Review: Gravity Rush 2 is the sequel we deserve

Platforms: PlayStation 4 (reviewed)

Developer: SIE Japan Studio, Project Siren

MSRP: $59.99

Introduction :

It's pretty fantastic that Sony took a chance at releasing the first game to a much wider audience on the PS4. While I can't speak for the sales numbers, it was a smart way to introduce a bigger audience to the world of Gravity Rush, Kat the main protagonist, and the story. The reason this is somewhat important is because Gravity Rush 2 almost requires the player to be familiar with the story from the first game, as the second game picks up where the first left off. And since the game provides little to no backstory on basically anything, new players picking up Gravity Rush 2 might find themselves a bit confused.

With that said, Gravity Rush 2 is a fantastic sequel and does almost everything right to enhance the mechanics from the first game. It all revolves around the fantastic gravity manipulation mechanic that made the first game so uniquely wonderful.

Flying is falling – with style!

Kat is able to freely manipulate gravity and shift it to her liking. That means she can turn it off, float high above the city, and then start "falling" to a certain direction. Seeing this at first on the Vita, I thought the concept was crazy and didn't love that she wasn't so much flying as much as she was falling to her destination, but over time it grew on me. With the sequel, it's a concept so beautifully realized, you'll find yourself rarely using the game's shortcuts for fast travel because gravity shifting is just so damn fun.

If there's one constant joy found throughout Gravity Rush 2, it's easily the ability to fly anywhere and partake in the collecta-thon of skill enhancing crystals, which are scattered absolutely everywhere. There's a reason the Crackdown games made finding and collecting those upgrade orbs so addicting, and this feels very similar to that, if not better thanks to the ability to free-fall anywhere.

The combat has been built on and perfected…

Even though I love flying through the air as a form of travel, I didn't always love it in combat. I would dread enemy encounters in the first game. However, Gravity Rush 2 does make some slight tweaks to the combat to make it a bit more fluid. It's not perfect by any means, as constant camera rotation is required on the player's part, especially when there is a whole slew of enemies to keep track of, but it was an improvement over its predecessor. There are also two completely new fighting styles which change up Kat's fighting abilities; Lunar and Jupiter style, which make her lighter and heavier respectively.

Kat also has Raven as an ally this time around, and their friendship is actually one of the strongest points of Gravity Rush 2. Raven, who is the polar opposite to Kat and the rival from the first game, now acts as an ally throughout most of the game and the fights in which she participates in are pretty damn awesome.

The world, which once again feels ripped straight out of a Studio Ghibli movie, and maybe even more so thanks to the PS4's better graphical fidelity and added color, is fun to explore, with districts that once again differ from one another, and are almost magical to fly through.

On the flip-side, missions and side-quests didn't always hit the mark.

I'm usually a huge fan of stealth. If there's a game that offers me ways to play a mission completely in stealth, I jump at the opportunity. But then those games have to be built with stealth in mind. Gravity Rush 2 does have quite a handful of missions like those, but the mechanics aren't built for stealth whatsoever, meaning you'll find yourself frustrated, battling with the game's mechanics to try and be stealthy, and usually come out the loser.

What's even stranger are some of these side-quests that are thrown in for most likely humorous reasons, but just feel somewhat out of place. Standing in line for someone, which literally has you standing in line, is as boring as it sounds. Given that there are tons of side-quests to tackle, the developers obviously went with quantity over quality, which is a shame because Gravity Rush 2 is a game I had very little problems actually playing, but whenever these missions would come up, I'd likely move on and continue with the main story or just keep exploring the city at my own leisure.

Those who have played the first game on PS4 will probably remember the smooth 60 frames per second gameplay and were most likely hoping for the sequel to also have that feature. That's not the case, though, as the game is locked at 30fps. Given that the first game was a Vita port, it makes sense for the most part, but I can't help but wonder how much more gorgeous it could have looked at 60fps instead.

Verdict:

This seems to be a common thread in the last few games I reviewed (Hatsune Miku: Future Tone and Yakuza 0) but once again, I can't help but feel thankful Sony took the chance on US audiences and decided to release the game here. It can be a slog at times, especially the previously mentioned stealth missions, and the combat against a large group of enemies can get a bit cumbersome, but it's still a thrilling game that I can't help but recommend.