Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a title with some of the highest highs and the lowest lows in all of gaming.
On one hand, As a first person game based around movement, it far exceeds everything else. The first mirrors edge? Shit. Titanfall 2? Trash. Dying Light? GarBitch. Of course, this is only if we're talking about movement mechanics. Because when we start to talk about most other aspects of the game, things fall apart fast.
Narratively, it's a total fuckfest of characters we don't know about, referencing events we weren't there to see. For a requel/prequel, it's incredibly strange how they chose to structure it this way. I mean, there is literally a loading screen tip that says "To learn how faith ended up in Juvie, read the online comic!". What the fuck is that? No character is given time to develop or grow throughout the whole game and they're all bound by whatever mysterious past actions they did. Noah? Oh yea he helped faith as a kid, and then he's absent for half the game. Dogen? Oh faith owes him for something. But we never find out what and we never learn why he cares about faith. Rebecca? Oh she's a resistance leader who was friends with your parents. What is her role? Oh well she shows up for a few missions and then dissapears for the last act. Then the game ends on an extraordinarily weak attempt to sequel bait us. So much so that it pretty much explicitly states that everything that happened in this game, was pointless. DICE, please retire from making stories. Give it up. You "tried" and you continue to fail spectacularly.
Despite the narrative being so terrible, arguably the worst aspect of the game is the inclusion of an open world. I am not joking when I say this, but I genuinely don't know if there is a single thing in this game that benefits from having a fully open world. The map is so god damn empty, that the only NPCs you encounter are random bouls who are glued to the ground, giving out mediocre delivery missions. It's abundantly clear that EA/DICE wanted to hop on the open world train and add some more "Content" into this game and let players sort of carve their own path. But how do you level gate/show progression if you have a game that is so open? By adding a dumb fuck skill tree of course! Whoever thought that a skill tree in Mirror's Edge was something that we needed, should be shot. It's so fucking pointless that you literally start the game with more than half of the fucking upgrades needed... do I need to say more about how incompetently designed that shit is???
Then we get to combat which to some, might also be the worst aspect of the game. Remember people, I did say lowest of lows because god damn this game hits the bottom of the fucking barrel sometimes. Calling the combat sloppy would be an understatement, because this shit is BAAAADDD. It is comprised entirely of "Right click to spin around enemy, left click to kick. Repeat it 6 times until you kill 1 enemy". It takes so fucking long to kill anyone, even with your stats maxed. And when you get surrounded by enemies it can look like an embarrassing mess. It's an absolute chore and I don't know how they okayed this nonsense. But the funny thing is, I think they already found out how to make this combat workable. There are several missions in the game where your goal is to run through the level as fast as possible, and avoid the enemies you come across. You can do traversal attacks to knock enemies away while keeping up your momentum, and it actually works pretty well. Jumping off a table, roundhouse kicking an enemy in the face and running past the rest is not only hilarious, but it's also kinda fun. It's pretty barebones sure, but Mirror's Edge should not be about the combat itself, so having very simple encounters is a perfect fit. But instead of that, DICE decided what the game needed was fucking combat arenas where you are locked into a room with a bunch of dickwads and you can't leave until you defeat them. Thanks DICE you fucking buffoons.
When they don't involve combat, the main missions themselves are actually pretty fun and make the campaign mostly playable and somewhat enjoyable. Blazing across rooftops at breakneck speeds with the slick and polished movement mechanics is absolute gaming bliss and I'd recommend people try the game out just for that part alone. The time trials are addicting as hell and I think I've put in about 50 hours into the those things alone, in all 3 times I've come back to this game. The minimalist landscape and the beautiful ambient soundtrack by solar fields only enhance the experience and it really makes me upset that this game was designed by baboons because the skeleton is here for an incredible game. I really don't know why DICE thought that what the first game needed was a giant open world, because honestly, just remaking the first game with more polished mechanics, better levels and a story that at least tries to do something would have been more than enough to make a good game. Now if they wanted to make a great game? I think taking the metro exodus approach could have worked. Make it a very linear game, but with smaller, semi-open worlds. That way you can keep the playground feel of the world, but you wouldn't have to include a dumb fuck skill tree. And instead of pointless errands, you can actually hand craft 2 or 3 interesting side missions for each location. Separating the locations also give you a bigger opportunity to make each area more notably unique. They don't have to all connect seamlessly, you can literally just find a narrative reason to travel to a new fucking city if need be. That would make things so much more engaging IMO.
Damn Shame. Could have been great. Should have been great. But DICE does not understand how to make anything that's not "Multiplayer shooty!" (and I'd argue they struggle at that too) so here we are.
