The wonderfulness of Gravity Rush 2, and Why I Am Ok With Its Move to PS4
- Tristan Biggs
- Apr 21, 2017
- 5 min read
Let me start this with a little built on my love affair with the Vita, as it has an impact on my experience with Gravity Rush 2.
My lovely wife purchased a PSVita for me on my 30th birthday. It was and still is one of the best gifts she has ever got me. She grabbed Wipeout, and a 4 gig memory card, and left me at home on my day off to enjoy my new toy. Right away I grabbed Persona 3 portable, as I had been dying to try out those games, and spent my time between building relationships/fighting shadows and flying turbo fast hover vehicles as breakneck speeds. I was immediately in love. I played these games for the next few days, and well after, but was craving more from this perfect little system. I have some games to trade, and gift cards burning a hole in my pocket, so I headed to the mall to fill out my vita library even more.
Not only did I grab Uncharted: Golden Abyss (underrated and fantastic game in its own right) but I also snagged a copy of Gravity Rush. I didn’t know much about it, but the artwork on the cover alone meant I needed to try it out. I had seen a few pics online of the game, but did not by any means expect the game to be as incredibly good as it was. The mechanics fit perfectly on the little console, not requiring you to use the gyroscopic features to guide your gravity powers, but similar to Uncharted, they sure helped with more precise aiming. The touch pad functions for sliding were surprisingly comfortable, and worked perfectly. The graphics were gorgeous, with little fun details like the motion comics tilting and shifting when you move the vita, and people, benches and anything else not bolted down flying and flopping through the air as you take to flight. The yells from the villagers as they are carried away with you actually made me stop sometimes to try and not bring them with me. I actually cared about the curmudgeons (most were complete dicks) in this little fantasy world. Moreso, I cared about Kat and Dusty.
Kat was accessible, real and beautifully rendered. Her confusion at the world around her felt real. Her anger, sadness, disappointment, bashfulness, unabashed joy, pride, every other human emotion felt natural. Her fighting skills were basic, and didn’t make it look like she learned kung fu all of a sudden, like a lot of video game Neos seem to nowadays. This was important, as when I flew completely off course, or Kat seemed to flop around on the screen because of my stops and starts and weird angles of the camera, it all felt plausible. I was learning about her powers, just as she was. Her comfort on screen grew with my comfort using her abilities. It was kismet.
After putting countless hours into the original, I wanted more! Not just getting better scores in the dlc and vanilla games challenges. I wanted more Kat, more Dusty, more Raven, more story, MORE Gravity Rush. The remaster on PS4 was a fantastic idea to bring more people toward the game, as was Kat’s inclusion as DLC in Playstation Allstars Battle Royale (also underrated), but it was the announcement of Gravity Rush 2 that had me anxious. Sony wasn’t really supporting the Vita much anymore, and mainly, I think, due to mainstream media and comment boards pooping all over it and not embracing the growing third party catalogue without pooping all over Sony for not simply having a 3DS. Let’s face it, when you really look at it, the Vita’s capabilities are amazing, and the library is actually quite expansive, and includes all the gems from the psp, psone, etc. People just wanted to hate it, and not give it chance. Yes, the memory cards were and continue to be exorbitantly expensive, BUT you don’t save that much with a 3DS in comparison, or the Switch, due to Nintendo’s OBSESSION with peripherals.
But I digress.
The really sad thing is, Gravity Rush 2 was to also release on the Vita. It would have been another driving force toward the little plucky system, and vita owners were chomping at the bit for it. Then… poof…. It’s gone. Like so many other promising cross console releases, it was cancelled. This is often a problem with that type of development, as not every console is created the same, and horsepower aside, file size and coding restraints (or whatever :P) can get in the way of completing an already costly project on multiple consoles. Sometimes, a company just has to focus on what will be more successful. Again, the Vita install base didn’t allow for that in a lot of scenarios, and that is truly a shame.
I found my excitement for the game quashed a bit. I knew it would look great, and run phenomenally on the PS4. It’s a trike versus a motorcycle, I get it. I just didn’t think it would feel the same. I thought the controller, though exceedingly comfortable, would remove me from the game whereas the Vita kept me close to the action and just felt so good. Like I said above, I have such exceedingly fond memories of the original from the Vita. I guess I was stuck.
My good friend, with whom we share PSN accounts, purchased Gravity Rush 2, so I jumped in as soon as I could. I am pleased to announce, the feeling is still there. The game translates perfectly to the PS4, and the world has been expanded drastically. I am not very far into the game, but wanted to share this footage of me playing last night to show how great it looks. I’m not going to do a full review here. All the big sites have already given the game ridiculously good scores, and most have played it already. It’s great, and you know it. What I will say here is that I am fine with this not being on the Vita. I would have liked it to be there, and still would love a port, but I’m not missing anything. Playing the game on t a big screen just makes it that much more charming, which I didn’t think would be true. In fact, the larger scope, and increased number of characters right out the gate, kind of falls in line with how the game started small on the little Vita, and has now grown in story, content and console. Again, it’s kismet.
The best part is, I can still remote play it if I wanted to. I can still get that vita experience, but I don’t know if I will. It seems at home on the PS4, just as the original was at home on the Vita. These two games were built for where they are, and remain integral pieces of their catalogue.
I’ll share more footage of the game when I can, and trust me, it will be gorgeous…. Even though I still end up having Kat flop around awkwardly in the air due to my poor coordination. Still, she’s meant to be awkward isn’t she? So am I, so I guess it still works.
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