(And a place on an online scoreboard, the extent thus far of the game’s online footprint, though there will eventually be “events” players can join.) There’s also a social feedback angle that lets players take and upload pictures in the game, or hunt for treasures off clues provided by other players that yield tokens used for standout rewards. Gather these and you can power-up Kat, if never in a way that smooths over the control problems. Then there’s the collectible hunt, if vacuuming up buckets of shiny things hung off tricky bits of geometry like daredevil Christmas ornaments is more your thing. If anything, there’s too much filler, as some of these involve bait-and-switch delivery runs, or lead you on wild goose hunts with rug-pulling conclusions. The missions alone tally in the dozens, mixing up confrontational and clandestine tropes as you pinball between surreal, topsy-turvy playgrounds. If you’re up to wrestling with the fiddly controls, the game comes brimming with places to go and things to do. It’s like the problem a six degrees of freedom space sim might have if you swapped out the slower sim parts for arcade tempos, then dragged it all down to earth. In tighter spaces with lots of trees or up against walls, the screen jams up with amorphous architecture, leaving you to flail haphazardly back to visual freedom. Too often you’ll aim high or low when shooting for aerial zones without reference points-a serious pain point in missions that put you on a timer. Sometimes you’ll find yourself sliding along the ground when you though you were pointed skyward. But since so many battles transpire in urban jungles or with other sorts of complex geometry, it’s easy to accidentally smash into structures, or get hung up on overhangs or railings in your frantic, button-mashy pursuit of moving targets. The speed and frequency with which Kat has to change course in battle makes orientation a luxury, leaving players to instead focus on swiveling the camera towards tiny tracking triangles as enemies every bit as quick and mercurial as you scoot around the battlefield. It’s worst in split-second scenarios, where the separate mental processes that feed tactical planning, staying visually oriented and flat out reacting smash into each other like a traffic pileup. Toyama wants to give players absolute freedom of motion, but it comes too often at the expense of adaptability, grace and speed becoming quarreling concepts. And so long as you’re casually sightseeing or sleuthing for collectibles, it’s easy to forgive the imprecise way Kat hurtles through space (ironically a bit like another Katt in the old ABC dramedy The Greatest American Hero.)īut when it’s time to hone in on an aerial position or stick landings, the controls falter in a way they in hindsight seemed bound to given the game’s scope. What a moment it is to kick off into the heavens and soar (or plummet) seamlessly between worlds. Kat has the run of the world, ground to sky and every vertiginous nook and cranny between. How you maneuver Kat through all the game’s up-down action poses bigger problems. Gravity Rush 2‘s big ideas are all in its gameplay, but at least the socioeconomics are more than hand waved to, with players literally rising and falling to oil the cogs of progress. But it’s nice to see what could have been just another loopy superhero versus super-bad-guys yarn dig a little deeper. And the class allegory, though easy to nod along with, has all the subtlety of a shovel to the face. It’s a great idea, if cheapened by cartoon characters given to histrionics.
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