Upon arriving on Aridia, you should be able to spot Skidd McMarx standing close to where you landed. Go over to talk to him and he’ll mention he needs some help in getting back to his ship. Unfortunately, this will entail you defeating a bunch of Sandsharks, who have infested the area past Skidd. Your task is to go around and defeat the number shown on your screen, with one little caveat. There will be weird plant-looking things in the area that act as spawners for Sandsharks, with these Sandsharks not counting toward your overall total. A majority of the Sandsharks are easy to spot and defeat, but there is one area you need to wall jump to in order to reach more of them. You will likely spot the walls where you can jump to the top of the plateau (same look as on Novalis). Once you have defeated all of the Sandsharks, you’ll be teleported back to Skidd and he’ll give you his hoverboard.

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You can’t get the Gold Bolt from the front (left), but you can see some rocks you can blow up (right) if you follow the wall.

Find Skidds Agent¶

There’s only one other path you can take right now, so trek along it, defeating the Sandsharks and enemies with flamethrowers, called Constructobots. You’ll eventually come to another elevator platform, which will bring you to a split in the path. The one with the Swingshot targets is for the Locate the gadget objective, while the other with the conveyor belts will lead you to Skidd’s Agent. You will want to be extra careful in dealing with the Constructobots up here, as if you get knocked down, you’ll have to restart from the checkpoint. There will be another elevator that will bring you down to an area with the gooey swamp, along with more Sandsharks and Constructobots.

To continue on with the area, you’ll need to grab the ledges that are brightly labeled with yellow lights, but before grabbing the second one, drop down into the other area and grab the Holocards deck . Continue your ascent, shimmying around the ledges when needed, until you reach the top and spot Skidd’s Agent getting blasted by some Blarg soldiers. Being the good guys that Ratchet and Clank are, you decide to help him out by defeating them all. The most troublesome enemy here is the Dropship, so it might be wise to concentrate on that first. Once all of the enemies are finished, Skidd’s Agent will show you an Infobot that lets you go to Rilgar, and if you’ve already helped Skidd, you’ll be teleported to their ship as it takes off.

Locate the Gadget¶

You should have seen this path whenever you were completing the previous section, as you came upon a part with some Swingshot targets. This path is pretty linear and doesn’t have any enemies at all, although it is rife with explosive crates, so if you don’t feel safe detonating them when you’re next to them, you can use something like the Combuster to destroy them from a distance. Eventually, you will come upon the new gadget, called the Hydrodisplacer. This will allow you to remove certain portions of water and put them someplace else. Test it out by using it on the receptacle next to you to drain the water in the room, then dropping to the platform below you (there’s a Gold Bolt in the water). In the next room, you can use the Hydrodisplacer to fill the gap with water, allowing you to get across. That’s all there is for this section, so return to your ship and set course for Planet Kerwan!

Off To The Races

Rescue Skidd and his agent on Aridia.