Gravity Rush 2 (A.K.A Gravity Daze 2 in Japan) is a action-adventure game for PS4, which was developed by SIE Japan Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It is a sequel to original 2012's Gravity Rush for PS Vita and remastered version for PS4 in year 2015.
It's been for like 6 years ago since I've played the first original game which is definitely being one of my favourite, but most technically impressive game on the PS Vita's hardware. It has decent storyline, memorable protagonist, epic action packed gameplay filled with missions and exploration, and gorgeous visuals that made the game so amazing, but its a shame that the original game didn't deserve much attention to western audiences due to PS Vita's poor hardware sales which led the game only sold few copies in worldwide, while the PS4 remastered version was sold lot less compared with the PS Vita version. Despite the poor sales, it gained cult following regarding the fanbase and few playstation owners did managed to enjoy their experience meaning that the Gravity Rush is a fantastic game that not many of people have played or heard of game before. I decided to give a try with the sequel for my PS4 which is a game that never got made for the PS Vita as it is a depressing news for PS Vita owners who enjoys the original game are not able to play the sequel on their handheld system unless they need to buy the PS4 hardware to play this game.
My thoughts on this game is really amazed me that the game is a bigger improvements over the first original meaning that the Gravity Rush 2 has pushed forward for its more in-depth storylines, some new cast of characters, bigger open-world exploration, newer fighting abilities, and more single-player missions with 20 to 40 hours long which is two times larger than the predecessor. The development teams has managed to add more content of the game to give a brand new experience for the fans of the series will able to be satisfied with this quality PS4 game. Regarding with the improvements, the game plays outstanding with great combat gameplay, impressive flying mechanics, entertaining single-player campaign with epic story missions and cool side-missions, and easy to explore worlds. I really loved the game's cel-shaded visuals, charming soundtrack and appealing presentation that adds the magnificent overall of the game.
So without go further do, lets start the review.
Presentation
This game takes place after the event of the first game and a prequel anime called Gravity Rush: The Animation Overture.
Its starts off with Kat and her partner Raven and Syd began to investigate the incident involves in the floating district of Neu Hiraleon, while they been encountered by mysterious androids before they being sucked into a gravitational vortex and transported to a different world.
When Kat and Syd arrive in the Banga Village to meet with the woman named Lisa as the leader of the Banga Village and being befriend with the girl named Cecie as they work in Mine places to collect Gravity Ore to sell to unscrupulous trader named Vogo Sun. After rescuing Cecie from the mysterious creature named Navi, Kat has finally regains her gravity power and reuniting with her cat named Dusty as she continues to working with Lisa's job, while she finally starting her quest at the city of Jirga Para Lhao.
I find the story in the game is starting off really good where Kat and Syd has dressing up as mine workers before they been encountered by the storm which led them into escape before being rescued by Lisa. As continues to follow the story further, there are a great storylines in each story mission such as battling with Vogo's step-brother named Fi through competition matches, protecting the poor people from military forces, why Raven becoming Night-Gale, and going back into Hekseville again which started to become more interesting as the story filled with light and dark moments that fits the emotions of the storyplot.
I find Kat is surprisingly entertaining in regards of her cool special powers abilities and great personalities that kept her interesting, while I also liked Raven for her edginess and kick-ass appearances. There are some side-characters in the game such as Cecie which is heartkinded girl as being a great friend with Kat and Syd is being a decent police-officer, while I do find Lisa is being too harsh with Cecie at the start which takes awhile for her to get used too, and Vogo is just seems to be very dodgy person when its comes to his trading business. There one of the most annoying character in the game that I can't stand is Kali Angel, who replaced Kat as a City's Hero of Hekseville. It seems that you cannot really trust Kali's ignorant facial expressions during the story dialogue and you can really tell how much shes talking like a down right bitch as she is nothing but equivalent to most of the bratty kids from cartoon shows. One of the villain that actually pretty good is Dr. Brahman, a scientist who designed a city-wide, robotic, Nevi defense system and becoming mayor of the city as being a mad scientist who plans to use the crystal-induced powers of his kidnapped daughters to destroy the peaceful city. As a villain, he acts like he pretending to be a Mr nice guy in whole story, but he has a wicked darkside of his event which made him look terrifying than most of the video game evil scientists.
