Gravity Rush, the highly anticipated Playstation Vita exclusive from Keiichiro Toyama, designer behind the Silent Hill, Siren and several other titles has finally arrived for western audiences after multiple delays causing several release date revisions.
The game starts off with the protagonist, Kat, falling from the sky and landing in the floating town of Hekseville. She soon wakes up completely devoid of any memories of who she is or where she’s landed. Now fully conscious, Kat soon meets a mysterious cat that has apparently chosen to accompany her for some unknown reason.
It’s not long before kat discovers that with her new feline companion, now called ‘Dusty’, she has the ability to shift gravity at will. Of course, this attracts quite a fair amount of attention from the citizens of Hekseville, some of whom regard Kat as a hero and some who only think of her as a nuisance. Coincidentally, the town also sees an increase in devastating ‘gravity storms’, which alter the gravity in the surrounding area and sucks in anything unlucky enough to be nearby, and attacks from a species of mysterious monsters known as the ‘Nevi’. Confident in her newly discovered gravity powers, Kat decides to help fight the Nevi as they are encountered to protect the citizens.
When using Kat’s gravity abilities, the main one at your disposal is shifting gravity to virtually any direction. This allows you to walk on walls, ceilings, the sides of buildings or anywhere you can possibly imagine. By shifting gravity, you can also ‘fly’ to any desired point by using the right analogue stick, or motion sensor to move a target reticule in to place while floating, then shifting gravity to that direction. To combat the Nevi, Kat’s main attacks will be a standard kick while she’s standing on the ground, or a gravity kick, which can be used while floating in mid air and homes in on the targeted area with gravity-enhanced force. Later in the game, you will also learn new special gravity attacks you can use in battle.
The bulk of the game’s story is told through completing designated story missions, which you navigate to by finding the mission markers placed in the town. This means a fair amount of travelling back and forth around the different areas of Hekseville to get to your next objective point. While this may seem tedious, simply using the gravity powers to explore Hekseville provides an enjoyable experience as you fly around and explore the city from above the rooftops, underneath the city’s foundations or walking along the walls between the many buildings populating the area.
In addition to the story missions, you can find and play through optional challenge missions scattered around the city, each requiring you to complete a certain objective such as defeating as many enemies as possible within a time limit or use your gravity powers to pick up as much garbage as you can to clear the streets. While these extra missions aren’t essential and don’t supplement the story in any way, they do reward you with ‘precious gems’ depending on how well you do at the end of the challenge. These gems can then be used to unlock other challenge missions or upgrade Kat’s abilities and enhance her powers. Completing these extra missions and collecting gems scattered around the town will help you get a few more hours out of the game, but these may not appeal to players who are only interested in the main storyline.
As for the story, Gravity Rush presents a unique and intriguing tale, featuring interesting characters and consistently grabs your attention with multiple twists and turns in the storyline. While some of these plot points can be pretty predictable, the game also progresses in a few completely unexpected ways. The story narrative throughout the game should have no problem keeping players engaged and wanting to know more about what happens next with Kat or the numerous other personalities she encounters along the way. A lot of supplemental plot points are raised during the game, such the history of other characters or where Kat came from, but the ending leaves a few of these points unresolved, with no real closure to kat’s story or any final conclusion. Hopefully, this leaves the door open for additional story content in the form of DLC or a sequel to tell the rest of the story and fill in the gaps that are left at the end of the game.
From a technological standpoint, Gravity Rush doesn’t seem to be pushing the limits of the PlayStation Vita hardware in terms of graphical fidelity. However, the beautiful comic book inspired, cel-shaded graphics definitely make you forget about that. The environments and characters in gravity rush have a unique style to them and the level of detail in creating the world you explore in the game is amazing.
Even though it’s only been a couple months after the PlayStation Vita’s western release, common opinion is that it’s currently in dire need of exclusive titles for it to remain relevant for multiplatform gamers. Luckily, Gravity Rush delivers a unique experience you can only get here on the PS Vita and would be a welcome addition to any owner’s collection.