Got this in a bundle with Neon White cause had my eye on it for a while anyway and it wasn't a bad deal. Something has drawn me to games like this a bit recently. Just cozy collect the things type beats that feel satisfying in small ways as you play them even if they don't have the most mechanical depth or anything.

I dig the vibes and the humor, love the art direction and the chilled out music, I just wish there was better escalation to the puzzles in some way or it mixed things up better. It feels like a concept that deserves more variety and the last level kinda expands things out a tiny bit more for a potential of where it could go. On the upside it doesn't overstay its welcome which is nice but I still wish there was just more to its overall package and ideas but for what it is it's fine. I really gotta play Katamari Damacy I honestly don't know why I still haven't played that yet.

After writing the previous review on Mirror's Edge I finally got the nerve to finish Catalyst after all this time. Started over from a fresh new save and wow I have some FEELINGS about this one.

Like I said in the last review, Mirror's Edge means the world to me. While flawed and with questionable design decisions (because what really is perfect art ya know?) it sits within a very particular place of my memory and my life itself. It's the type of game that feels like a once in a while experience that comes out of nowhere for me like a Gravity Rush or a Sayonara Wild Hearts or something. To me there isn't really anything that hits like Mirror's Edge does for me in the hyper specific way it does.

I didn't play Catalyst when it first released. I was in college and had no money for video games or even systems and I DEFINITELY didn't have anything with me that could run it. I was too busy doing sick ass longplays of Nier Gestalt because I was deep in my Longplay Era and justified it as a way that I was "justifying" my time with games in between classes at the time. Everything had to be for "content" which looking back jesus christ I was bitter and cynical and just not engaging with things in healthy ways at all. Looking for excuses to just engage with things at all instead of just like engaging it for the sake of itself. Like yeah, I write shit for here and for videos these days but I also just like do things for me too more than just some lackluster excuse to churn out "content" through the mill? I feel like if anything these writings are ways I engage with things and I'm doing this for purely selfish me reasons these days which I just feel better about doing for myself. Sorry, completely unrelated tangent lol.

Anyway, I now have the means and ability to play Catalyst and just wanted to finally after all this time. So how was it?

Catalyst is like watching your favorite underground up and coming band who got by on scrappy charm and unique sound water down their sound and identity for "mass appeal". Yeah that's a bit of reductive and slightly up my own ass way of looking at how and why artists will try to do things in order to reach more of a broad audience of sorts, and it's not like DICE is some indie darling studio or anything like that. Mirror's Edge isn't a Cave Story. Hell I'm not even fully against that happening with artists if that's what they wanna do anyway. I actually agree with Kurt Cobain's own words on it, “I don’t blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout,” Cobain adds. “I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they’ll realize there’s more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.” and like Nirvana themselves did it with Nevermind which is a banger and then tried to battle that perception with shit like In Utero that also fucks incredibly hard. The point more-so is that it IS noticeable and it can be an element clearly seen within the art itself when it happens but that's not an inherently bad or even negative thing, it just is what it is.

So for me, while I'm glad that DICE was allowed to make more of the game that they wanted the first time around (no gun combat this time, an expansion of the movement options and mechanics) it also absolutely capitulates to THE OPEN WORLD menace and in this case I don't think it fully helps the game in the ways that I think they hoped they could make it work within.

Now listen, I'm not one of those fuckin people who's all like "OPEN WORLD BAD, AAA GAMES INHERENTLY BAD" if the games good to me the game is fuckin good brah. Like trust me I like exploring a nice open world if its fun to do so. Spider Man PS4/Miles Morales, Gravity Rush, Red Dead Redemption, and Dragon's Dogma are some examples of ones I fuck with heavily. Hell, Catalyst itself does some neat things with its open world structure and design that's really fun to engage with. The dreaded Ubisoft Towers that in one way or another have poisoned this genre of games for a long while at this point now with their normally fairly poorly thought out easy ass decently thoughtless seeming design. But the way that this game makes them all into really fun mechanical parkour challenges is genuinely really fun and rad! Like seriously the Rezoning one is one of my favorite challenges within the game because of just all the shit you can do in there to get up to the terminals.

