Review: Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

Review: Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

If you have never played the Mirror’s Edge games, I highly recommend you take a crack at the first game that can be found on Steam for a fair price. In Mirror’s Edge you play as Faith, a glorified mail women who delivers classified documents in a dystopian future ruled by government surveillance. The most unique aspect to the Mirror’s Edge franchise is based around parkour. There is a bit of combat but it takes a back seat to running around the world.

I loved this reboot of Mirror’s Edge and although I haven’t played the original in a long time I know I found it more enjoyable. The biggest problem I had with the first game was just the stress of it all! With no runner’s echo, which is a preview of how to preform certain tasks,  to follow some situations meant if you didn’t find the appropriate route, and quick, then you would be dead. In the original game it felt a bit too hard core for the more casual gamers. You could be replaying scenes like that for hours! Some escape scenes were orchestrated for you to feel quick and agile, but all that really happened was you spent a good ten minutes avoiding gunfire and trying to reach that bloody vent at the top. Thankfully with updates like Runner’s Echo, it helps new gamers enjoy the game with out wanting to break their controllers.
I really hated the ‘blues‘ in the original game which are the ‘City Protection Force’ who try and take down the main character. Unlike Catalyst you couldn’t run away in the original game, you had to run through them and take them down as you went and sometimes, just sometimes, that was a little bit trying when all we wanted to do was run across the rooftops and dive off buildings onto those big soft mattresses. In Catalyst, the combat is improved but only slightly.

While there are new abilities and combat modifiers like flying kicks doing additional damage, it feels quite lack luster and unrealistic. I know that we are talking about a video game, however, the game sets itself to be taken seriously yet expects gamers to look past the fact that the slender Faith can punch and kick her way past a number of guards decked out in riot gear. It’s a minor flaw but has a big impact on the game overall due to combat being more present.

Moving on, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst recognizes that and re-unites us with what we loved so much about the first game. It’s fluid, and it’s smooth aside from a few glitches and the occasional stumped moment when they’ve turned runner’s vision off, (those damn developers) it feels much better. The graphics are nothing short of stunning on the big scale, albeit not having a great amount of detail but you don’t find yourself focusing on that too much anyway. Admittedly, my stomach dropped multiple times when presented with the view of terrifying heights or awkward areas that you had to be absolutely perfect in your gaming or plummet to your death. The graphics really added to this experience.

My biggest concern was whether Faith’s new grappling gadgets would feel like cheating. I know when I saw that new climbing instrument in AC: Syndicate that it would definitely feel like cheating, since one of the reasons we loved AC in the beginning was the parkour as with Mirror’s Edge. However, it slots in nicely and is only really used when you have to use it. So besides those giant leaps of faith ( excuse the pun) you don’t actually use it all that much.
As I said earlier, the fight or flight mechanisms are mostly down to you, apart from one ball-ache arena, and it definitely was an arena, why they thought that would a good idea for a free running game I’ll never know. The open world is also extremely welcome and gives the player freedom to explore the city at their own pace, doing timed races, deliveries or just getting collectibles.

I will say as well the story feels so much better now that it’s been fully developed, along with Faith’s back ground and story. The narrative pulls you closer to Faith and that is always something that gamers love. Even if you have not played the original Mirror’s Edge, Catalyst give players enough information to bridge the gap and enjoy the storyline as is while still hinting to major events in the previous game to entice players to go back and experience the original.

Let us know your thoughts on Mirror’s Edge Catalyst down below!

Mirror's Edge Catalyst

8.2

Graphics

9.0/10

Game Play

8.5/10

Plot

8.0/10

Combat

7.5/10

Pacing

8.0/10

Pros

• Female Lead Character
• Unique Game Play
• Improved Combat
• Great Voice Acting

Cons

• Not as polished
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