I am on a roll with my backlog, I’ll be honest. Gravity Rush 2 has been an odd one for me though. I bought it on sale, played the first two chapters, and three years later, I beat it. Now I want more Gravity Rush games.
The game starts off in the Banga Settlement, with Kat trying to get used to her new town and her lack of powers too, as Dusty is mysteriously gone. Throughout the game, Kat will travel to many worlds and many dimensions too, all while helping out the cast of main and supporting characters (more on that in a second). While this game is a sequel, the majority of the game is pretty independent, so while you can and will get a fuller experience by playing this without the knowledge of the first game, this still is a great game to play by itself too.
Now back to the characters, Gravity Rush has shown us that they can write and design characters with very unique attributes and personalities too. With the sequel, they just keep getting better and better. There are a ton of characters that you interact with in the story and in side missions too, and they’re all so memorable and charming in their own ways. You still have Syd and Raven, the OGs, but newcomers like Lisa, Cecie, Fi, and Vogo fit right in with everyone else, as if they weren't new characters, but rather characters that have always been there.
Another part that Gravity Rush 2 embellishes on is the gameplay. I know it’s hit or miss for some, but I think the gameplay hits for me. It’s really fun to fly around, change gravity, throw objects, slide around on walls, and all of that stuff. It’s what gives Gravity Rush that sort of identity. New to the sequel however are new tweaks and changes to the core mechanics that the first game have established. Lunar makes Kat lighter, making her teleport and jump higher than normal, allowing for faster snappier combat. Jupiter makes her heavier, making dive kicks feel meaty, and attacks feel more impactful, but slower of course. Again, this just feels right for a game that’s all about mobility. Give the player a fast speed, a slow speed, and a normal speed, and give them certain challenges that will make them swap them out, so they don’t just use one for the whole game. It’s SMART and I love it.
Now for my nitpicks. This is a Gravity Rush game, which means it might be a little difficult to get the correct camera angle during gameplay. This might be my memory failing me, but I feel like this game has a worse camera than the first one. I don’t remember constantly needing to fight for the right camera angle just as hard as I was fighting the Nevi. Maybe it’s the new engine, or the console jump from PS Vita to PS4 game, but that was a major issue for the game.
Another one is the mission structure. Both main story quests and side missions have this issue of having missions feel too dull, or too drawn out. These missions might be suffering from the “quantity vs quality” issue, because there are a TON of missions, but many are hard to play. This means either repeating something one or two too many times, struggling to continue when things feel like padding, or my least favorite thing about this game: the stealth missions. Stealth missions in particular are NOT my strong suit, I will fully admit that. My problem with this game was that they felt too frequent, and just don’t work for this type of genre. You can fly all over the place, and you can’t really gauge how hidden you are in a 3D environment. This would result in failing over and over again because this one enemy spotted me from a spot that I couldn’t either see, or was too tight of a window to avoid while changing gravity. Again, this is probably a skill issue, but I do think that stealth doesn't fit in with Gravity Rush’s gameplay.
But who am I kidding, this game is still great. The updated “next gen” graphics still hold up to this day with all of the COLORS and SHADING. The music still resembles the first game, where you can go from a nice orchestral piece, to a movie soundtrack, to jazz, to a funk tune; literally all of the music genres in this franchise. Great characters, great narrative, great gameplay; it’s Gravity Rush, and I am proud to be feral about these games. If only there is a NEW GAME…