Mirror's Edge: Catalyst is a game with a lot of style, but not a lot of substance. The highs are high, but the experience in general is mediocre or downright poor thanks to some core design flaws that holds it back from being truly exceptional. The open-world concept, the storyline, and the combat are all issues that permeate throughout the entire game, and overcomes the positives: great parkour, a fantastic artstyle, and some truly exceptional set pieces within mission-based levels.
[b]Gameplay[/b]
When it comes to Mirror's Edge, it is synonymous with one thing: parkour. Running, vaulting, 90 degree spins and everything that comes with that. And the game has a lot of it. You have a beautiful world to run through, sliding and rolling your way across the rooftops of Glass, which is like the inverse of dirty, neon cities in other sci-fi settings. Sharp angles, brilliant white, and the pulsating glow of colors is what creates this city, along with the awkward yet beautiful architecture that is in everything from a cheap apartment, to the luxury buildings you will find yourself in. When you are on a main mission it is great, and does just enough to keep some variety on this one-track design. Sadly, this is not reflected in the overworld. The open-world concept does not work, as a majority of the sections are filled with boring collectibles that offer nothing but the same animation, a mediocre amount of XP, and runner emblems that are completely useless thanks to the removal of online components (Thanks Electronic Arts). The side quests are not much better, simply placing a time limit and having you go from point-a to point-b on a route you have already gone through a dozen times. It doesn't create anything new, interesting, or challenging and really brings this game down. The main missions are where it is at, letting you explore new environment with beautiful, breath-taking set pieces that really lean into the style of the game. Large jumps, sliding down impossible geometry, hanging from a helicopter, it has it all and creates more variety than what you see a majority of the time. I would recommend ignoring most of the side content, except maybe the side quests, and focusing on the main story as much as possible. It especially helps so you can avoid more combat as well. It is garbage, plain and simple. You get a light attack and heavy attack as well as a dodge, and the large variety of enemies means you get no creativity. You can easily mash your light attack to kill lower level guys and shooting enemies, heavier enemies require pretty much only heavy attacks, and then the rest you simply do an awkward dodge, heavy attack, get a couple of light attacks and hope you don't get trolled by the game where they immediately hit you back without a chance to avoid it. You can knock them into walls and they comically drop, or push them off sometimes, but never enough to where you can creatively flow and fight in an area, which is the biggest problem. You get some spots to utilize parkour in combat, but never enough in an arena to really make you want to take advantage of it, especially with how one-track every enemy encounter is. There is no variance, no interest, and not even a boss fight or two that shakes up the core mechanic. It made me want to avoid as many encounters as possible instead of engaging in a fun combat battle.
[b]Story[/b]
The story is bad. Simple. It is boring, safe, bland, and hits every trope in the book. This is a reboot: not a sequel or a prequel to the first game and it does not work. The setting when from a modern, futuristic style to pure sci-fi fantasy. I am not really a fan of this, but that is more personal taste than anything. What isn't personal taste is the downgrade of the story: from an interesting idea that made you feel part of a world to a story where you are the savior, and the world revolves around you and your ideas. From trying to save your sister, a noble cause, to stopping an evil company from mind controlling the population and taking over the world. It is boring. It makes everyone else but you seem incompetent, except for Plastic, and the range of the characters is not enough to cover extreme emotions when needed. It even has the bad guy, at some point, give the classic 'maybe people WANT to be mind controlled, I'm saving the world not hurting it!' cliched story. If you're going to throw away the original, which easily setup for a sequel they could've gone with, at least give it a unique story. This one did not, and failed completely with not one good character except for Faith.
[b]Extras[/b]
The game has plenty more positives: the music, while not as good as the first game, is still good. The parkour, while also not as good as the original, is also good albeit different. Parkour in this game lost the weightiness that made the first unique, and feels more traditional like other games. The hookswing is also really, really cool and I like how it makes you feel like you're rushing through heavy wind. The animations, especially the mocapping, is some of the best I have ever seen even six months later. The character models themselves all look really good, especially Faith who you see the most. And the main missions are great. If the game was just the main missions, it would be so much better. I think it was a big mistake to make it open world, and they got too far in development to scrap that entirely. If they ever revisit the series I would much rather have a linear game with two or three pathways through certain parts of levels like the original, instead of a bland open world with little incentive to explore. This, along with the abandonment of the game which got rid of a lot of really cool features, including custom time trials, makes this a cautious recommendation, and I would recommend avoiding it unless you really, really like parkour. If you have played Dying Light 1 or 2, or Neon White, I would check this out since movement based games, especially with parkour, are few and far in-between.
