Intro
Way back in 2012ish I was dragged into a Walmart by my aunt for some shopping. I went off to go and check out the games Walmart had and was dumbstruck to see a shiny demo psvita there for me to check out. The demo that was booted up was one of Gravity Rush and was paused during one of the tutorial missions. Curiosity grabbed hold of me as I had only ever heard of the Vita but hadn’t really been giving it much attention as I was still promptly enjoying my Psp and hadn’t yet had a reason to get a Vita. Needless to say after playing the demo I finally did.
Story
In Gravity Rush we play as the teenage girl Kat who mysteriously wakes up in the floating town of Hekseville with no memory. Kat finds a little space kitty which she names Dusty and proceeds to follow it and learns that she has the power to manipulate gravity while Dusty is near her. After some time she finds out that the city is constantly under attack by mysterious creatures called Nevii, which are quite literally tearing apart the town. Kat decides to defend the town against the Nevii while trying to figure out her past memories.
Ok, so right off the bat the story is full of clichés and mysterious mysteries. While the rough description of the story may make it seem like it’d be kind of boring, I gotta say it’s actually very interesting. Without going into too much detail, the story has quite a bit of twists and turns and goes places I was not expecting. There is character death, betrayal, gods and goddesses and time travel and a lot of other just seemingly out of nowhere things that happen throughout the story and it all strangely works. With that being said the initial clichés could easily turn some people off from getting invested into the story but I genuinely have to recommend to try to get over them as the game drops them (except the amnesia bit) relatively quickly.
Characters
The characters is definitely one of the strong points for Gravity Rush, especially in regards to the main character Kat. Kat is a teenage girl, and a very believable one at that. The way she talks and behaves is really spot on, one instance that comes to mind is a mission where Kat ends up in the academy district and gets a crush on a guy around her age she sees there. She goes out of her way to get an academy uniform and help this guy find his missing friend, which inevitably leads to a Nevii boss fight and resolves with Kat being let down as the friend he was looking for was the girl he has a crush on. This of course upsets Kat but she lets things go, before promptly leaving. The other big thing about Kat is her strong sense of justice; she genuinely wants to help people even if doing so puts her in harm’s way.
The other characters are interesting but aside from a few of the side characters, not many of them get enough development to be truly great.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Gravity Rush is a mixed bag. It is a typical open world super hero game where you are able to do almost anything you want as you explore the city using Kat’s powers which is rather fun but can get disorienting at times, which luckily is kind of mitigated as Kat’s scarf always adheres to normal gravity. The combat is rather simple. On the ground you hit square over and over to do combos and attack with your kicks. Sadly combat gets even more simpler in the air where Kat can only attack by aiming where you want to strike and hitting the square button which the propels you forward at high velocity to deliver a single kick. This air kick attack can be abused rather easily and after a while I found it to be the easiest and most efficient way of doing damage to enemies. After certain points in the game the player is awarded with special super moves that are on a countdown timer between uses. These moves are great for dispatching large amounts of enemies quickly or dealing a large amount of damage to a boss and add a nice flair to the monotonous combat. Kat can also do a short of slide along the ground for movement instead of “flying” through the air. This slide move, while cool at first and required for certain challenges, is extremely cumbersome to use and I found myself getting caught on anything near me while using it. You can also find floating purple gems about the city which you can then use to upgrade Kat’s powers.
Aside from the main story missions there are also two other types of missions, challenges and side story. Challenges are missions where you are told to do a certain thing in a certain amount of time; it can be a race, collect a thon, kill x enemies, etc. These challenge missions were never really too hard and are nice ways of getting more gems to upgrade Kat’s powers. Side Story missions was far more interesting than challenge missions for me. They often can expand on a character or let the player know more about the world while also getting more gems. Both mission types as well as certain story missions can increase Kat’s popularity with the people of the city. This is rather important as the more popular Kat is, the more things she has access to.
Graphics
The visuals for Gravity Rush are downright amazing. It is easily one of the best artistically styled games on the vita yet, despite this the textures up close do fall short and the draw distance isn’t that great. I find this to be excuse able though as it was a Vita launch title and the devs were still learning the hardware.
*quick note here, I have not played the Ps4 remaster yet so I cannot personally confirm or deny whether the issues were addressed in the Ps4 version*
The cutscenes are done in one of two ways, comic book style and in game graphics. The comic book style is usually reserved for at the beginning and end of each chapter and really adds to the feel of playing a superhero game. The art for the comic book cutscenes look phenomenal and are appealing to look at. The in game graphics cutscenes are used for pretty much every other cutscene and look just as good as the rest of the game.
Sound
The sound quality for this game is impressive. The music has a nice mix of jazz, rock and other genres and they all fit the game really well. I gotta say there really wasn’t a single track that I didn’t like. The sound effects all sound great as well, from the bustling of the city, to the sound of wind rushing past Kat as she goes barreling through the city’s skyline, it all sounds pretty good. As for voice acting, there’s next to none. There is a bit of voice acting here and there but what little there is in a weird mix of Japanese and French, which actually sounds quite nice, I just wish there was more of it.
Overall
Gravity Rush is a great game for a great system. Despite its problems it is well worth playing through at least once. Seeing as how it is now on Ps4 and the Vita and with the long waited sequel coming soon, there is no real reason to not at least give it a shot.
Final Rating: 8/10
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I didn't know if I would enjoy the game after looking at pictures. However I decided to try it out. I am glad I did! The story is good, the graphics are beautiful, and the main character is easy to get attached to!
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Guilherme A.F.
Ótima compra, jogo sensacional.
Reviewed in Brazil on October 14, 2019
