Review: Gravity Rush
Platform: Playstation Vita
Release Date (US): 06/12/12
Final Playtime: ~15-20 hours (it'd be more concrete if the in-game one wasn't bugged)

Barely a few months into its life cycle, the PS Vita has had its fair share of interesting games. Most of these games are really relying on past IPs to gauge interest in them though, but Gravity Rush aims to prove that there is room for brand new IPs to shine on the system. Here is my take on it.


Overview:

Gravity Rush presents a seemingly cliche tale of an amnesiac girl, later named Kat, who fell from the sky into a city. Overwhelmed with questions of who, what, when, where, and why, she explores around the various districts of Hekseville to find some answers. Sound familiar? Of course. Despite the repetitive premise, Gravity Rush offers a handful of unique experiences thank to its interesting gravity mechanics and how the PS Vita handles them.

What I Liked:
+ What Goes Up Doesn't Necessarily Come Back Down: While there have been many ambitious open-world games released recently, it has been a long while since any of them have really introduced a compelling mechanic to explore them with ease. It usually amounts to climbing skyscrapers, jumping from building to building, driving around with vehicles, and such; this is where Gravity Rush is able to really distinguish itself from the competition. By introducing a protagonist with the power to control her own balance of gravity at will, you (Kat) will be able to free float in the air and fly on over to the desired location. The only limitation to it is a circular gauge that depletes depending on how fast you are going while ignoring the conventional laws of gravity; if you are floating perfectly still, it hardly drains at all while performing dive-kicks from hundreds of meters in air will deplete it rapidly. It fully replenishes after a few moments when you aren't in your gravity-shifting stance/form. When you collide with a surface in flight, you treat it as your new center of gravity which  leads to crazy shenanigans of fighting enemies or racing through checkpoints on the side of a building or completely upside down.

+ Enjoying the View From Anywhere: Exploration is probably the most enjoyable aspect in this game. I dare say that it's almost limitless with the only real obstacles in your way is managing your gravity gauge and if you stray stupidly far off-course in the world, like going towards the mysterious looking black hole laying at the bottom of the city.  If you desire going on top of the highest structure to take in the scenery or looking for your next destination, go right on ahead; on the other hand, if the thought of exploring the whole underside of it tickles your fancy, gravity won't stop you so nothing else really will. As a reward for your efforts, there are numerous purple gems of varying sizes waiting to be picked up. These serve as the currency to upgrade Kat's abilities, but I'll elaborate more on that shortly. If you do manage to travel a bit too far into a world of nowhere, the game will simply teleport you back to the nearest checkpoint with no penalties at all. You will still have all of the gems you've collected and no health loss. For the less enthusiastic on exploring, there are fast travel options for you in the form of manholes discovered that can warp between each other, which really lets you get around to different districts much, much faster. It is also worth noting that there are nearly zero loading times when it comes to exploring these huge cities; everything is seamless and accessible and the only technical error I encountered with it was a rare (in my case, twice in my whole entire time with the game) hiccup consisting of a few milliseconds because I was travelling at a crazy fast pace from one end of the city to the other.

+ (Purple) Gems are a Gravity Shifter's Best Friend: As I mentioned earlier, the purple gems you collect serve as the only resource in the game to strengthen Kat. These can be earned from exploration, defeating enemies, and completing Challenge Missions with higher ranking medals, based on performance, will earn you even more. Practically every aspect of Kat can be leveled up from Health and reducing Gravity Gauge consumption to increasing the damage of your offensive abilities of the standard kick attacks and dive-kicks in midair. Even if it is a simple system at heart, it is an effective one that really amplifies Kat's capabilities with each level up that can heavily assist you in getting the Gold medal on several challenge missions along with eliminating the more annoying late-game enemy types easier.

+ Injecting Life into Cel-Shading & Comic Panels: Perhaps one of the first things that people will notice about Gravity Rush is the distinct look of it. It's almost as if a pastel painting has come to life; the range of colors employed in the game always serve to enrich its atmosphere. Whether it be a dull overcast of gray in an industrious district or booming with neon lights under a night sky in the middle of a red-light district, colors shamelessly pop out at you to really lure you into its environments. Character models are also well-designed to really blend into the environment, with Kat's various alternate costumes, which are mostly offered only through DLC, adding more to it. On the other end of the spectrum are comic panels that present critical story parts and episode transitions. They provide a refreshing change of pace in terms of presentation and even offer some interaction with the PS Vita's gyroscope, so you'll be able to move your system around to view the set pieces from an angle; it's limited and obviously a gimmick, but I can't fault them for adding it in.

