videogameblog

I just accidentally deleted everything that I'd written about this because I can't use a keyboard properly and somehow triggered a shortcut to close all my chrome tabs while I was typing so this probably isn't gonna read well

Before I played this game I was always confused as to why it wasn't talked about more; A hack n' slash directed by Keiichiro Toyama where you can fly around?! It sounded awesome!! After playing it, I now completely understand why nobody really talks about Gravity Rush. I won't be talking about it either, probably.

The thing that surprised me most when I first started playing was the setting; I'd always assumed (based on Kat's outfit on the cover) that the game took place in some kind of Sci-Fi cyberpunk style city. It actually takes place in this poop-brown, semi-depressing steampunk floating city. I think it's cool that they decided to choose an environment that's entirely traversable without the use of flying powers, I could see it being tempting to create some kind of platforming-centric fragmented city, but I found the normality of the setting to highlight Kat's place as an outsider much more. My main issue with the setting is the lack of incentive to actually look or fly around it. Most of the time I would just clear over buildings to my next objective, never really zipping in-between buildings or down alleyways like I thought I would. The time trials make good use of the terrain, but I wish there was more incentive for me to actually involve myself with it in the moment-to-moment. Sure, there's gems around to pick up, but most of them are sitting on rooftops and require you to stop flying to collect them. I think a system that stops me from flying too high in certain areas or rings I can fly through for points would have made things more fun. I liked the way that the city is split into different islands, It provides some architectural variation. My favorite area by far was the entertainment district. The pink lights contrasted against the night sky with the funky jazz soundtrack created such a contrast with the rest of the city. Overall, I thought the setting was kind of ugly and the architecture of the level designs never really influenced my movement too much. Speaking of movement, the flying is by far the best thing in the game. Gliding around feels great, mixing the gyro controls with the stick controls allows you to get really precise with your movements. Being able to stop, start and fall at your pleasure creates a really dynamic and fluid movement system. The sliding is really fun to do also, I wish they incentivised it more. The combat, however, is the opposite of fun. I think I can confidently say that it's the worst combat system i've ever experienced in a game I've completed. All you do is repeatedly spam the in-air kick move, which has no lock on, glides off of enemies half the time, and isn't fun to do at all. There's a bunch of other moves you can do like kicking and slide-kicking, but they can only damage like 3 enemies, since the rest have their weak-points in unreachable spots if you're not flying. The dodging is also horrendous, most of the time I would just take the hits and then go grab a health pack during combat. During one 'boss fight' (If you can call it that) you need to dodge a bunch of attacks as you're falling. I could not figure out how to dodge any of them, so I just spent the entire encounter levelling up my health when I was about to die because it would fill the bar back to the top. Truly harrowing stuff. It's such a shame too, since in-air combat could be the coolest thing ever if they actually fleshed it out. Anytime combat triggered I would make an audible groan.

Narratively I found this to be super confusing. I'm not really sure what was going on at all to be honest, except for the smaller, more contained stories. WTF is a creator?? there's two of them? the whole game is a dream? I was a big fan of all the different characters you encounter, you can't go wrong with a big varied cast. I loved how unhinged and off-the-wall Kat was as a character, too. Big fan of how she just lives in some nasty ass sewer pipe and canonically smells bad. The game doesn't overstay it's welcome, which is nice. If it was any longer I could see myself getting burnt out. I was a big fan of the direction of that final fight, It really felt like all the characters were banding together to defeat a formidable foe.

Overall I think that Gravity Rush was rich with potential to be an excellent game but it's unfortunately dragged down by it's terrible combat system. I know the sequel is supposed to be the better of the two so I'm looking forward to playing that next (not any time soon though since Dragon's Dogma 2 comes out tonight!! yipee!!)