(review) Gravity Rush/Daze

Gravity Rush (as it's called here, so I'll refer to it as such from now on) was probably the game I was most looking forward to since I got the Vita. Since its release, the Vita hasn't had a whole lot of great games and the only other game I've bought retail is Disgaea 3 (which is amazing by the way). Since the Vita's unveiling at E3 last year, this was probably the game I was looking forward to the most.

For those who don't know, Gravity Rush lets you play as 'Kat', a young girl who falls from the sky and can't remember who she is and what she's doing in this place. She soon finds that out with the help of a cat that she found when she first woke, she can control gravity and she's not the only one. Because of her power, she's practically forced to protect the floating city of Hekseville as well as trying to recover her memory and discover the secrets of the city and her mysterious past.

In short, this game is wonderful. Truly wonderful. Not long after the game starts, you're given a small portion of the city to roam freely with your newly acquired gravity powers; and yes, gravity means you can fly. I spent a good hour or two just running around the first town of Auldnoir, admiring every detail that went into building this. Sure, you can fly everywhere but if you want, you can walk around, up and down stairs, underneath arches and through beautiful parks. If you so choose, you can collect gems that are floating around everywhere (even underneath the city) and use them to level up different abilities and stats (including health, attack power and gravity power regenerate speed) which adds that RPG element to the game, or to 'repair' the city, which adds mini-game time attacks and challenges which gives you the chance to win back more gems.

The art style is so beautiful, cel shaded and ICO/Shadow of the Colossus-esque in that hair-and-scarf-whipping-around-violently kind of way. It's also extremely easy just to lose yourself into the game when you're travelling, fighting, searching or exploring; many a time I've given myself headaches trying to figure out which way was the actual way gravity went (when you stop though, Kat's hair and scarf falls in that direction which is quite handy indeed). And the music? Absolutely stunning. For a portable game, the entire soundtrack is orchestrated and beautiful. When I first started roaming, the music that plays while in Auldnoir just made my heart leap, plus the sassy and jazzy number that plays in the Entertainment District is just awesome.

The controls weren't difficult to understand but controlling gravity? Tricky to get the hang of. Fighting enemies became tedious and repetitive over time as the enemies got bigger and the attacks weren't exactly varied. You have two primary and three secondary attacks; Kick, throw item and gravity-kick (though normal kicking became rather redundant as there was never any point of fighting on the ground if you could do triple the damage in the air) were the primary attacks and the ones I used most. As for secondary, you were given the choice out of three; spinny attack, rock-throwy attack and black hole thing. Once you used one, you had to wait a minute or two before you could use any of the three again. Admittedly, the secondary attacks were rather overpowered and you could easily knock a bosses health down by a third or a half but to aim attacks was annoying; it was so easy to miss, thrown off course and be tumbling in the wrong direction with not much gravity power left. Like I said, it wasn't hard, just tedious. Some of the enemies which were clearly meant to be small fry took me 15 or 20 minutes as I tried to dodge counter attacks and aim correctly.

It's hard to die though; if you're low on health, you can fly off, grab a health gem and come back. I haven't died once yet.

Despite the free roam element, the game is a little lacking in stuff to do other than the main story, those challenges or exploring. There could have been so much more; side quests with secondary characters, perhaps? I wouldn't have minded a 'multiplayer' feature where you can join friends to do challenges or explore together (a create a character feature would fit nicely in there). There just wasn't enough to do other than the main story. That being said, I was never bored with the game.

The storyline is rather engaging and hard to pull yourself away from. As Kat learns about Hekseville and all the secrets behind in, the complexity of the story gets extreme and more questions are raised than answered at the end of each cut scene. I've only pulled myself away from it now as my Vita charges and I wish my lunch breaks at work were three hours instead of half an hour. I can't even tell where I am in the story anymore; it kind of feels like I'm reaching the end but a new mystery is unveiled soon after I feel like the next boss is the last boss. Of course, I haven't finished yet. I suspect an amazing finale though. I'll keep you posted.

So, if you've got a Vita, definitely grab this game any way you can. It's so wonderful and unique, I've found myself comparing it's pull-in effect to The World Ends With You (which still remains to be my favourite DS game of all time). I'm already on Amazon, trying to find the soundtrack and art book. I just want everything to do with this game.

Today's song; Discovery of Gravitation - Kohei Tanaka