What I've liked about the presentation was that it has mixed between the actual cutscenes and comic-book style sildeshow with text dialogue which kinda feels like watching most of the awesome superhero movies due to great art style and colourful environment details in the game. I also liked the open-world scenery that takes place in different locations, so you have sites places like Lei Elgona is where poor village people lives in broken houses, Lei Havina is filled with rich assholes has quailty fountain areas and big huge mansion, Lei Colmosna has variety of bazaars and shopping areas, Auldnoir is just quiet peaceful old town, Pleajeune is kinda has "Las Vegas" vibes to it with bar shop and ferris wheel, Vendecentre is larger downtown area of Hekseville which is similar to french city, and Endestria filled with factory work places. Each of the sites are really fun to explore around which gives a stunning atmospheres to look at and how amazing the places look in the game.
Overall, it has great story, entertaining characters and stunning presentations.
Gameplay
This game features 27 story missions, 50 side missions and 20 challenge missions for single-player quests.
You take control of Kat has her ability to control her gravity power and your aim is to complete all the objectives that been added on mission list. You are able to explore the whole area to search for missions to choose from, collecting gems to power up your abilities and discovering new things such as warphole which allows you to fast travel through the sites, so you can also check out the map screen to help you navigate the certain things that you want to visit.
On combat gameplay, Kat has basic attacks which is used for close-combat system, while increasing the power bar which allows her to perform special attacks giving instant kills to enemies, and you can also pick many of objects by using stasis field which allows you to throw objects at the enemies which is handy for the combat system that you can quickly able to attack the foes. She has ability to use gravity power for flying in the air, walk on walls and slides, so her flying mechanics allows her to fly around the city which is quickest way to travel around faster than using on-foot movements and I do find walking on the walls is kinda cool which changes the different camera angles of areas. I also liked the gravity slides which allows her to sliding through the levels, but I do find the sliding controls is little bit wonky which takes sometime to get used too, but playable at the same time. You can also perform gravity kick at the enemies while activating the gravity power in the air, so it can be locked on with blue-circle symbols which helps you able to aim at the foes easier, but having the issue with using the gravity kick is that it can be went off-tracked when failing to use flying attack on the enemies at the wrong target is kinda bit annoying, but practice makes perfect when getting used with the gameplay controls. The game also introduces the two new abilities that allow you to change fighting style such as Lunar style which is useful for Kat's speed and her ability to jump higher, while Jupiter style are used for heavy destructible allowing her to perform powerful attacks which adds the variety of fighting style gameplay. Going on power-up menu which gives you options to upgrade your fighting mechanics such as basic attacks, gravity attack, special attack, gravity slide, stasis field, and evasion which improves your certain of skills such as more combo attacks, adding capacity of stasis field's objects, reducing your gravity restoring time, and theres many more to unlock your abilities which really made Kat becoming powerful fighter. Completing many of the missions including story, side and challenge which gives you kinds of rewards such as obtaining more gems from challenge missions and increasing capacity of your health bar from both story and side missions depending what missions you are playing on. You can collect talisman from the Mine ore area which is additional special items that allow you to add different effects to Kat's arsenal of weapons and powers which is very useful for combat gameplay, and you can also head to fortune places where you can craft your own talisman by combining resources together to make it more up to date.
I'm completely satisfied with the combat gameplay as being a solid overall with brand new fighting styles, ability to add and crafting talisman, and upgrading the fighting skills which makes the gameplay quite acceptable for the playability. I really enjoyed playing most of the story mission which involves protecting people in town from the bad guys, fighting with epic bosses, and completing challenge tasks from the dark gravestone. Some of the side-mission has funny segments such as delivering stinky-box to Lei Havina, doing crime investigation in Vendecentre, working with film directors to become film star, and preventing drunk old man from entering bar shop, while challenge mission involves silly mini game like attracting the fans with your disguised costume, delivering newspapers, sliding race, and bringing customers to food shop which is really fun to play that keeps me playing more and more. The things that I don't like about the game is the stealth mission where you have to reach the destination without getting caught by enemy nearby, but the issue is that you could get easily caught by the enemy at the far distance which makes it even frustrating to play, so it took me awhile to complete the stealth mission. The game also features motion controls scheme just like the first original game, but I do find it completely useless when playing on PS4 controller which can disrupts your gameplay controls when playing on mission, so I didn't have problem with using the motion controls when playing the first original game on the PS Vita, but still it wasn't easy to play with the PS4 controller for motion controls scheme which makes it feels quite wonky.