[b]Gameplay[/b]
When it comes to Mirror's Edge, it is synonymous with one thing: parkour. Running, vaulting, 90 degree spins and everything that comes with that. And the game has a lot of it. You have a beautiful world to run through, sliding and rolling your way across the rooftops of Glass, which is like the inverse of dirty, neon cities in other sci-fi settings. Sharp angles, brilliant white, and the pulsating glow of colors is what creates this city, along with the awkward yet beautiful architecture that is in everything from a cheap apartment, to the luxury buildings you will find yourself in. When you are on a main mission it is great, and does just enough to keep some variety on this one-track design. Sadly, this is not reflected in the overworld. The open-world concept does not work, as a majority of the sections are filled with boring collectibles that offer nothing but the same animation, a mediocre amount of XP, and runner emblems that are completely useless thanks to the removal of online components (Thanks Electronic Arts). The side quests are not much better, simply placing a time limit and having you go from point-a to point-b on a route you have already gone through a dozen times. It doesn't create anything new, interesting, or challenging and really brings this game down. The main missions are where it is at, letting you explore new environment with beautiful, breath-taking set pieces that really lean into the style of the game. Large jumps, sliding down impossible geometry, hanging from a helicopter, it has it all and creates more variety than what you see a majority of the time. I would recommend ignoring most of the side content, except maybe the side quests, and focusing on the main story as much as possible. It especially helps so you can avoid more combat as well. It is garbage, plain and simple. You get a light attack and heavy attack as well as a dodge, and the large variety of enemies means you get no creativity. You can easily mash your light attack to kill lower level guys and shooting enemies, heavier enemies require pretty much only heavy attacks, and then the rest you simply do an awkward dodge, heavy attack, get a couple of light attacks and hope you don't get trolled by the game where they immediately hit you back without a chance to avoid it. You can knock them into walls and they comically drop, or push them off sometimes, but never enough to where you can creatively flow and fight in an area, which is the biggest problem. You get some spots to utilize parkour in combat, but never enough in an arena to really make you want to take advantage of it, especially with how one-track every enemy encounter is. There is no variance, no interest, and not even a boss fight or two that shakes up the core mechanic. It made me want to avoid as many encounters as possible instead of engaging in a fun combat battle.
[b]Story[/b]
The story is bad. Simple. It is boring, safe, bland, and hits every trope in the book. This is a reboot: not a sequel or a prequel to the first game and it does not work. The setting when from a modern, futuristic style to pure sci-fi fantasy. I am not really a fan of this, but that is more personal taste than anything. What isn't personal taste is the downgrade of the story: from an interesting idea that made you feel part of a world to a story where you are the savior, and the world revolves around you and your ideas. From trying to save your sister, a noble cause, to stopping an evil company from mind controlling the population and taking over the world. It is boring. It makes everyone else but you seem incompetent, except for Plastic, and the range of the characters is not enough to cover extreme emotions when needed. It even has the bad guy, at some point, give the classic 'maybe people WANT to be mind controlled, I'm saving the world not hurting it!' cliched story. If you're going to throw away the original, which easily setup for a sequel they could've gone with, at least give it a unique story. This one did not, and failed completely with not one good character except for Faith.
[b]Extras[/b]
The game has plenty more positives: the music, while not as good as the first game, is still good. The parkour, while also not as good as the original, is also good albeit different. Parkour in this game lost the weightiness that made the first unique, and feels more traditional like other games. The hookswing is also really, really cool and I like how it makes you feel like you're rushing through heavy wind. The animations, especially the mocapping, is some of the best I have ever seen even six months later. The character models themselves all look really good, especially Faith who you see the most. And the main missions are great. If the game was just the main missions, it would be so much better. I think it was a big mistake to make it open world, and they got too far in development to scrap that entirely. If they ever revisit the series I would much rather have a linear game with two or three pathways through certain parts of levels like the original, instead of a bland open world with little incentive to explore. This, along with the abandonment of the game which got rid of a lot of really cool features, including custom time trials, makes this a cautious recommendation, and I would recommend avoiding it unless you really, really like parkour. If you have played Dying Light 1 or 2, or Neon White, I would check this out since movement based games, especially with parkour, are few and far in-between.