The problem with the open world of Glass comes from the fact that this world is a pain to navigate. Runner Vision, an option that doubled as a stylistic touch within the first game, is now basically mandatory if you don't want to constantly get lost within it. I swear to fuck I would think I was going in the right direction constantly only to then realize that I'm nowhere near where I'm supposed to be going at all and if anything have made more of a trek for myself trying to just run it. For whatever reason instead of trying to make a more compact city that could possibly be navigated in any which way you want, making the OPTION of Runner Vision an actual OPTION, there are instead certain linear ass points that boringly funnel you in the same ways every single time with no real way to get around them in fun or creative ways. It's an open world that limits how you engage with it which I feel goes against the entire spirit and identity of the series and what it wants to do. Glass is a nightmare city designed by a madman and while yes that IS the text that doesn't make it any less annoying to navigate especially without Runner Vision. It doesn't help that there really isn't much interesting in glass. All of the side missions are delivery missions or races which while decently fun at first, again can be difficult to navigate without Runner Vision and are repeated so often that after the 5th one its just exhausting. Same with the cops and cameras on every corner. Now while I didn't always have KrugerSec on my ass there were points where I'd be trying to go somewhere and then IMMEDIATELY either have to fight or book it to a safehouse in another direction or sometimes even both because some KrugerSec were just around a corner for SOME reason and now there's a helicopter on my ass. Like I could be shit at the game, it's totally possible, maybe my navigating skills are total shit, but I don't feel like I'm alone on this one honestly. The entire place kills flow constantly and at points it was just less annoying to fast travel around than have to really deal with it though I love the parkour so much that I would try not to do it too much.

My god those movement mechanics have been so well expanded though even in spite of that. The animations, the feel of it all, the satisfaction of getting the perfect double wallrun or getting to the peak of a building or tower or construction site is like nothing else. It's a goddamn rush. They really went all out to focus on improving every aspect of how this game feels to play on every level and I wouldn't have it any other way. They even throw in a grappling hook! Though it is limited by like where you can use it which is kinda lame but I can get not wanting the player to fully just spider man their way around everywhere. But I also think having the option to if you were good enough with it could've been rad. Its uses are still fun ways to vary the movement up when needed.

Then problem #2 rears its head for a part of the game. The progression system in this game is complete ass. It's there because it has to be and its so obvious that they didn't want it there. They lock rolling and fucking QUICKTURNING away from you until you unlock them in a 3 tier tree that feels useless as fuck. I instantly put everything into movement because why the fuck wouldn't you in a game about parkour? Instantly the game just feels better and better. But it should've just been the base everything from the first game and then built more on top of that! Like I wouldn't have even cared that much if it didn't lock such basic shit behind the progression trees and its so baffling that they chose to do that even if they were forced to put the trees in.

The levels themselves though? Absolutely sublime parkour challenges. Every level feels like a fun challenge with some a bit more linear than others but all at points encouraging you to figure out where to go within it. I especially love the level where Dogan wants you to go to the top of the building under construction in order to fuck with the owners of the building for not paying their debts. It's such a banger of a level and the view is absolutely perfect once ya get to the top. The beautiful art direction perfectly compliments every single distinct location absolutely perfectly too, whether you're in the run down resistance run underground, the HighCaste rich district or hanging out with Birdman it's all just such a dystopian hellscape of a vibe. The OST by Solar Fields perfectly compliments all of what you're doing too. The melancholy sting of this OST seriously sings to me, it's such a fuckin banger. It funnily enough reminds me of songs from the Manhunter Soundtrack just this ethereal melancholy vibe.

Again I just wish more of it was in service of more! I feel like the few actually different side missions that are there barely help flesh this world or these characters out. I wanna know more about Birdman but ya do 2 missions for him and he's basically fucking gone! Ya do 2 missions for Nomad and same thing! Plastic at least remains within the plot which is dope because she's rad and autistic techy black girl rep is legit sick as fuck. Dogan is cool! He seems like a bastard that kinda gives a shit he's dope!

But I think this is where the story shows its ass majorly (though I'm not really holding it fully against the game as its not like the first games story is really good at all either lol) is in just how fucking underdeveloped it all is. The world is fascinating and interesting! These characters seem really cool! But they all feel to exist and talk as if you're supposed to have context that the game just doesn't give you. It makes parts of the story frustrating because it reminds me of that thing Final Fantasy 15 does where Gladio leaves your party and then comes back and just goes like "YEAH I WENT AND DID SOMETHING BUT I'LL TELL YA ABOUT IT LATER BUD" and its to sell you the Gladio DLC. But here the Gladio DLC or the Final Fantasy XV Brotherhood equivalent is a comic book prequel where characters constantly go "FAITH YOU WENT TO JUVIE FOR THAT THING YOU DID THAT WE CAN'T SAY wink wink nudge nudge" after a while it just becomes annoying as its like hearing characters talk about an episode of television that only streamed on Amazon Prime and you just haven't seen it yet and had no clue it even existed.

