Transcript
Hey hey everyone, Dave here. Just a friendly reminder that this is a critique. I will be discussing Mirror’s Edge Catalyst for those who have played it. If you are worried about spoilers, please pause the video and go play the game before returning. For everyone else, let’s continue.
It’s been eight years since the first Mirror’s Edge. At the time, Mirror’s Edge was exciting because of how different it was. A first person parkour game with striking colour and visual design, a dystopian future, and a female asian protagonist. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. It was not without its flaws however. The game forced combat sequences. While you could pick up a gun and end them quickly, out of some sense of how I thought the game needed to be played, I refused to use a gun. This resulted in a lot of screaming in frustration whenever I was forced to take out a group of heavily armed guards. Sometimes the jumps were hard to judge due to depth perception problems, and the story was very low key, using a moving comic book format. Also, the game just kind of ended.
One source of excitement when a game has a sequel is the ability for the team to address the criticisms of the previous game. Moving now to Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, a lot of what I just mentioned was played with. Faith no longer can pick up firearms. The game has a whole tech tree full of combat upgrades, and the best way to deal with enemies when you have to fight them is to use your speed and acrobatic ability to knock them into each other or to jump off a wall and put them out of commision with a well timed boot. This doesn’t always work perfectly, and the forced fights can still be highly frustrating, but this approach to combat is leaps and bounds ahead of the first game.
The issue with judging jumps is still there, but I have a feeling that Faith’s upgraded bag of tricks like her grappling hook were put in place in order to cut down on this frustration as well as adding more spectacular ways of movement. There is a higher emphasis on wall runs and swinging on poles instead of straight leaps, so when you find yourself falling to your death, it is likely for another reason, and I will address that a little later. Finally the story is conveyed through 3D animated cutscenes instead of the comic book format of the last game. If anything, it puts the game in line with every other AAA release. The story itself is fine. The big bad company is doing a big bad thing from Faith’s point of view. Friends are lost, family is gained, there are narrative revelations. A character who you hate at the start is alright by the end. It works. I guess I could mention how they make you think Noah is dead once only so they can kill him on screen later on. That was kind of a slap in the face narratively speaking. I really enjoyed Plastic, so there was at least one character I was always happy to interact with.
So let’s talk about the gameplay. Most criticism of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst has to do with the open world and with runner vision. The gist is that the game is at odds with itself. The story missions are scripted, and make interesting use of Faith’s moveset and level layout. Meanwhile, the open world sections only really work if you follow the runner vision dictating the easiest path to your destination. If you turn this off, it’s easy to die or to get lost as there really are only a few variations on how you can traverse the city. Getting from district to district usually only has one path. Now I can see where this is an issue for a lot of people. There’s an open world, and yet you don’t seem to have freedom of movement. By following the red trail, you never really learn the landmarks or make the city your own. I can appreciate that, and I do agree to a point. By continually following the red trail, you may come to recognize certain areas of the game (especially the ones nearest to your base, as you’ll spend the most time going back and forth along those routes), but you never really know where these areas are in relation to the city. They’re just a path you’re familiar with as you’ve run through it on a multitude of occasions.
Honestly I did not have an issue with the red trail, but then, I enjoy the GPS features in modern open world games. Yes, it can be a little ridiculous like in Red Dead Redemption or The Witcher 3, but it’s invaluable for getting around these worlds, and more importantly it’s leading me to the next thing I want to do. Also, because I know I will reach my destination by following these trails, I can enjoy the sights and sounds on my way there instead of constantly wondering where I need to go next. And yes, I agree with the criticisms that these systems make it more difficult to learn about the world. Instead of a living breathing place, it becomes a space to inhabit between game activities. Why not just have levels or make use of a fast travel option?
Now the fast travel option is an interesting side note. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and The Witcher 3 have fast travel options, and in my time with each game, I never used them. I think it was Tim Rogers that said if your game has fast travel, you might want to think about how boring your slow travel must be. For all its faults (and we’re about to get more into them), Mirror’s Edge Catalyst contains the joy of movement. When it works, running Faith from location to location is exhilarating. I never got bored with leaping over guard rails, wall running, swinging from rooftops, and rolling upon a hard landing. Yes some of the routes got quite familiar, but this has two advantages. One is that I only rarely got through an entire route without a mistake, so each new approach was a chance to run this area as seamlessly as I could. Secondly, and this applies to all open world games I think. The travel from location to location is downtime. It’s easy so you don’t have to exert much brain power or finger dexterity. Just navigate to the best of your ability, enjoy the sights and sounds, and let your mind wander. It gives you time to reflect, and you’ve just had a boss fight, or a really intense platforming sequence, returning to something low stress and familiar makes the game experience better overall. Peaks and valleys. It’s the gift and curse of the open world. If you’re following the main story without deviation like I did in Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, the downtime is appreciated. Of course if you’re completing a lot of side content, this still applies, but the flow of the gameplay can be disrupted.
And flow is the final thing I wish to discuss. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst has what I see as a flaw with the flow of its movement. Optimally you will be consistently moving forward, keeping an eye out for the colours and signs in the immediate future that tell you what you must do. You make your decision, and move to the next instance of decision making. The story missions in particular are setup to create this sequence over and over again using unique locations and dangers. The issue I have is that only on the rarest of times did the game play out for me in this optimal way. The majority of the time momentum, character behavior, or even my own button presses betrayed me leading to death. Yes, the checkpoints are close together, but when you respawn all sense of momentum is lost, and suddenly these unique set pieces because game frustrations as you complete them and make your way to the next one. In essence it seems like the game needs you to be perfect to actually enjoy the game in the first place. I will admit I got better as time went on, but what does that say then, that you need to complete Mirror’s Edge Catalyst to be able to play Mirror’s Edge Catalyst?
I think time in development is a factor too. There were about six or seven instances of gameplay that made me close to rage quitting for their seeming unfairness. Funnily enough all of these instances happened within the last three story missions, so I do have to wonder if these sections were not as polished as earlier levels. A shame too, as some of the spectacle as you climb The Shard was breathtaking, but like every other mission, the constant failure took the awe right out of the experience. I dunno, perhaps even with the red trail, my brain doesn’t work fast enough to make the right decisions to get through the game without error.
Thanks for watching.
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