Gravity Rush Remastered (PS4) Review

Hold on, didn't I review this game nearly three years ago? Indeed, I did. Though, it's actually pretty nice to elaborate more on the pros and cons of a game, while also taking the time to talk about how well the developers did in remastering a handheld game on a home console.

For those tuning in for the first time on my blogging site, I adore Gravity Rush. It was the reason that I bought a PlayStation Vita and I had a blast playing it from beginning to end. It even inspired me to start up this blogging site when I didn't have the equipment or editing software to make video reviews.

When I heard that it was going to be remastered on the PS4, I was pretty excited. The Vita hasn't been selling well, and such a great potential franchise does not deserve to be left in the dust, so moving it to the PS4 was a great idea. It will indeed disappoint a lot of players who bought this game on the Vita, but it was great way to spread awareness since there is going to be a sequel coming out this year. Some sacrifices have to be made, I guess.

This port was handled by Bluepoint Games, who have done the God of War, Ico & Shadow of the Colossus, and Metal Gear Solid (specifically Sons of Liberty and Snake Eater) HD Collections for the PS3. They have also recently worked on Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection for the PS4, which was an excellent remastering of the first three Uncharted games. As you can see, they have a lot of experience in porting games to newer consoles, and it is no different here with Gravity Rush.

You play as Kat, who wakes up in a park on the floating island of Hekseville, with no memory of who she is. She has the ability to shift gravity when she is within the presence of this strange-looking cat, which she names Dusty (because he is covered in star dust). She decides to use these powers to protect the people of Hekseville from the oncoming gravity storms and these monsters called Nevi.

She also comes across a list of colorful characters like Syd, a brilliant and sometimes bumbling police officer; a soothsayer named Aki and her fortune-telling puppet, Pandora; Gade, an old man who claims to be the Creator of the world; Alias, a mysterious masked man who goes around causing destruction; and Raven, another Gravity Shifter who forms a fierce rivalry with Kat.

Gravity Rush has a story that pretty much had me wondering what other things might happen next. I've done a few playthroughs when I played this on the Vita, and started noticing new things, like a lot of foreshadowing and information about this game's world that kept me intrigued. There are also a lot of oddities featured throughout that begin to form a lot of questions that future installments might explore.

In addition, the game has its own language instead of something like English or Japanese. From what I found out, the language is practically gibberish inspired by French. Granted, there isn't a lot of voice acting in the game, with most of the dialogue being presented the comic book panels and in-game text boxes. However, it just adds a new layer to the world that is set within Gravity Rush.

I've praised Kat as a character several times before. Despite being an amnesiac, she doesn't do a lot of sulking or anything that people make fun of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII for. She's curious about the world around her, and she is also quite optimistic. She is also down-to-earth, headstrong, not afraid to voice her opinion on certain things, and is very selfless, always dedicated to protecting the citizens of Hekseville.

Of course, while some people praise her as a superhero in-universe, she does have her detractors. For example, this father and his son blame Kat for destroying her house, when in actuality, she was trying to prevent it from falling. It adds some character to her, and she is one of the most well-written that I have come across in video games.

The other characters, while some stand out and are somewhat interesting, are pretty underdeveloped. Heck, some of the villains aren't particularly memorable. There is this dictator who was sort of introduced later on and plays a part in the last third of the game, but he is very forgettable at best. One exception, though, is Raven, who does have a lot of hidden depths as the game goes on. Her motivations become quite clear the more that's revealed to the player.

One other thing to praise the game for is the art direction. Gravity Rush features cel-shaded graphics, resembling the works of French artist, Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius). In an interview with Gamespot Asia, the game's director, Keiichiro Toyama (creator of Silent Hill and the Siren series), stated that he was attracted to Moebius' "extraordinary color sense, expansion of space, and the feeling of floating in his artwork" a lot of which can seen in Gravity Rush overall. I took a look some of Moebius' art work and they are all very mesmerizing. All the stuff I looked at really did inspire the art direction of the game, especially the Rift Plane sections, which I'll talk about in a moment.

The four main locations in Hekseville are so well-designed in terms of architecture and scope. Not to mention that each location has its own color scheme: Auldnoir being red, Pleajune being purple, Endestria being yellow, and Vendecentre being green, making each of them stand out so well and differ greatly from each other.

Select cutscenes in the game, as I have mentioned previously are presented in comic book panels and speech bubbles. They are very beautiful to look at because of the way they are drawn and colored and they complement the in-game graphics really well. It actually makes me wish there was an actual Gravity Rush comic.

I also have to say that Gravity Rush has one of my favorite video game soundtracks. Composed by Kohei Tanaka, the music can sound like many things: upbeat like Pleajune, the entertainment district; laid-back like the theme of the town of Auldnoir; trippy like the Rift Plane sequences; or action-packed when fighting Nevi, breathing a lot more life to the game. Sometimes hearing tracks like "Laws of Gravity" or "Auldnoir" sound like they belong in a Studio Ghibli movie. I also get the feeling of adventure when I hear the game's main theme, and that's all because it features a really powerful orchestra. Kohei Tanaka really outdid himself with the score.

So now that I have talked about the game's story, characters, and overall presentation, let's finally talk about gameplay. Off the bat, Gravity Rush is a genre-buster, being a platformer/sandbox/action/role-playing game. Yeah, that is a lot to take in, so bear with me.

Thanks to Dusty, Kat can shift gravity into any direction to travel from place to place. Do take note that she isn't actually flying, but rather...

