guy gives us the o2 mask which is used by ratchet on a return visit to orcs on the o2 mask allows him to move around freely on the planet without inhaling the polluted air and opens up the rest of the level thanks to the better movement options this brings us to one of the core points in solving this puzzle and that is how you're supposed to beat orcs on 2 the infobot you're supposed to collect as ratchet on orcs on 2 leads to hoven where the game takes a more linear structure towards the end game however this infobot is unlike most of the previous ones in that it's not just simply sitting at the end of the level waiting for you to collect it the infobot on orxon 2 is supposed to be chased through 7 different locations on the map where it can then be collected on the 7th and final location using some speedrun tricks we can reach all of these locations fairly quickly and luckily for us the infobot does not move back to a previous location unless you die while chasing it around the first infobot location seems to be in plain sight tricking the player with a false sense of accomplishment once you get within a radius of the infobot it moves on to its next location the second location is the most out of the way all the way up on an isolated platform [Music] the last five locations are fairly straightforward to reach with the fastest route to each one roughly following the game's intended path the third location is straight across the second the fourth is here not far from the third the fifth is just across the sixth is at the bottom of the magna boot wall and the seventh and final one lies atop the magnet boot wall where you can then move on with your quest in 2013 speedrunners slowly but surely started theorizing a major skip for the new game plus speed run pokey skip while the name implies the skip of the planet pokitaru you would skip much much more than that to figure out how much time it takes for one to go through all the steps to get to hoven we have to start all the way back on blark station on blarg you would spend about 2 minutes on 2 000 bolts to buy the grind boots these grind boots would then be used for exactly one thing in the entire run and that is to obtain the gas bar infobot on planet battalia the grind boot section would be about a minute and a half you'd then have to do gas bar in order to get the pilot's helmet which would take about a minute works on one's clank section can be shortened from 6 minutes to 4 with the help of some clips pokitaru is a pretty lengthy level itself and is typically upwards of four and a half minutes orcs on 2 with all its infobot chasing around the level would be about a minute and 40 seconds all of this extra time comes in at a total of a bit less than 15 minutes 15 minutes is an outrageous amount of time for a speedrun this short so an idea was proposed since the hoven infobot is loaded and can be obtained during any visit of orcs on why don't we try collecting it as clank if possible this would skip the grind boots on blarg the grind rail section on battalia and all of gaspar pokitaro and orcs on 2. this question then turned into one of the toughest challenges the community has ever been faced with finding a way to get the hovent infobot on orcs on during the very first visit of the planet as clank a character with a single slow and clunky attack a very short jump height and extremely limited maneuverability to get to all seven locations the community had to dig deep this was gonna be hard in order to reach the infobot locations is clink a lot of creative thinking had to come into effect knowing the ins and outs of the game's mechanics the terrain and its collision and perhaps if enemies could be of use in order to kickstart the search for pokeskip we have to start from the beginning and the opening jump is the first glaring issue the developers clearly tried to deter the player from going this direction on orcs on his clank by making the platform just out of reach one of the 2013 runners of ratchet and clank new game plus ticeman was able to find a skip for the orcs on clank section saving several minutes in the speedrun by being on a new game plus file of the game you can unlock the goodies menu inside the goodies menu you can find in-level movies this is a way to view any in-game cutscene of the planet you're on a side effect of in-level movies is that they reset clank state to a grounded idol state when played if you jump over the set of pipes next to the ship and play an in-level movie the game will warp clank down to the ground inside of the pipes you can then punch in a certain spot and you'll get a big proxy jump conveniently right up to the poketarou infobot the discovery of proxies in ratchet and clank would catch the interest among speedrunners and soon enough we would start to see proxies be helpful in the quest for pokeyskip leaping into the following year of 2014 runner cypress would upload a video on the first day of the year titled ratchet and clank orcs on clank escape the video showcases that once you're up at the infobot area you can jump along the rail where the poketarou infobot was glide and barely get a ledge grab onto the first platform cypress keeps the footage running for about another minute to show how far you can make it as clank the glide down to the main section is pretty easy you can make it across the two sinking platforms just fine as well but once you reach the split path that's the end of the road for now the next obstacle is this massive ledge that you once again can't reach with a conventional jump [Music] pokeyskip would lay untouched until 2016 when fellow speedrunner maxis stepped into the picture he uploaded a video to his youtube in april showcasing an alternate route that would ultimately lead to the first infobot location using ticeman's proxy once more maxis goes backwards to the small courtyard area at the end of the clank section by freeing one of the gadget bots in the courtyard and pushing him into the corner of this pillar you can jump between the two open an in-level movie and you'll be clipped inside of the pillar itself just like before a rather precise setup is used to proxy clank upwards over the wall another in-level movie clip is used on this tree further down into the level to make it down to the gray platform now all that's left is this one final glide towards the infobot platform and with that the first piece of the puzzle was solved infobot position one was now possible the search for more positions would once again see no activity until 2017 when runner one tabloid uploaded an alternate way of reaching the grey platform you see when you reach the split path with the vendor you get a checkpoint when you reach this checkpoint the game will spawn a moving platform on the path you were just on that leads back to the ship otherwise there would be no other way to get back there the platform is clearly intended to be stood on by ratchet so when clank interacts with the platform the physics get a little weird meaning you can do this if you don't