This review contains major story spoilers

After playing the original i thought i would come back to this game again since i played it through years ago and remember liking it a lot. However after completing it i am left very torn on my thoughts about it.

Start of with what i liked. I think the parkour is as good as ever. Very fluid, improved from the first game and i had lots of fun running around. The combat is massively improved with it being much more involved in the story, however they did remove being able to use weapons which i do think actually works better in this game due to their only being one ranged enemy. I enjoyed most of the characters but none are anything to write home about. Visuals looks great and it also has a pretty good score.

Now for what I didnt like. This game did not need an open world. Now i think them expanding from a linear gameplay loop would of worked ok if the open world was for anything other than collectables. Also when you are running across the same 4 buildings all the time the open world ends up not feeling like one. I was extremely confused by the story, i originally thought it was a sequel to the original due to the futuristic tech, then i looked at the game info and it mentioned "Faith's origin" so then i thought it was a prequel, then to google it and find out its a reboot. The story also handles major plot points very poorly. There are two major example so SPOILERS AHEAD. My main problem is that they reveal that the main villains daughter is actually Faith's sister, not through a cutscene but through a stray line of dialogue said by one of the side characters, for the reveal of the games largest plot point to just be tossed out there like that seems like a massive waste to me. Secondly they have you believe one of the side characters Noah was killed about a quarter of the way into the game, only to reveal he is alive, to then kill him instantly, just seems a bit pointless.

While i think Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a good gameplay experience, with some amazing parkour and way more forgiving combat encounters than its predecessor. I think its step's to take on a more narrative experience failed handing out a half baked story with nothing that memorable really happening.