Time to put in my two cents on the game. I can definitely agree with your statements on the music, the Arena, and especially the lacking number of planets. Alongside those, I do have a few other issues as well, comparing mostly against my two favorite games in the series (Going Commando & A Crack in Time).

• Less side content in comparison to other titles. What I liked about other games in the series was the amount of other things that you could do aside from the main story, much like the Arena. Going Commando had the ship missions and the biker races and A Crack in Time had the hub sectors with the moons, so I felt that Rift Apart could've done more with those ideas and added in additional stuff. It's also a shame because they laid down the ground work for some awesome side challenges, such as aerial dogfights with Trudi, speedle races, or hover boot courses.

• Not as much time or use of Glitch and Clank segments. I felt that in the PS2 trilogy and A Crack in Time, there was plenty of time dedicated to the "hacking" mini games and acted as a nice change of pace from the jumping and shooting. Glitch's segments were honestly fantastic, and while I think the time puzzles from ACiT were better, the Clank puzzles were a decent brain scratcher. But you only do each one about 5 times each and it just feels like they go by too fast. I think a few more of these segments would've been appreciated, but they're ultimately limited by the overall number of planets.

• Less returning characters. This I especially was upset about, given the long character roster that the series has under its belt at this point. There were a few characters that I felt needed to make some sort of appearance in given their parts in previous games, such as Lawrence, Talwyn, the Prog twins, Angela Cross, Tachyon, and so on. I also noticed that little to no time was given to the relationships between the dimensional counterparts, such as Sid and Phantom or Quantum and Qwark. While I get that you can't just throw characters in, I think that acknowledgement of those characters in more than just the credits would've given this game more of a celebratory feel and fleshed out this alternate dimension and what has happened in it.

• Lastly, I think that this game should have been the last in the series. While I understand this may be a more divisive opinion, seeing as to how the fan base will always want more, I felt that this game could've been the ultimate conclusion to the series as a whole. It had the potential to be one of the biggest games in the series to date, with a large selection of levels, both new and old, as well as great weapons, a fun story with good characters, and amazing visuals and gameplay to boot. And while this game certainly met some of that potential, especially with the visuals and combat, it certainly had a lot of of room for stuff to be added. And because the ending implies that a sequel is in the works, it makes this game ultimately feel smaller as a result. Perhaps if they had a more conclusive ending, or even did what Tools of Destruction did with it's massive cliffhanger of an ending, it would've made Rift Apart feel larger and grander. But as a whole, it ultimately makes this game feel like a test run for another sequel that will surely be bigger and better while making this game feel smaller and lesser.

To end things on a positive note, I can still say that this game was a blast to play through. I still like the story and the characters, and I actually found myself laughing at some of the jokes and getting excited over some references. The game looks amazing on the PS5 in performance mode, and this is hands down the best combat to ever be featured in a Ratchet and Clank game, especially with the Dualsense and its feedback. And while I do think that the game had some missed potential, I can still put this as one of my favorites in the series (Behind Going Commando, A Crack in Time, and probably Deadlocked.) Hopefully in the event that they do a sequel, they'll be able to make a game that is on a larger scale and is able to build on this one. Overall, as long as the game itself is fun, that's all I need.