stop running on the platform you'll slide off with some speed so tab gets on the platform as it's descending to the lower part of the level stops running and glides into the top of a tower to get a strange looking speed boost to make it all the way over to the grey platform tab said he found this trick on accident the first time around he wasn't recording when it happened so it took him a handful of attempts to recreate the trick using save states this trick remains one of the hardest in the game's history but is it useful well it essentially accomplishes the same thing from the route maxes found a year prior but it's much faster faster eh have you even thought about the possibility that pokeyskip could be slower [Music] it's been four years and the game has gone from looking like this to this grindbooth skip is now a thing the ps3 version saves multiple minutes and the movement is a different beast entirely the goal before was to see if beating orcs on his only clank was possible in under 15 minutes if it was you'd save time but as the game has only gotten faster those 15 minutes are now more than cut in half having only six to eight minutes to beat orcs on his clank now seemed completely unrealistic so the runners had a choice throw in the towel and give up or solve the puzzle anyway knowing it'll be slower for a while it seemed like throwing in the towel was the choice but some people still wanted to see pokeskip become a reality in early 2018 the biggest discovery yet for pokeskip would be unearthed runner cinna uploaded a video showcasing a method of gaining nearly twice as much height with clank on the ps3 version of the game by pausing on the first frame possible after jumping with clank you can stay cancel yourself by playing an in-level movie the momentum gained in the first frame of clank's jump is very significant so by cancelling the rest of the animation clank sort of floats upwards this was named big clank jump and was a huge discovery not only for convenience sake but because it actually allowed more progress to be made on pokeskip the first jump can now be done with a big clank jump but the next roadblock that also needed significant height was now solved after reaching the first infobot location backtracking to the elevator was necessary but not thought to be possible because of one this big gap that you couldn't cross and two this high ledge that you couldn't reach a new guy rayne would join the ratchet speedrun discord and drop some new discoveries including a way to get over the gap with a precise proxy by clipping into a tree luckily an easier method was found by one tabloid well you you totally can make that hang on [Music] look at this you can make that you have to do that proxy come on as for the ledge big clank jumps now enable you to reach the ledge on the very right hand side this was also found by rayne this jump is a lot harder than it looks and wasn't found right away for this reason now it's possible to backtrack to the ship opening up new possibilities for the route by landing on the grey platform once more and walking through the level normally you can reach all the infobot locations from 3 to 6 very easily all you have to do is not die which isn't too bad you can cancel the bird's attack animation by playing an in-level movie right as they're about to hit you there's a ship later on you have to be a bit careful for you have to wait out his attacks properly and run for it when the opportunity is there [Music] with position six being reached scaling the monstrous magnabiut wall is all that is needed for position seven a couple of months after big clank jumps were discovered a new person would attempt to push pokeyskip further however this was somebody who didn't even run ratchet and clank somebody that vanished after dropping this one video his name was cohen and this is what he [Music] posted [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] according to cohen he spent 12 straight hours trying to get this proxy to work a single time but it was proven possible and that's what matters to this day this remains koan's only video on his youtube channel a bit of a mystery man cohen if you're watching this we thank you for your contribution okay let's discuss the elephant in the room position two as you can probably tell by the title of this video pokey skip still remains unsolved and this is the only missing piece all of the other six locations have been reached through community strat hunting optimizing and collaboration but this is the one thing left stopping us even though the skip would ultimately be slower it's been a dream that's been rooted into the minds of every ratchet and clank speedrunner just to say that it's been done and that it's possible would be huge it was a dream back then and it remains a dream now but how far we've come is impressive to say the least many theories have been put on the table in hopes of finding a way to the second infobot but with our current knowledge it's just not possible the first theory provided by clippy anazaki is that you could somehow make your way all the way to the top of this part of the level perhaps with a proxy or something similar from here you can big clank jump your way to the magnet rail then big clank jump again to make it to the second infobot unfortunately getting the height required to reach the rooftop has yet to be achieved another slightly more obscure way would be to fiddle more with the elevator boost one tabloid found perhaps some kind of ludicrous amount of speed could be achieved launching you over to the second infobot platform which is off in the distance but seeing as tab barely made it onto the grey platform in his clip it's unlikely something like this will happen if you can somehow make your way to the second infobot location it is possible to make it back to the start of the level again by climbing on top of this crate stack and then big clank jumping down to the first infobot area again you can then loop back to the ship do the elevator boost again and reach locations three through six then finally backtrack once again to get to the seventh location izaki made a video called pokeskip which outlines what pokeyskip would look like in full succession if position 2 was reachable the video is around 10 minutes long so if pokeyskip was to be found it would definitely be a lengthy process despite the fact that we're not there yet we're closer now than ever and i'm optimistic for the future between 2017 and 2018 so much progress was made on something that seemed like a pipe dream back in the early days i think someday someone will discover a way to reach position 2. i'm not sure how but seeing how close the community got i think it's inevitable could tab find another trick to crack the code could rain find another big discovery or perhaps co-and could show up out of nowhere once more and save the day i guess we'll just have to wait and see [Music] thanks for watching please consider supporting me on patreon take care and have a good one [Music]

