Overall Score: 4.78/5
A
The first Gravity Rush came out on Vita in 2012 and remastered on PS4 in 2016. The game is a 3D beat'em up platformer with RPG and sandbox elements. Gravity Rush 2 builds on this further, it is the first game, but bigger and better. Bigger city to explore, more gravity powers to use. The gameplay is fluid and intuitive, visually the game looks great, and many tracks from the soundtrack are great on their own.
Gameplay: 4.5
When people ask me what the game is like I describe as "it's like Mario 64, but you can manipulate gravity." You're able to run around and jump on a 3D plane and your attacks consist of kicks, though unlike Mario, Kat is able to grab objects in a gravity stasis field throw them at enemies.
Kat's gravity powers carry over from the first game intact. By manipulating gravity, Kat can "fly" (technically she isn't flying, but instead falling in a different direction), run along walls or the ceiling by re-orienting gravity, and she's able to slide along the ground. This adds a "vertical" aspect to the gameplay where the player is able to float in the air and attack flying enemies, including large flying bosses. The developers also took full advantage of this in the game's level design. The city from the prior game, which is also featured in the second part of GR2, Hekseville, is built into the "World Pillar" (this huge Yggdrasil looking tree trunk like pillar) like artificial branches on a tree. The player is able to run around on the underside of the city's districts by shifting gravity to make the "ceiling" the floor.
Now all these abilities and gameplay elements wouldn't mean jack if the execution was poor. And that is not the case. Controlling Kat and her gravity powers is very intuitive. Controls are your typical, Left Stick moves Kat around while the Right Stick rotates the camera. Triangle unleashes Kat's special attack, while Circle engages the Stasis Field and grabs objects that Kat can then throw. Using Kat's gravity powers can be seen as activating a gravity mode by pressing R1, this causes Kat to float and a crosshair to appear, now at this point the Right Stick is used to aim where Kat will travel, alternately the Dual Shock 4 controller (or the Vita if you're streaming the game, more on that later) can be tilted to aim Kat. Then you can press R1 again or X and Kat will fall in that direction, what ever surfaces Kat lands on will be the "ground". As she falls the player can change Kat's direction of fall by tilting the Left Stick.
As the game progresses, Kat will pick up different gravity styles, Luna Style will make her lighter and allow her to launch into a dive and do a rocket jump. In this mode her Gravity Kick becomes a warp attack and she'll warp to the target and unleash a series of kicks. Luna Style also adds a dash element to Kat's standard attacks. Later on, the Jupiter style is unlocked. This style makes Kat heavier, so she falls/flies, and slides faster as well. Her standard attacks become a series of heavy punches. Kat's Gravity Kick then becomes a charged kick that has a shock wave effect on impact. Her Stasis Field attack also changes, instead of grabbing several objects, she'll gather them into one giant ball and hurl that at the target. The ball is essentially a bomb as it explodes on impact. Kat's specials also change based on style, Normal Style, she performs this drill attack. In Luna Style she becomes a kind of machine gun and automatically grabs stuff with the Stasis Field and throws them. And in Jupiter Style she causes a mini black hole.
Raven also becomes playable later on and she controls a bit different from Kat. She only has one style, her Gravity Kick hits multiple times rather than one heavy strike, her Stasis Field can also summon energy spheres that she can launch.
Scattered though out the game are a few platformer-puzzle segments. In these segments Kat is cut off from her gravity powers and the player has to work their way though the puzzles. Though is this kind of a mixed bag. Some players might appreciate the break in just beating up on various enemies, though others might be annoyed by the break in the action.
The game can also be streamed onto the Vita, and it plays pretty well on the Vita. The touchpad controls are mapped to the center of the Vita's touch screen and the R2 and L2 triggers are mapped to the upper left and right corners of the Vita. At first it make evading and Gravity Sliding a bit awkward, but it doesn't take long to get used to it.
Though it isn't just controls, the game also adds quite a bit of stuff on the side, and a lot of little things that just kind of spice up the game. First off, the stuff on the side.
The game isn't stingy in the least when it comes to stuff to do on the side. There are quite a bit of challenge missions to do across both cities. Things like time trial Gravity Slide races or defeating enemies within a time limit. Other players will send you challenges to beat their time. Along with challenge levels there's quite a bit of side missions to do along side the main the storyline mission. Lastly there are several Rift Zones that the player can go when they want. These zones have gems (currency to power up Kat's abilities) to collect and optional powered-up bosses to earn experience from.