With her gravity shifting powers, Kat can also walk on walls and ceilings. Other abilities include speed falling, a stasis field which can be used to pick up objects within the environment, and a slide move. However, using her powers can be limited thanks to the Gravity Gauge on the top-left side of the game's HUD. Once the Gauge runs out, her powers will wear off for about two seconds before she can use them again. And no, Kat will not lose health if she falls face-first into the ground. What's really amusing about being able to shift gravity, though, is that if Kat is near some people and she manipulates gravity, they come along with her and scream in terror. Any sadist playing this game will have a good laugh.

Because Kat can shift gravity, some people have complained that they feel disoriented with the game's camera being all over the place when changing directions. It's not exactly a big deal for me because pressing the Down D-Pad can reset the camera in place to get your bearings. Oh, and the right analog stick helps, too.

During certain parts of the game's story, Kat will have to navigate through Rift Planes in order to restore parts of Hekseville one by one. This where the heavy inspiration by Moebius comes from. They're so wide and expansive, with implausibly huge architecture to boot present in the first Rift Plane. A lot of imagination was put in to bring these surreal locations to life.

Of course, Gravity Shifting isn't the only thing that Kat has up her sleeves, and that's where the action part comes in. Kat has a variety of moves to fight enemies including kicking, throwing objects with her stasis field, kicking a target while in the air, and... a whole lot of kicking.

The Nevi monsters serve as recurring enemies. They come in different shapes and sizes, some even resembling animals like swordfish, sharks, and mosquitoes. They all share one thing common: they have obvious weak spots that can be shattered. The most effective form of combat is the Gravity Kick, in which Kat can target an enemy in the air, either with the Dualshock's Motion Sensors or the right analog stick, and dive kick to inflict damage on them.

During the Rift Plane sections, Kat can come across a glowing tree that gives her a special ability that is very useful against a group of enemies and boss fights. However, the most useful is the Gravity Typhoon, which throws several stalactites at enemies, and it's visually impressive. The Spiraling Claw can sometimes not automatically target enemies and end up bumping into a wall or going off-course, and the Micro Black Hole I do not remember using at all.

The response towards the combat is... not that positive. Many have criticized the combat for being tedious and monotonous. I can somewhat agree. I tried using other moves besides the Gravity Kick when fighting enemies on the ground. Sometimes I do the regular kicking, dodge kicking, jump kicking, and throwing objects with the stasis field. Other times, when there is a group of enemies, I use the Gravity Typhoon to wipe out as many as I can before I have to wait for the Special Gauge to recharge. In the end, though, I ended up using the Gravity Kick the most.

On the bright side, though, the combat can be a little less tedious by upgrading Kat's abilities, and that's where the RPG elements come in. Throughout the game, Precious Gems can be collected all around Hekseville and the Rift Planes to be used as currency. This greatly encourages exploration during your spare time, adding to the open world/sandox element in the meantime. Upgrades can come in the form of using the gravity powers much longer, increased health, carrying more objects with the Stasis Field, and having stronger attacks.There is a limit to upgrading Kat's abilities. As you progress, Kat's reputation can be increased by completing story missions and fixing parts of Hekseville. The higher the reputation, the more you can upgrade her abilities.

There is also another way to earn Precious Gems. By repairing parts of Hekseville, like elevators or other contraptions, challenge missions can be unlocked. Challenges all involve beating the high score, whether it's defeating as many Nevi as you can before time runs out, or getting from Point A to Point B as fast as possible. Breaking a record earns the player a certain amount of Gems.

I have mentioned a couple of times before that the challenge missions in Gravity Rush are Gold Medal challenges done right. If you can't achieve the high score, then maybe you have to upgrade Kat's abilities a little more. This was so such a refreshing change, since I mainly hate Gold Medal challenges.

So now that I've talked about the game overall, what new additions or improvements have Bluepoint Games provided in the remastered version?

For starters, the game now runs at smooth frame rate of 60 frames per second. That alone makes the original Vita version inferior in comparison. Not to mention that the textures have been slightly tweaked to make it sharper and much more detailed like a home console game. A video example can be seen here since writing about it won't do it justice.

A slight improvement that I can name here is the Gravity Slide ability. In the Vita version, you slide by holding the bottom corners of the touch-screen and tilting the gyroscope to make Kat go left and right, which is sometimes frustrating to control. It's much easier here, since all you have to do is hold the L2 and R2 buttons to make her slide and using the left stick to move left or right.

The PS4 remaster also includes all the downloadable content like a Game of the Year Edition. It brings more variety to the game and making the world of Gravity Rush much bigger. Oh, and there are additional costumes for Kat, so that's another good point to add.

The newest feature added to the game is the Gallery Mode, filled to the brim with illustrations and other things. It's actually great to see early concept art of characters, locations, and things that never made it into the game. In addition, the game's in-game cutscenes can be viewed, but not the comic book panel cutscenes, which is a let-down because I love the artwork put into them.

Overall, this is not only still a great game, but the home console remaster is now the definitive version to play. It's great to see the visuals being updated and having the game control slightly better than the Vita version. You can tell that a lot of love and care was put into bringing this to the PS4.

This is still the same game that many of us Vita players bought. The gameplay is fun, the story is intriguing, the protagonist is amazing, the graphics and environments are beautiful, and the score is phenomenal.

My only gripes are that the combat leaves a lot more to be desired, there could have been more to do with more side missions, and the game ends rather abruptly. While this was also in the Vita version, there is no way to replay story missions. I beat the game and completed all the challenges, and I feel like reliving some of the moments in the game's story, which I can't. In a time where sandbox games like Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto V give us the option to replay levels after beating them, that is huge bummer. But, hey, these things have room for improvement in the sequel.

I would rate Gravity Rush Remastered the same rating I would have given it had I invented my rating system at the time. It is...

SOMETHING WONDERFUL

Seriously, guys, if you have a PS4, spread the love, because this game is worth your time. I am also hyped up for the upcoming sequel coming out later this year. Here's hope that it turns out to be just as good as this one.