You can also turn off the motion control through the control option menu which might help prevent the motion control being used in the game.
So far I really liked the game and its still playable for most part.
Overall, it has massive exploration, solid combat gameplay, and great story and side missions.
Graphics
I was very surprised that the open-world design is much larger than the first game with great draw-distance and huge amount of environment which made the whole game looked quite bigger for PS4 titles. Most of the environments has well detailed city buildings, mansions, houses and palaces is looking spectacular in open-world areas, and it has colourful cel-shaded effects and bold looking animation that gives a anime style look on the game which makes it look beautiful to see how amazing the game looked. The character animation is looking fantastic in the game due to great use of facial animation and their appearance that adds the personality of the character development which makes them even look interesting.
Its a big improvement over the first original which proves the sequel is doing a much better looking than was before.
Overall, it has huge open-world design, spectacular environments, and amazing animation style.
Music and Sounds
I got to admit the game has the best soundtrack of the modern gaming. The original musics has shares with catchy jazz and orchestrated style genres which really fits the game's personality such as action sequences, story cutscenes and in-game area. There are some of the music track are kinda reminds me of most of the movies from the past such as Forbidden Zone sounded similar from the Harry Potter films, Lei Elgona has Ennio Morricone vibe, and Old Town of Auldnoir is kinda sounds just like from Studio Ghibli's films, so these are the reasons why the original soundtrack in the game is Just sounds fantastic. It was composed by Kohei Tanaka was known for his musical scores for anime television series, OVAs, films, video games and tokusatsu series including Gunbuster, Sakura Wars and One Piece.
The sound effects are just sounds epic for whole game due to use of realistic background and environmental sounds effects from the open-world area, and atmospheric noises that fits really well in the game. The voice acting for most of the characters in the game didn't really speak with the actual language, so instead it was spoken in mixed between Japanese and French fictional language which makes it sounds bit more ancient, so it didn't really bothered me at all because that what the game is supposed to be sounds like.
Overall, it has fantastic original soundtrack and epic sound effects.
Special Features
This game features unlockables Kat's costumes (including free DLCs costume pack) and room appearences, new DLC episodes such as Raven's Choice where you can play as Raven, collecting gems and talisman, and side-missions and challenge missions.
Overall, its a descent selection of all special features.
Advantages
Stunning presentations with great story and characters
Solid combat gameplay with newer fighting abilities
Numerous of missions to play
Huge open-world levels with bigger explorations
Gorgeous visuals
Fantastic original soundtrack
Disadvantages
Gravity kick went off-tracked
Wonky motion controls
Weak stealth missions
Final Verdict
Presentation 9/10 - Great story, entertaining characters and stunning presentations.
Gameplay 9/10 - Massive exploration, solid combat gameplay, and great story and side missions.
Graphics 9/10 - Huge open-world design, spectacular environments, and amazing animation style.
Music and Sounds 9/10 - Fantastic original soundtrack and epic sound effects.
Special Features 8/10 - Descent selection of all special features
Overall 9/10 - As much I've liked the first game, this sequel is technically superior to the original game which deserves much credit for being two times larger and better than was before. I had fun playing over 20 to 40 hours of this epic action-adventure which gives me a motivation to enjoy my overall experience due to numerous of missions to play, newer fighting mechanics, more in-depth storylines, and bigger open-world environment what really makes this game an enjoyable.
Gravity Rush 2 is one of the best, but most underappreciated playstation exclusives that not many people have played it, so if you're the fan of this genres or the series in particular then this is must play game for all serious video game collectors out there becuase it's beautifully made cult following titles that everyone should able to enjoy these type of game.
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