Then we get to Dusty Coins. Dusty Coins can be used to unlock outfits for Kat, decorations for her Pipe House (Kat lives in giant pipe in Hekseville). Dusty Coins can be collected though taking photos with the camera Syd gives Kat earlier on and having other players rate them, or though Treasure Hunts. Treasure Hunts are online challenges that work like this, though out the game are treasure boxes loaded with gems, you'll get a photo hint of a treasure location taken by another player and you'll need to use it to locate the treasure in the area. After locating it, you take the photo hint and upload it for the next player.
Along with the photos, the player can unlock gestures for Kat, that can be used both in photos and interacting with people around Jirga Para Lhao and Hekesville. She can greet people who'll waive back, scare people and cause them to startle, and she can sing which will make people clap, among other gestures. Other gestures also include Kat eating something, like a skewer or ice cream. While in the photo mode, the player can change Kat's outfits. This time around, unlike the first game, the player can get Kat's outfits for free.
They don't really affect gameplay, but little things like this show that this was a project that the developers cared about.
I had to take half a point off, because of the lack of a lock-on button. There are a few times where you're trying to engage a particular enemy in the distance, only to have Kat target a closer enemy. It gets annoying, but not game breaking, and hasn't gotten to the point to causing me cheap deaths. In a few areas the camera will get kind of weird, like clipping though texture if Kat is standing in a nook at a weird angle.
Stability: 4.9
I didn't have too many stability issues. I did get one crash where I took a saved a screenshot using the PS4's Share feature, though I wasn't able to reproduce the crash. The other issues I had were a few minor frame rate drops during the final boss fights, where a lot was happening all at once. Also in these fights I had some weird pop-in issues. I would quickly land in a park from high altitude only see the street and grass textured, with the tress, benches and what ever else catching up and popping into existence a second later.
Other then network associated weak connection issues that pop up now and then, the game ran smoothly, streamed to the Vita.
Plot: 4.5
The plot takes off shortly after the end of Gravity Rush, though the story can stand on it's own. The player won't be too lost about what's going on if they didn't play the first game, it would help though.
The story follows Kat, an amnesiac (in fact, "Kat" isn't even her real name, but a name that Syd gave her at the start of Gravity Rush 1 when she couldn't even remember her name) with the power of manipulate gravity, thanks to her magical cat companion Dusty (Dusty's presence around her all the time being the reason Syd started calling her "Kat"). Gravity Rush 2 starts with Kat, and her friends, fellow Gravity Shifter Raven and Hekseville police detective Syd, being pulled into a gravity storm and dropped off either in another parallel universe or another part of the planet, the game doesn't make it clear. While Raven's whereabouts for much of the first half of the game are unknown, Kat and Syd are picked up by a tribe of nomadic miners, that travel into Rift Zones and harvest resources. The first half of the game covers Kat's exploits in Jirga Para Lhao as she and Syd try to figure out how to get back home, eventually they are joined by Raven. Eventually Kat gets back home to Hekesville, and story then focuses on what has been going on since they were gone and Kat starts uncovering her past and regaining her memories. Without spoiling anything, Kat gets caught up in some major events in both cities.
The plot moves along more less at the player's pace. Like sandbox games such as Grand Theft Auto, or Saint's Row, there is a large area to explore and various side-missions and subquests you can do for people, along side the main story missions. Personally I was able to get some good mileage out of the game by doing all the side-missions and the treasure hunts. The story and side-mission dialogue is told both though cutscenes and though comic book-style dialogue boxes.
While it doesn't get too heavy into things, the plot does touch a bit on social inequality with Kat wondering about the state of affairs with people on one side of JPL just trying not to starve, while citizens on the other side of the same city revel in excess for the sake of excess.
Kat as a character is strong willed and upbeat, as well as hard working. She cares a lot about her friends and those around her, and many of the side missions have to do with helping someone out. Kat's close relations extend to her ever-present companion Dusty, treating the magical cat as a close friend, rather than as a tool or "attack dog". This is emphasized more in the story telling where Dusty has his own dialog boxes, even though his dialogue wholly consists of cat sounds like "Meow!", purrs
and hisses. There are also scenes where we see Kat picking up Dusty and hugging him. There are a few instances in some of the side missions where Kat's kindness and work ethic seem to be exploited by other characters, but Kat is aware they're just trying to get her to do something for them. Showing that she isn't completely gullible. She also isn't oblivious to what's going on around her and at some points in the plot makes some insightful remarks about the the events going on around her. Kat also has her moments of doubt, as well as a bout of mild jealousy towards one of the characters introduced later in the game. While Kat can be excitable at times, such as when a character like Syd volunteers her services to someone without asking her ahead of time, generally she remains calm. Though we do see her become angry when her friends are harmed. All this comes together to humanize and make Kat a believable character.