Channel: ThaRixer

Views: 734,890

Keywords: Ratchet & Clank, Rac, Ratchet, and, Clank, Ratchet and, and Clank, PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5, Orxon, Speedrun, Skip, Unsolved, Mystery, Unsolved Mystery, Glitch, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Rift Apart, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Gaspar, Pokitaru, WR, World Record, World, Record, Proxy, Game, Gaming, Gamer, GamesDoneQuick, GDQ, Speed, Run, Exploit, Rac1, Ratchet & Clank 1, Insomniac Games, Insomniac, ThaRixer, Poki Skip, Video Essay, Mini Documentary, Video Game Documentary, Infobot

Id: vqS-ohYDedk

Length: 18min 39sec (1119 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/hgttg]

So how do you know the infobot is even pickuppable by clank even if it the 2nd position is solved?

[u/xxGambino]

It’s been interesting to see ThaRixer’s channel pivot from pure speedruns into more of a look at speed running culture and stories of discovery. Really enjoy this new content.

[u/SpartanG087]

Take that... Culture.

Favorite line of the entire series. This is a very interesting video and I cannot wait for the next game.

[u/rafikiknowsdeway1]

i've been going through the first 3 ratchet and clank games on ps3 after playing the ps4 remake. I gotta say, in some areas they definitely did not age especially well, they still have some kind of addictive property that makes you want to push on to the next planet. Even if just about every level is just "move in to room, trivially kill everything, move on, repeat"

That being said, I fucking despise the space ship combat parts in the second game

[u/Valtteri_BottASS]

I love these types of speedrunning videos, something cool about seeing a community work together to try and break the game in order to pull off an impossible strategy.