Back in black white
(This
review contains minor spoilers!)
The original Mirror’s Edge is one of
the prime examples of a love it or hate it game. I, personally, only played the
game for the first time after buying it for myself during a Steam sale in Fall
of last year. While it was fairly clunky at times, the fights weren’t great,
and the story was pretty darn terrible, I really liked it and felt like there
was a lot more they could do with the concept of free running in first-person.
Flash forward 8 years to Mirror’s Edge
Catalyst, the game advertised endlessly as “everything you wanted out of
Faith’s return” on Twitter. Looking online, I’m seeing the same old stuff from
the reviews of the original, as it seems that Catalyst has divided the internet
between those who like it and those who don’t.
As for me? I really enjoyed my time
with the game, although it’s definitely not without problems.
The true, undisputed star of Catalyst
is the gameplay. Running feels smoother than ever before, and it’s a lot more
enjoyable to run around the open world. While a lot of the issues that plagued
the original Mirror's Edge (which I will be calling Mirror’s Edge Classic for
the sake of this review) are unfortunately still here, such as very loose
controls that can make jumping onto small ledges a pain, I really loved the
platforming. When you really build up momentum and pull off a flawless run
across several rooftops and around obstacles, it is one of the best feelings
I’ve ever experienced in a platformer.
One thing I really enjoyed was that in
addition to all her powers from Mirror’s Edge Classic, Faith has several new tricks
up her sleeve. It seems that this is the year of awesome grappling hooks in
video games, as Faith joins Nathan Drake and Widowmaker in getting an all-new
“MAGrope” that she can use to swing from building to building, pull up towards
higher levels hookshot style, and bring down heavy objects. It’s really fun to
fly around the city at high speeds, and, if anything, shows how cool a first
person Spider-Man game would be. Someone get on that.
In addition to the MAGrope, Faith has
also received an ability tree and a leveling system. It’s pretty standard
stuff: run around and complete missions, and before too long, you’ll go up a
level. Each time you go up a level, you can unlock a new ability of your choice
from one of three trees: Movement, Combat, and Tech. Movement gives Faith some
new parkour skills, Combat increases her potency in fights, and Tech gives her
new equipment to use. I really liked having this, and it was always exciting to
see what I could unlock next.
However, there was one thing I didn’t
quite get about the Ability Trees. Some of the abilities I upgraded to were
completely unnecessary, and in all my gameplay I never had to use them. Others,
such as the fast climbing and reverse wall jump, are absolutely integral to
progressing the game and should be unlocked ASAP. Why not just give those to us
right off the bat instead of making them be unlocked? Someone might look at
these crucial items and be like “Nah, I don’t need to climb pipes any faster. I
might need double wall running though.” potentially locking them out of parts
of the game. Maybe it’s just me, but I found that kind of bizarre.
Catalyst also reintroduces hand to
hand combat into the mix, thankfully dropping the gunplay Mirror’s Edge Classic
relied on a bit too heavily in my opinion. You have your standard selection of
light and heavy attacks, with jumps and sliding thrown into the mix for good
measure. For what it is, the combat is fine, but nothing super memorable or
interesting.
Enemies come in a handful of types, each with their own
strengths and weaknesses. None of them pose much of a threat, however, as long
as you can get behind them and kick repeatedly. Yes indeed, I was able to
defeat even the final battle of the game because my opponent refused to turn
around as I kicked his back until he crumpled to the floor.
One other thing I must mention is that the enemy type
wielding blaster guns all seem to have the marksmanship of Apollo himself. No
matter how far away you are, no matter if you’re behind a grate or some steel
bars, their bullets will find you.
They don’t do a lot of damage, as you can create a shield around yourself as
you build momentum that will deflect them, but it’s kind of annoying to see the
game display react every time one of these plasma blasts hits your body, as if
you’re being damaged, when in reality you’ve taken no damage at all.
The other great part of Catalyst is
the new open world mechanic. While it feels more like the overworld from a 3D
Zelda rather than a Bethesda game, there’s a lot to see and do around the city
of Glass, and there’s plenty of nooks and crannies I’ve yet to see, even after
completing the main campaign.
There is just so much to do in Catalyst, it’s insane. Aside from the story,
there’s races that put you against the clock, bonus missions where you have to
complete a specific objective, delivery missions that require you to run to the
finish while meeting certain requirements, time trials that challenge you to
beat the time of another player online, hundreds of computer chips to find,
weird glowing yellow orbs to collect, and so much more. If you want to climb a
huge building, you probably can. It’s just fantastic. Plus, there’s dozens of
each type of mission, so if you’re having trouble with one, you can move onto
the next.