However there are a few plot points that don't get explained too well, if just completely glossed over. It isn't enough to ruin the main plot, but it is enough to leave the player scratching their head with a few questions about how *spoiler* ended doing what they were doing and how long they've been in the city. All in all though, the plot is well done and well told.
Graphics and Visuals: 5
I don't know how much the visuals push the PS4 (standard)'s hardware, but the game looks nice and runs at a largely constant 30FPS. In the lower district of JPL, the weather is rainy and gloomy with a haze in the distance. In the downtown and upper class area you'll see the clouds drifting though between buildings.
There was also an eye to detail on both Kat and Dusty. Kat's outfits are fully animated, her skirt outfits like the Jazz Singer and the 2B outfits will flutter in the wind and have accompanying shadows, that will reflect the wind effects on her clothes. The game doesn't use a "universal" shadow model. Dusty for his part is also fully animated, along with idle animations where he'll walk around Kat, sit down and look around and occasionally meow, his appearance is also animated. Being a magical cat, Dusty has the appearance of the night sky, and his "stars" don't stay static, rotating the camera around will cause the "stars" to swirl around.
Art and Music: 5
Both cities, Jirga Para Lhao and Hekseville have their distinct looks. JPL is made up of several districts. The lower district where the poor reside. This area looks something like the more poverty stricken areas in South East Asian cities, with shanty looking structures made of wood and corrugated metal. Then the middle district, where the ports, marketplace and commercial districts are. Here the city has a very colorful palate. The commercial area with all the skyscrapers have a sort of South East Asian metropolis look it it. Like something closer to Manila than Tokyo. The Marketplace and docks have a sort of Latin American/South American feel to it. The clothing style of the people in the city is the kind you'd see people in a tropical region wearing. To add to the feel of the region the soldiers on patrol have this sort of bandito look and carry rifles that look somewhat like AK-47s. Higher up at the top of society, literally and figuratively is the district where the wealthy live. This distict has a sort of Bel Air feel, with massive floating mansions, around a large central park island with a larger theater. The residents here have an '80s looking style to their attire. Farther up where the government facilities are, the aerial battleship that serves as military's HQ, has the look of a banana republic's military base.
Hekseville remains mostly unchanged since the first game. The city still retains it's Roaring '20s look and feel. The old town, and recreation districts still retain an old world European style to them. The industrial district retains it's Dickinson look and feel, while downtown still retains it's 1920's American metropolitan look and feel.
The Rift Zones are back but they're different zones in this game from the first, and they have a wider variety in theme. One looks like a city ruin floating in an abyss, another looks like a series of giant cacti while another is dark, like night sky kind of dark, and lit with large torches.
In both cities, each district has their down distinct characteristics and music. The lower class district of JPL is rainy and gloomy, the marketplace and port has a kind of Mexican seaside tourist -trap town in the spring/summer look and feel to it being bright and sunny. Hekseville, maybe because it was carried over from a Vita game, has less stark variety than JPL. The main standout being the recreation district which is perpetually at night with Las Vegas-style neon lights.
Along with their distinct looks, both JPL and Hekseville have their own distinct music styles, with specific themes for each of their district. The music for the lower district fits the gloomy atmosphere, with a slowly strummed guitar. Then the music picks up the pace for the middle district with a sort of upbeat fiesta kind of music, which goes hand in hand with the tropical attire the residents here wear, even in the downtown area which has more of a South East Asian, rather than Latin/South American look to it. Then moving further up, the best way I can describe the music is like '80s anime music, the kind with the alto sax leads. Something you would expect to hear in SDF Macross or Project A-Ko. Which is fitting given that the people here have flashy '80s outfits that look like something out of Scarface. Further up at the highest level is the government district where the military headquarters is located. The music here has a darker more foreboding tone, but retains a high tempo.
Hekseville's music remains the same as in the first game, though the music to the industrial district has changed, along with the conditions there. For those that haven't played the first game, the music has more a European feel it it. The old town district's music is focused around flutes and strings, while the recreation district music is more swing, and the downtown music is more fast paced, centered around piano and accordion to go along with the feeling of a bustling metropolitan downtown area.
The rift zones also have their own unique sound tracks with fit their themes well. For instance one zone is a dark region lit by giant floating torches, the background music for this region is centered around gentle percussion and piano.
Many of the tracks from the soundtrack, I would listen to outside of the game.
Final Verdict: Must Buy
This is a game that anyone can enjoy. The plot doesn't get too heavy, and remains more on the light hearted side. The violence is no worse than what you'd see in Mario 64 with Mario punching goombas and what ever other enemies. The most sexual content you'll see in the game is probably Raven's outfit. There's little in the way of profanity and F-bombs are non-existant. Gameplay is well executed, intuitive and fun. It's a game that should be in every PS4 library.
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