Gravity Rush 2 Review [Minor Spoilers]

Gameplay

Now that story and characters are out of the way, let’s finally talk about the more interactive elements that make Gravity Rush in my eyes such an excellent game, the gameplay.

If I were to break down Gravity Rush’s gameplay in just a couple of words, I’d say that it’s a series that thrives in its action-platformer elements as well it’s use of motion controls to add an extra layer of immersion to the game. Gravity Rush 2 retains all these elements as well as adding some much-needed refinement to most of its mechanics, whilst also adding many new tools for the players to play and experiment around with. The motion controls have also been heavily reduced so as to streamline the gameplay to be a more comfortable and intuitive experience. But we’ll get more into that a little later.

In terms of sheer content, this game has far more things to do compared to the first game. In fact, there’s been an estimate that the amount of missions in this game is three times more than the original. These missions include main missions that progress the story, side missions which are basically just sidequests, and challenge missions which test your mastery with the gameplay. The missions, for the most part, were pretty fun to do. However, I think there was just a teensy bit too much stealth missions. Not that there’s anything bad about it, but it can feel a bit tiring after you’ve done them for a while.

Now, let’s move on and talk about the game’s environment and level design shall we? Gravity Rush 2 features a brand new world called “Jirga Para Lhao” that serves as the base world for Kat to play around in. Each different part of the city has a very distinctive design more so than Hekseville. The new maps take the vertical layout concepts and cranks it up to eleven. This is because this time they’re stacked on top of each other like floors in a building, rather than the more horizontal, more traditional city layout found in Hekseville. As a result, this encourages the use of gravity shifting powers even more than its predecessor.

Um, sir Alatoren. I don’t know how to read those letters, can you help me out?

Sure! Give me just one second…
*inhales*
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee-

Speaking of gravity shifting powers, I think it’s time that I cover the combat in this game. Combat and movement are still fairly simple and retains much of the same feeling in the first game. However, there’s been some changes made that both improves upon certain things, while also making some of the problems in the first game even worse.

The most notable changes made are the introduction of gravity styles, specifically the new lunar style and Jupiter style. You still get to play in a normal style, having the same moves and controls as the first game. But later on in the story, you’ll eventually be able to unlock these new gravity styles, and be able to change between all three styles with just a flick on the gamepad.

Gather around ladies and gentlemen, for we have vanilla Kat, T-pose Kat, and Thicc thigh Kat

The lunar style surrounds Kat with blue garments, making her extremely light in the process. When transformed, Kat is able to jump much farther and much higher distances, as well as gaining the ability to teleport when doing kicks in midair. This form is mostly used for traveling and exploration purposes. Especially since most of the platforming sections in this game restrict you to using this style the most. It also serves as a nice counter to fast-flying enemies, though you do sacrifice some much-needed destructive power in the process.

The Jupiter style, on the other hand, surrounds Kat with orange garments, making her gain a lot of weight, which I can imagine can be disastrous for most female beauties. However, in exchange, she obtains by far the most destructive power out of her three styles, able to demolish multiple enemies in a single move. This form, as you guessed it, is mainly used for combat, as well as breaking down certain walls and debris in some platforming sections. Kat also travel the fastest in this form when it comes to gravity shifting and gravity sliding. However it’s much harder to control, so there is a certain tradeoff to be aware of.

Each gravity style also gets access to their own special move. These moves are the same special moves that was in the first game, like the spiraling claw and the black hole. Only now they’re locked behind these styles. There’s also a final style, though it functions more as a super mode, where Kat fuses with Dusty to become some sort of anime power ranger. This mode is definitely the most powerful, but it can only be used once you have met certain conditions.

Overall the different gravity styles provide a nice change of pace to the gameplay of Gravity Rush 2. There’s obviously going to be some gravity styles that you can gravitate towards (I personally love using Jupiter Style). But in the end, I think many will find that they’re all pretty fun to use.

EEEEXXXPLLOOOOOSSIOOON

On top of this, they also fixed some of the issues with some other things in the game. Gravity sliding is now much easier to pull off, since you now use an analog stick to turn rather than motion controls (thank god). Gravity throwing is also much easier to use now, making it the most effective way (at least for me) to take out a bunch of baddies in record speed.

The upgrades are more satisfying this time too. The more boring upgrades such as health and gravity meter are now given as mission rewards, while the gem upgrades are now instead used for more “meaty” stuff like additional effects on Kat’s gravity throws, increasing the distance of jumping, etc. Enemies also have much more variety than before. Now, rather than ruthlessly beating up cute, innocent Nevi, you also now get to beat up yucky humans as well as some dirty machines. While we’re on the topic of Nevi, is there any way in a future game that we can make them as a pet? Or better yet one that fights as your companion! They’re just so cute :3.

I swear I’ll take good care of him. Look I even made a bed for him. Pretty please??

So I might have accidentally gone on a tangent talking about all the improvements in this game. However, I think now is a good time to point out some personal and not so personal criticisms I have with this game; that I hope they’ll improve on the sequel if they ever do make one.

Firstly, while the combat has been for the most part an improvement over the first, to me it feels like it’s more of an extension rather than an evolution so far. What I mean is that while there are certainly more options for us to choose from right now, it doesn’t change the fact that combat still boils down to simple punching and kicking, with some occasional special attack mixed in. This is an extremely personal criticism of mine, and many may even disagree with what I’m saying; crying that this criticism is unfair for a game that perhaps isn’t all about combat. But I still feel that there’s a way to make fighting enemies more interesting. Maybe perhaps add a combo system with the punches and kicks, or some other way to make combat feel more satisfying.

How I feel everytime camera-senpai lets me down

This is especially evident when the camera, which was a huge issue in the first game, is still very much a problem in this game. When you’re shifting and sliding in small spaces, the camera would often go completely crazy, and make it seem like the person holding the camera was having a seizure off stage or something. Most of the fights I would spend turning the camera to find the enemy rather than actually fighting them. And this easily kills the momentum of most fights for me. Ground combat also lacks that good oomph feeling, probably because there isn’t good lock on feature. So most of the time when you’re just kicking an enemy and the enemy gets slightly off angle, you’re now trying to stumble and reorient Kat like she’s ducking blind or something.

If it weren’t for these issues, I can honestly say without a doubt that Gravity Rush would have the best action platformer gameplay system of all. Beating even the likes of Mario. But for now, I guess this is where we’re being left off at.

At least we still get to look up 2B’s skirt like in Nier Automata. Yeahhhhh

Before I close this section off, I just want to briefly talk about the final addition they had in this game, online functionality. Yes, despite this being a very singleplayer experience, there’s actually a multiplayer aspect to play with as well. The online features mostly some added new modes such as:

• playing against another player’s record in challenge missions.
• Photo reviews, where you review another player’s photo and give a rating.
• And finally treasure hunts, where you find the location of a treasure box based on a single photo sent by another user who found the treasure first.

These new modes add some nice replayability after the ending credits roll. And you can also acquire certain items with dusty tokens, which are the currency awarded each time you participate in one of these modes. Whilst it may not keep your attention for too long, I do find that it’s a very nice way to create a community for this game. If you liked the game, eh, I’d say give these modes a shot.

Sadly, there’s a huge chance that by the time you read this, this functionality won’t be in the game anymore. I’ll get to why that is at the very end, because it’s about ducking time we finally move on to the next section?

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