Gravity Rush Review [Minor Spoilers]
Gameplay
I think Keiichiro Toyama describes it best when it comes to the core theme of Gravity Rush’s gameplay:
“There were some scenes [from Franco-Belgian comics, more info on that later on] where characters fell indefinitely which inspired me, I used it as a base for Gravity Rush…Also, while taking a flat road during my commute, I used to think that it would be much faster if it was downhill. These ideas are what inspired me for Gravity Rush.”
-Keiichiro Toyama, toco toco Game creator special
I think that the game brilliantly achieves what the game’s director was trying to aim for, that is giving the player a ton of freedom in how they explore the game’s world. Most, if not all mechanics of the game all help to enforce this type of experience very strongly. As a gravity shifter, Kat is able to float and freely “fall” to any place that she wishes to, along with a gravity meter that depletes the more she uses her shifting powers. The game openly encourages the player to use this mechanic to explore its world by crafting vast, interwoven, vertical based open world levels, all meant to discourage the player from traversing just on foot; with its confusing alleyways, frequent dead-ends, and lots… and lots… of stairs, which leads into my next point.
“Why can’t every road just be a big slide!? My ring-covered legs can’t take all this walking..”
The level design in this game is in my opinion, the game’s strongest suit. I don’t find this to be much of a surprise however, seeing as how the game’s director is an expert at making great level designs that all feel original and greatly complementing the theme of the games they’re in. This can be easily seen in his other titles such as “Silent Hill”, where the game takes place in a deserted city surrounded by a thick fog, giving off a foreboding, almost suffocating experience, and “Forbidden Siren”, where this time, the game takes place in a remote Hanuda village in Japan, giving off a familiar, yet very unsettling feeling. The same level of detail can be seen in the world of Hekseville, where the bustling ironworks of its factories and buildings, and the open space around all the cities, makes it an absolute joy to explore from the air.
“Hey, uh, I think I just walked into the wrong review, ha….ha………I’ll be going now bye”
The lack of a proper map also makes it so that the player has a hard time pinpointing where they are exactly at any given time, forcing them to fly high into the skies to get a better grasp of their surroundings. It all feels expertly put together, as if it was some rigid clockwork system found in a clocktower.
You know, this isn’t working out as well as I thought, everything is upside down!!
The game also makes great use of the unique features that the PlayStation Vita has to offer to enhance the overall gameplay experience. You can move the camera around using either the right analog stick or the three-dimensional gyroscope, both in-game and during cutscenes (more on that later), giving the player a sense of the world’s spatial surroundings. Kat can perform a gravity slide by pressing down on screen using both thumbs and tilting the Vita left and right to control the direction of her slide, as well as shaking the Vita to perform a jump. Usually motion controls in games automatically score big red flags in people’s minds, since they are often implemented pretty poorly and without much thought. However, in my experience with the game, I actually found the motion controls to be very intuitive and manageable, and that it actually helped enhance my experience and enjoyment with the game. Now this could vary between player to player, as I have heard some complaints from others about the game’s motion controls being finicky and gimmicky. So, all in all, it really comes down to personal experience on whether you will like the motion controls in Gravity Rush.
Now while having great exploration is all well and good, the game has to do more than that if it wants to spice up its moment-to-moment gameplay, and since Gravity Rush does feature enemies called Nevi that Kat has to frequently combat, it is very reasonable to assume that this game also features a semi-robust combat system. Kat has access to a basic combo by continuously pressing the square button, and the ability to dodge by quickly swiping across the screen in the direction you want to dodge. She also has an ability called gravity kick, in which she has to first float in the air, before flying straight towards the cursor you have pointed to, kicking the enemy if it manages to hit, dealing more damage the farther she has flown.