So many strange little things like that happen throughout the story too. I feel like everything to do with Faith's parents is kept fairly vague too for no real good reason at all? Characters like Rebecca feel like they're going to matter far more and like do something within the story but then just disappear from the plot entirely in the end after threatening Faith directly. Its just kind of an entire ass mess that at least feels more interesting overall to me than the first game's story fully was. But it never gets where I feel like it wants to go honestly. I do absolutely love some of the character banter though.

I didn't even really touch combat but if I'm being honest with ya I just don't have a ton to say on it. It feels better than the first game's to me. There's a bigger focus on more environment/running based moves and juggling different moves and enemy types and its fine enough to be fun at times but most of the upgrades all deal with being stronger against enemies in general and certain enemy types which is whatever.

This game hits a bit, it does some shit real real well on the movement but kinda flounders in a number of ways that are fairly disappointing. The first game sits in a very personal place to me and while I think this game is still very solid it just doesn't at all hit in the same way that the perfect flow and pace of the first game does for me. It's just a solid mess of an experience that I'll probably replay just because of how good movement feels but I just wish that it didn't kneecap itself at every possible opportunity. Not bad but definitely watered down in ways that make me kinda sad. I guess I should've heeded the Warning Call ya know????????????? ;)))))))))))

When I think of the beginning of my teenage years and the games that occupied that space as I grew older I tend to think of a few different ones.

Assassin's Creed, Oblivion at my, at the time, best friend's house (R.I.P. Max), Heavenly Sword, Blazblue Calamity Trigger and most importantly of all I think about Mirror's Edge.

Mirror's Edge upon its first announcement blew me completely away. It came at that time of my early budding explorative amazement with art and different mediums where I would look at an E3 show or trailers online or discussion of different things and I, all wide eyed and still not that aware of what the medium can fully do yet, go like "holy shit VIDEO GAMES huh? What can this medium do? What CAN'T it do? Holy shit! That Killzone 2 trailer is TOTALLY real!"

In the case of Mirror's Edge I'd never seen first person platforming and parkour quite like this. I'd never seen a game try to be this and try to do anything like this. I hyper fixated on it, I thought about its wonderful usage of color in the trailers and gameplay I'd see of it, I remember wanting to know more about the dystopian 1984 ass world it takes place in, I wanted to run, I wanted to jump, I wanted to wahoo even all while radly jump kicking a cop off of a rooftop. I was spellbound by this game made by those wildin Battlefield devs that I didn't know much about at the time and what they were going for. It just hit something for me in a really special kinda way.

Eventually I was able to get it and to say my expectations were met and exceeded would honestly be a complete and total understatement. I played this game to fucking death, I wanted to get levels down, do no gun runs, get the best routes and lines down that I could. It excited me and while I didn't have a lot of people to share that passion with as a kid, I at least had my older sibling who shared that passion with me. I think I even remember kinda wanting to do parkour too but being too afraid of pain to ever bother trying lol.

So for me picking this game up is picking up a lot of memories I guess. Like a sort of time capsule, I remember the couch I played it on, I remember playing it with my sibling and trying to beat each other at the races, I remember playing it late into the night on weekends and my blink and ya miss em summers. I would take it to my Dad's place when we had to go, I would watch videos and runs of the trials other people online were uploading at the time.

I would play some other things too but this game just didn't leave my mind a lot for a good few years. It in a way was a comfort game for me. It made the bad and hard things that I had trouble dealing with and had difficulty fully grasping in my life not seem so bad to me and it gave me the genuine escape I tended to look for in those days. I would always return to it and give it a few more playthroughs. I just absolutely fuckin loved it.

Eventually though I put it down and didn't return to it for a long time. I would get it through a Humble Bundle years ago at this point again on PC but wouldn't really get too deep into it again. I picked up Catalyst too (though I forget if through a sale or bundle years ago too?) and have still only barely played the beginning of it. I think a part of me especially at that later time (about 2015-2018) was trying to get away from these feelings that I associated with bad things from my life that I was only then fully coming to terms with and trying to figure out how to really deal with.