On one hand, As a first person game based around movement, it far exceeds everything else. The first mirrors edge? Shit. Titanfall 2? Trash. Dying Light? GarBitch. Of course, this is only if we're talking about movement mechanics. Because when we start to talk about most other aspects of the game, things fall apart fast.
Narratively, it's a total fuckfest of characters we don't know about, referencing events we weren't there to see. For a requel/prequel, it's incredibly strange how they chose to structure it this way. I mean, there is literally a loading screen tip that says "To learn how faith ended up in Juvie, read the online comic!". What the fuck is that? No character is given time to develop or grow throughout the whole game and they're all bound by whatever mysterious past actions they did. Noah? Oh yea he helped faith as a kid, and then he's absent for half the game. Dogen? Oh faith owes him for something. But we never find out what and we never learn why he cares about faith. Rebecca? Oh she's a resistance leader who was friends with your parents. What is her role? Oh well she shows up for a few missions and then dissapears for the last act. Then the game ends on an extraordinarily weak attempt to sequel bait us. So much so that it pretty much explicitly states that everything that happened in this game, was pointless. DICE, please retire from making stories. Give it up. You "tried" and you continue to fail spectacularly.
Despite the narrative being so terrible, arguably the worst aspect of the game is the inclusion of an open world. I am not joking when I say this, but I genuinely don't know if there is a single thing in this game that benefits from having a fully open world. The map is so god damn empty, that the only NPCs you encounter are random bouls who are glued to the ground, giving out mediocre delivery missions. It's abundantly clear that EA/DICE wanted to hop on the open world train and add some more "Content" into this game and let players sort of carve their own path. But how do you level gate/show progression if you have a game that is so open? By adding a dumb fuck skill tree of course! Whoever thought that a skill tree in Mirror's Edge was something that we needed, should be shot. It's so fucking pointless that you literally start the game with more than half of the fucking upgrades needed... do I need to say more about how incompetently designed that shit is???
Then we get to combat which to some, might also be the worst aspect of the game. Remember people, I did say lowest of lows because god damn this game hits the bottom of the fucking barrel sometimes. Calling the combat sloppy would be an understatement, because this shit is BAAAADDD. It is comprised entirely of "Right click to spin around enemy, left click to kick. Repeat it 6 times until you kill 1 enemy". It takes so fucking long to kill anyone, even with your stats maxed. And when you get surrounded by enemies it can look like an embarrassing mess. It's an absolute chore and I don't know how they okayed this nonsense. But the funny thing is, I think they already found out how to make this combat workable. There are several missions in the game where your goal is to run through the level as fast as possible, and avoid the enemies you come across. You can do traversal attacks to knock enemies away while keeping up your momentum, and it actually works pretty well. Jumping off a table, roundhouse kicking an enemy in the face and running past the rest is not only hilarious, but it's also kinda fun. It's pretty barebones sure, but Mirror's Edge should not be about the combat itself, so having very simple encounters is a perfect fit. But instead of that, DICE decided what the game needed was fucking combat arenas where you are locked into a room with a bunch of dickwads and you can't leave until you defeat them. Thanks DICE you fucking buffoons.
When they don't involve combat, the main missions themselves are actually pretty fun and make the campaign mostly playable and somewhat enjoyable. Blazing across rooftops at breakneck speeds with the slick and polished movement mechanics is absolute gaming bliss and I'd recommend people try the game out just for that part alone. The time trials are addicting as hell and I think I've put in about 50 hours into the those things alone, in all 3 times I've come back to this game. The minimalist landscape and the beautiful ambient soundtrack by solar fields only enhance the experience and it really makes me upset that this game was designed by baboons because the skeleton is here for an incredible game. I really don't know why DICE thought that what the first game needed was a giant open world, because honestly, just remaking the first game with more polished mechanics, better levels and a story that at least tries to do something would have been more than enough to make a good game. Now if they wanted to make a great game? I think taking the metro exodus approach could have worked. Make it a very linear game, but with smaller, semi-open worlds. That way you can keep the playground feel of the world, but you wouldn't have to include a dumb fuck skill tree. And instead of pointless errands, you can actually hand craft 2 or 3 interesting side missions for each location. Separating the locations also give you a bigger opportunity to make each area more notably unique. They don't have to all connect seamlessly, you can literally just find a narrative reason to travel to a new fucking city if need be. That would make things so much more engaging IMO.
Damn Shame. Could have been great. Should have been great. But DICE does not understand how to make anything that's not "Multiplayer shooty!" (and I'd argue they struggle at that too) so here we are.