Enemies usually come in a variety of Nevi. All Nevi enemies have glowing spots on their bodies that serves as weak points for Kat to hit, if Kat manages to break all these spots, the Nevi will be destroyed. Some Nevi can hide these weak spots, either with outer material, or with their own bodies, requiring the player to perform a little extra work in order to take them down. This basic enemy design helps players identify how to defeat new Nevi archetypes as soon as they appear, although it does come at the risk of it feeling repetitive, as all Nevi are defeated in the same way. The bosses of the game consists mostly of souped up Nevi, human enemies, and sometimes large machines. They all require relatively the same strategy however, beat them up with combos and kicks until the health bar depletes. While the boss designs of this game aren’t the most creative I’ve seen, it still in my opinion worked well enough for this game.
Nevi: N-NANI!?
Kat: Omae wa mo shindeiru
REEEEEE
This all creates a semi-frantic combat experience, in which Kat is constantly flying around, positioning herself, and kicking and dodging enemies. Personally, there’s a lot I like about this battle system, but there were also some areas where I felt definitely needed much more polish. The combat feels extremely satisfying for the most part, each gravity kick when it connects feels weighty and powerful, and each dodge into a lengthy combo feels very fulfilling to pull off. Now the combat system may not seem to provide much variety at first, but as you continue playing the game, Kat will be able to obtain new special abilities, such as Spiraling Claw and Gravity Typhoon, that make the act of killing Nevi much more varied, fast, and fun. To put the icing on top, Kat can also create gravity stasis fields to pick up objects, and can throw them towards enemies at a distance, making it easier for the player to take down more evasive enemies.
The game also has light RPG elements, featuring an upgrade system that require precious gems found throughout the world to use. Kat can upgrade a variety of her abilities, such as faster gravity meter recovery time, faster falling time, combo extenders, and increased damage of her special abilities. This all helps ensure that the gameplay never becomes too stale, giving the player incentive to explore the environment in order to acquire gems and upgrade their character.
My problem with the combat is mainly centred around the gravity kick mechanic. Now what you need to know is that Gravity Rush doesn’t have an inherent lock-on system, you have to manually aim the cursor every time you want to perform a gravity kick. The game tries to make the act of Gravity kicking feel natural, by having Kat automatically home in onto the enemy if the cursor is placed on top of them. This sadly however, doesn’t work all of the time, sometimes the enemy will move ever so slightly, and Kat will completely miss the mark on her target. Now the first few times this happens, it’s not that big of a deal, you just reposition and try again, but as you’re into the fifth, the tenth, and maybe fifteenth hour of the game, it can get pretty frustrating. This is especially the case for some of the larger, Nevi flyer types, that constantly move around whilst shooting deadly projectiles at Kat, making for a combat experience that just seems like the opposite of fun.
May I kindly ask you to go die in a large pot of fire, thanks.
Now for all the amount of variety that the game has to offer, not much of it is really needed for the main story missions of the game, minus some later parts that require the player to have adequately leveled their abilities. It is the side content where I had found the most fun out of the gameplay system. The game on top of it’s ten-hour story campaign, also features various side missions that serve to really test the players knowledge and application of the game’s mechanics. There are missions that require the player do things such as reaching a certain number of objectives throughout a map while having a very limited supply of gravity meter, defeating as many enemies as possible within a certain time limit, defeating enemies only using thrown objects, and much more. If the player manages to complete these challenges, they are rewarded with a hefty amount of precious gems that they can use to upgrade Kat further, and complete even more difficult challenges. This all creates an addictive cycle, as some of the side missions are exceptionally challenging, requiring the player to have adequately leveled stats, and an in-depth knowledge of the game’s mechanics. This all ended up adding up to about another ten-hours of my playtime, which just goes to show just how much fun I had with these missions.
“And together we are, K-I-T-T-Y, Kitty Squadron!”
Before I end this section off, I would like to briefly talk about the game’s three DLC packs. Personally, I found them to be quite enjoyable given their price tag, each DLC pack adds about one to two hours of additional playtime, and features new story and side missions, with the story missions adding a bit more backstory to the game’s characters. Would I say the DLC packs are worth buying? Well, if you really liked the main game, then chances are you’ll really like the DLC content as well, you’ll also be able to get cool new costumes as a bonus! Just be wary that the story missions all take place within certain periods in the story, and would be best experienced if played along the main story.
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