What I Disliked:
- Camera + Gravity Manipulation = Disorientation: I believe this is one of the main reasons why games don't really venture into the territory of giving the player complete control of gravity. Aside from whatever technical limits developers may face on this aspect, I can only imagine that camera work must be somewhat of a nightmare in terms of what will satisfy everyone. While Gravity Rush has a satisfactory camera angle and perspective for the most part, there are times, especially in narrow environments while shifting my gravity from left to right and up to down, in which it would just completely shift into a viewing angle I did not want at all and it would take a few moments for me to recompose myself to my next destination. While this doesn't seem like a big fault, it actually becomes a big hassle when it comes to racing challenges or dodging incoming enemy projectile attacks. There are options offered to the player in terms of how sensitive you want the right stick to control the camera, I personally never got used to completely mastering the initial hassles of it which lead to some deaths.

- Out of Touch-screening: While I may not be the biggest touchscreen fan, I'll admit that Gravity Rush does present some interesting uses of it from activating certain gravity abilities, evading, and finishing off bosses with some super amazing looking attack after touching them. I think the biggest fault of it though was mapping it to some abilities that already shared similar inputs with another power or technique. For example, Gravity Sliding is activated by having both your left and right fingers touching the bottom left & right corners of the screen. Sometimes I would screw up and need to immediately get back into it, but instead I do an evasion animation because I accidentally swiped the screen with a finger real fast in an attempt to try and Gravity Slide again. Unfortunately, there is no alternate way to execute these actions, which really cause some frustration in some of the more demanding challenge missions.

- Variety Challenged: It's a shame that even though the mileage of the game is extended by its challenge missions, they all basically boil down to either defeat as many enemies as you can, race through checkpoints, or grab objects and throw them into a certain point on the map as fast as possible. You're always on the timer trying to rack up as many points as you can to earn a medal for more purple gems. I feel as if there was so much untapped potential in this field because of its excellent gravity mechanisms; it's a minor gripe to be honest, but perhaps a sequel can rectify it if they decide to create one.

What I Feel Undecided On:
+/- You Have Arms Also, Kat: The combat in this game is a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I love the feeling of being able to zip through my enemies and kick them from hundreds of meters away, but that's really all Kat uses in her standard attack set. If you're not kicking enemies, you're either hurling objects their way or using one of the special offensive gravity abilities that can only be used sparingly. It would've been great to somehow incorporate your (somewhat) trusty feline sidekick, Dusty, into the fray for some interesting combo attacks in your normal kick chain, since Kat refuses to put her arms into harm's way.

+/- And Then, Fin: Without trying to give away any of what and how the plot unveils, the game really raises some intricate questions of the world it takes place in. Personally, I think it ends a bit too abruptly in an open ended manner that really raises questions on the potential of a sequel. For the mean time though, it's just very hard to discern a final judgment on what I think of Gravity Rush's story, but the philosophies and theories presented in it has no doubt already been in constant discussion by fans. I'd say more, but that would really been delving into spoiler territory.

+/- Revolving All Around Me: The characters, in general, in Gravity Rush just really come off as bland one-dimensional characters outside of Kat and Raven (another Gravity Shifter) to me. I hardly cared about most of them because each new one introduced only had maybe one-two episodes revolving around them and it was just a really bland task I had to do for them. The game never really goes out of its way to make players care for the other characters that Kat is supposed to be protecting. I suppose there is one more character that you meet late in the game that caught my interest too, but it really was a bit too late at that point to have any emotional attachment to them. If they spent a tad bit more time at least giving some life to a handful of the characters you meet in the game, it really would've benefited the central plot of it. I suppose if you view Kat as your typical Saturday morning cartoon superhero, then maybe this point really wouldn't be as bad as it may initially seem.

Final Thoughts:
Gravity Rush is a breath of fresh air for the PS Vita. It certainly presents its own unique twist in the realm of open-world video games and provides a good initial glimpse of what the PS Vita is capable of. To think that a high quality game of this caliber with multiple large areas to explore around for hours would be released in the first year for a handheld is really quite a feat. Is it worth purchasing a Vita solely for this game? Definitely not, but if you already own one, you owe it to yourself to either rent or play it depending on how much you plan to play the game. If you do plan on owning a Vita in the future, you owe it yourself to at least give Gravity Rush a try.