Embarrassing experiences and personal things that with hindsight hits in a way that I don't wanna describe. It hurt to remember these things around that time, dealing with anything quite head on felt fairly impossible to me and this game was tied to a youth that I felt and honestly still feel was somewhat false in ways. Looking at this game I felt a sort of void and I didn't want to feel that anymore. Honestly I just didn’t wanna think about anything, I think in a way I became the void I wanted to escape without realizing it. So I just let it sit there in the pit of my memory, faint nostalgia and personal pains for a long while.

So I couldn't really tell you why I decided to just replay this today. After making videos I tend to like to chill with things I play for myself and review here or on letterboxd or whatever, detached from videos, and just write even more for myself and for all of the wonderful people who follow me and read all of this shit I write. But honestly I don't think that's fully why. I think maybe that wide eyed middle school MCR listening wannabe goth 7th grade self that's in there somewhere carrying all of the good and bad memories alike wanted to play it again and get me to see what I loved so much about it.

Playing this again I see it. The wonderfully smooth parkour that feels like a dream once you get the flow down. The levels that feel so great to learn and replay over and over again, the sense of height and verticality as you look down at the world below you from the high rooftops above. The wonderful art direction, the melancholy yet intense score just all of this comes together that makes something very special to me.

Even its imperfections just make me feel so happy for some reason. The clearly crowbarred in sloppy ass gun combat that doesn't fit what the game is really going for, some of the level design being a bit messy and somewhat flow breaking with the parkour (looking at you sewers) the first real go around, ledge grabs where sometimes I feel like I should've had that jump right and instead I completely plummeted to my death, the kinda empty and messy story. It all just makes up what Mirror's Edge is to me. An innovative testing ground of ideas and ambitions from a team clearly wanting to try something different than what they felt the norm of FPS games were and to me that just makes it special. Like Gravity Rush, even its imperfections add to the overall charm and humanity of the project itself. It just connects with me in a very particular kind of way.

Even though I just knocked the story, I also gotta admit that Faith and her want to get Kate out of the situation she has been tricked into resonates with me in ways that I don't wanna go into. Just know I relate to Faith in a lot of ways and although not the most fleshed out it just hits me in a very particular way.

This whole replay of the game just reminded me of a lot of things too. A lot of people that I miss. The places I haven't been to since the last time I left California. How much time has passed since then. How much time continues to pass as I and the people I know get older. All that I still wanna do with my life and the dreams and goals I have for myself and my future.

I miss those days and late nights on the couch with my sibling doing runs of this game. I miss that couch where I kept doing my best to get the pacifist achievement runs. I miss the couch where I completely beefed the speedruns cause I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be at them. I miss those days and some of those good feelings that come with them but I carry the memories with me forward as I continue to live on, both the good and the bad ones. I live to keep those memories alive, to find joy in the things that younger me never got to experience or always wanted to see or play or go through or listen to.

I guess in a huge roundabout sorta way I’m saying that Mirror’s Edge is why I love video games and art in general. Or it’s at least one of the many reasons. I love connecting to works on such a deep level like this. I love feeling like a piece of art is speaking to me in a way that it may or may not for someone else. I feel like I’m giving back to myself because I’ve needed to in ways and I feel like playing this again has just helped me even see that I needed to reconnect with that in a way. I needed to know that it’s okay to feel all of this right now. All these feelings of doubt within life choices, within where I am and why I’m still here and what matters the most to me, of what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown and changed and continue to grow and change. The fear I have of the future and things that could happen to me or the people around me but my desire to still take it on regardless and try to keep pushing forward regardless.

It’s easy for me to just feel kinda stuck sometimes and even just running through the same thought processes on loop while I’m trying to understand why exactly I’m feeling that way. I didn’t expect this at all or even realize this would happen on this replay after all of these years but I’m really happy that it did what it did for me. Honestly writing this and just sitting with these thoughts did too. Maybe a bit indulgent on my part but fuck it this is Backloggd! We all indulge a little!

At the end of the day I’m honestly just glad to Still be Alive ya know? (Corny I know but I wanted to end on a nice note and I wanted an excuse to link the song! It’s really good! I used to listen to it on my Sansa MP3 Player on my way to school!)