I'm sort of in love with this game's anachronistic setting that flits between steampunk-adjacent and purely surrealist, as well as the boundless flying that completely distinguishes it from the rest of the open-world-game-with-key-movement-tech canon. very rarely did I go for more than a minute or two without suddenly seeing a gem or secret from the corner of my eye and immediately veering off the intended path, hurtling over vast distances to pique my interest. I enjoyed kat's forthright personality and the revolving door of companions and villains around her, all of whom seem to have unique and conflicting agendas. seeing kat turn from street dweller to local oddity to respected hero charmed me and kept me pushing through to see more of the story.
it's with great regret that I have to admit that while all of the above is lovely, the game itself is undercooked. it obviously has astronomical aims on a limited budget and has to compromise a bit. the story beats are haphazard and the plot purposefully leaves threads dangling for the eventual sequel - which we should be very lucky that we have - and thus I never felt gripped from mission to mission. the missions themselves vary in structure reasonably well, but the building blocks are still monotonous: fly from place to place (perhaps carrying something), fight groups of enemies, rinse and repeat. even worse are missions that wrench away or partially disable your gravity powers, leaving you trapped in a mediocre 3D platformer with some mild puzzle elements. combat mostly consists of air kicks in desperate need of better auto-aim or popping special moves that obliterate virtually everything in your way, including bosses. on top of this is a thin film of jank; just enough to impede the player without violating the integrity of the movement system.
with this in mind, the game runs a little thin even within its <10 hour completion window. however, I actually got a kick out of the challenges scattered around the map, which helped keep me from shotgunning story missions back to back. most of them are relatively simple, but the traversal challenges especially had me optimizing and labbing out routes over retries, especially earlier on when I hadn't upgraded air speed at all. the gravity slide mechanic also fits perfectly in with the rest of kat's kit, making transitioning from air to ground travel a breeze and not a major speed reduction. the little drifts you can do slot perfectly in and make silding around an absolute joy no matter how tight the space. I also appreciated that the game was perfectly willing to jerk me out of the open world when necessary, which is something more games of this ilk should not be afraid to do. presenting alternate spaces allows us to contrast their ambiance and layout, and makes snapping back to an early area much more refreshing.
with more polish and a better variety of content (aka more stuff that takes advantage of the freedom allowed by the gravity mechanics) this would've been a must-play, and even as it stands it was enjoyable front to back. my gf also wanted me to voice a complaint she has with this game on her behalf: this game desperately needs an FOV slider, especially on ps4. I 100% agree with this assertion as well; I understand the tighter camera made sense on vita, but it's downright claustrophobic on ps4.
it's with great regret that I have to admit that while all of the above is lovely, the game itself is undercooked. it obviously has astronomical aims on a limited budget and has to compromise a bit. the story beats are haphazard and the plot purposefully leaves threads dangling for the eventual sequel - which we should be very lucky that we have - and thus I never felt gripped from mission to mission. the missions themselves vary in structure reasonably well, but the building blocks are still monotonous: fly from place to place (perhaps carrying something), fight groups of enemies, rinse and repeat. even worse are missions that wrench away or partially disable your gravity powers, leaving you trapped in a mediocre 3D platformer with some mild puzzle elements. combat mostly consists of air kicks in desperate need of better auto-aim or popping special moves that obliterate virtually everything in your way, including bosses. on top of this is a thin film of jank; just enough to impede the player without violating the integrity of the movement system.
with this in mind, the game runs a little thin even within its <10 hour completion window. however, I actually got a kick out of the challenges scattered around the map, which helped keep me from shotgunning story missions back to back. most of them are relatively simple, but the traversal challenges especially had me optimizing and labbing out routes over retries, especially earlier on when I hadn't upgraded air speed at all. the gravity slide mechanic also fits perfectly in with the rest of kat's kit, making transitioning from air to ground travel a breeze and not a major speed reduction. the little drifts you can do slot perfectly in and make silding around an absolute joy no matter how tight the space. I also appreciated that the game was perfectly willing to jerk me out of the open world when necessary, which is something more games of this ilk should not be afraid to do. presenting alternate spaces allows us to contrast their ambiance and layout, and makes snapping back to an early area much more refreshing.
with more polish and a better variety of content (aka more stuff that takes advantage of the freedom allowed by the gravity mechanics) this would've been a must-play, and even as it stands it was enjoyable front to back. my gf also wanted me to voice a complaint she has with this game on her behalf: this game desperately needs an FOV slider, especially on ps4. I 100% agree with this assertion as well; I understand the tighter camera made sense on vita, but it's downright claustrophobic on ps4.