As for the graphics, Glass itself
looks fine enough, although not the best futuristic city I’ve ever seen in a
game. The rest is standard stuff for the current generation of consoles.
Nothing super special, but still leagues above games from just a few years ago.
The game is just as wonderfully colourful as the original, with several blues,
greens, yellows, and of course red and white dotting the entire landscape. I’m
really glad that we’re finally out of the rut of every game being brown and
gray, because I can really admire just how nice Catalyst looks without needing
to turn my brightness setting up just so I can see.
There are a few graphical glitches as well, unfortunately,
including some clipping, frame drops, and the occasional mouths not syncing up
with the audio. While it does ruin the immersion a little, it’s not something I
mind too much, but I can see some people getting really frustrated at this.
The music is standard fare as well. Solar Fields returns from
Mirror’s Edge Classic to do the soundtrack, and while it’s fantastic and definitely
adds to the experience, it ultimately feels less like a musical score and more
like just atmosphere sounds. For what it is, it’s great, and I can’t imagine
the game without it. Also onboard is singer CHVRCHES, who’s been enlisted to
write the follow-up to the classic song from the original game, “Still Alive”
(which will forever hold the honour of being the second best video game credits
song called that).
The new song, “Warning Call” is, in my opinion, even better
than “Still Alive”. It’s fast paced, the lyrics are great, and is just in general
a great song to listen to. I’d highly recommend giving it a listen, even if you
aren’t going to play the game. What I don’t like is how hard it is to listen to
it in-game. Unlike “Still Alive”, “Warning Call” doesn’t play over the end
credits. Instead, it’s available through a jukebox somewhere in the open world,
and I may be wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure that very same jukebox
becomes unavailable midway through the storyline. I’m not sure if it becomes
useable again later, because I never found it again, but it’s a shame that such
a great song is best heard on the internet, not in the game it was written for.
Speaking of writing, now we’ve arrived
at the one thing in this game I really, really
didn’t like: the story. While it’s better than the original’s maligned mess
just by a little bit, for the most part, it reads like a 12 year old’s Hunger
Games fanfiction.
It jumps around from plot point to
plot point with little cohesiveness, and it ultimately serves only as a way to
introduce you to new areas and tie together big set pieces. While it does ever
so slightly pick up at the beginning of the third act, it’s not long before it
comes crashing down again, until finally arriving at an anticlimactic end. All
dialogue is extremely lazily written, as characters whine and complain their
way through the bland plot. This is to say nothing of the terrible characters
and awful voice acting. There are far too many people in this story, with
several of them proving to be ultimately superfluous, and nearly everyone is
lifeless and forgettable, with one small exception. Faith herself is especially
bad, as it seems her voice actress couldn’t even be bothered to sound
interested. “This is great!” she exclaims while swinging on her awesome grappling
hook from building to building, with as much energy as someone just asked to
clean the gutters with their bare hands.
The one small exception comes in the
form of hacker girl Plastic, who, while no more interesting than anyone else,
is the only character who injects some levity and humour into this sterile
story. While she’s nothing special (and I assume that if she were in a game
with an actual good story, she would be one of the lesser characters), her
voice actress gives her just enough light and charm that you want to cling to
her and beg her to rescue you from this slog of a tale. If I had to compare,
I’d say she was similar to Peridot from Steven Universe, except without the
backstory, clever redemption plot, and relatability, leaving only the snarky quips.
Hell, her voice even sounds like Peridot, but I couldn’t find any info if the
two are voiced by the same actress. Still, just because she injects some life
into this sinking ship of a story, I have to give her props.
Nonetheless, if you can ignore the
disastrous plot and characters, occasionally clunky controls, and strange
design choices, I feel that there’s a lot to like in Mirror’s Edge Catalyst.
When it really gets a chance to show all the platforming tricks it has, it’s a
real blast to play. The gameplay is some of the best the platforming genre has
to offer, and the open world, graphics and music only add to the experience.
If you didn’t like the original
Mirror’s Edge, I doubt Catalyst will have much to offer you. But if you are a
fan like myself, I’d say ignore the naysayers and give it a shot. You might
just be surprised.
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
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