Original Mirror’s Edge offered us first-person parkour in a dystopian setting. Over the past seven-plus years, various developers have borrowed some ideas from her, developing them and making parkour just one of the elements of their games. The most striking example is Dying Light, where a nimble hero quickly climbs walls and runs over zombie heads. But Mirror’s Edge Catalyst cannot boast of such evolution.
Run without looking back
For some reason E.A And DICE decided not to continue the story of the main character Faith, but restarted the series, consisting of one game. Faith is released from prison and must find a job within fourteen days to avoid going back to jail. It consists of an illegal organization of sorts of couriers who deliver packages and information by moving across the rooftops of the City of Mirrors. This place is carefully monitored by the mysterious Conglomerate corporation, which controls everything around it. Faith will fight with her.
Even from the description, the plot does not seem anything outstanding, and throughout the game it will not be able to surprise you with anything. There are no unexpected twists, and the characters are as clichéd as possible. Take the hacker girl: she constantly sits on the floor, answers questions sharply, argues with her unfinished robot… Where have we already seen this?? Yes everywhere.
The problem lies not only in the plot, but also in its presentation. The developers tried to create an entire universe, but in the end they didn’t explain anything and didn’t answer many questions. The player constantly hears something about the “gray lands”, where residents expelled from the City are sent, but does not learn any details about them, and this does not play a role in the plot. The same can be said about the past of some heroes: characters more than once remember that someone has done a lot of bad things before and cannot be trusted, but what exactly this person did wrong is a mystery.
If the storyline is https://slotzocasino.co.uk/ boring and stupid, then parkour is Mirror’s Edge Catalyst was a great success. This is a big step forward from the original, and as Faith progresses through missions she will unlock more and more new features. By completing side quests and tests, the heroine receives experience points, which can be spent on improving characteristics and learning new tricks. Yes, sometimes such a system looks strange (for example, a girl learns about a roll after a fall only after studying it – what “parkourist” is not trained in this?), but the presence of “pumping” does not interfere in any way. And if at first Faith only runs, jumps and rolls up, then over time she gains the ability to cling to objects with a hook and swing, which significantly shortens the path to some locations.
Experience points can be spent on skills related to the combat system. Unfortunately, fight in Catalyst will have to quite often, as well as run away from pursuers. Faith does not pick up a weapon and relies only on the strength of her arms and legs, and therefore you should not expect variety in battles (especially considering the first-person view). In most cases, the girl either runs in circles looking for objects to climb on to jump on top of the enemy, or jumps around the enemy and hits him in the side or back. It’s hard to imagine a more boring activity, so when you see a squad of four guards ahead, it’s better to either quickly run past them, or find a workaround.
Opponents do not cause irritation only in those cases when Faith runs non-stop and pushes everyone in her path. If there is great music playing in the background (and most often it does), Catalyst begins to shine with new colors. Jump from one building to another, do a somersault, run along a wall, roll up, push a guard, rush along another wall, turn around and cling to scaffolding… If at that time a helicopter is circling somewhere nearby, and the glass is crumbling under enemy bullets, you get many times more emotions. By the way, hits from a “firearm” do not hurt Faith if the heroine runs without pauses and accumulates concentration.
Like a bird in the sky
New events take place Mirror’s Edge in an open world, while in the original the developers stuck to a linear structure. And parkour in the case of Catalyst goes well with a large city that is accessible to explore without any restrictions. Having completed one mission, most often you need to run several kilometers to the next, encountering many side quests along the way. Also, there are often people standing on rooftops who need to deliver a package to the recipient within a few seconds. They don’t explain why there’s such a rush, so such orders look ridiculous, but parkour is good, but there’s no time to delve into the essence.
There are also obvious tests in which you need to run from one point to another as quickly as possible, using hints. Runner’s Vision shows one possible path, but the game repeatedly hints that the illuminated path is not always optimal. And this is true – in some cases, following the red line and not making mistakes, I quickly lost points. Without knowing the city and without devoting enough time to each test, you will not be able to climb high in the leaderboard.
The last thing the open world has to offer is collectibles. If the plot is weak, then probably some hidden notes and audio recordings are interesting, because it would be logical! The developers have scattered several hundred things throughout the City of Mirrors: electronic parts in terminals, secret bags, stupid documents – and none of this adds even a little interesting to the story being told. Those who like to earn achievements and trophies will spend several evenings collecting items, and those who want to learn something about the “Conglomerate” and the inhabitants of the City will have to be content with missions, cutscenes and dialogues.
But the gameplay largely makes up for the shortcomings. Yes, the City is beautiful and at the same time absolutely lifeless, but it offers almost limitless freedom and many secrets and detours. Fighting is incredibly boring, but the game rarely forces you to beat up your opponents, forcing you to do this only in some story missions. The “leveling up” system is not entirely appropriate, but the feeling of progress encourages you to complete tests that would be interesting to complete even without additional rewards.
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst – absolutely not what fans of the original expected from the second part of the series. In the background Dying Light the game looks a little faded, but that doesn’t make it completely hopeless. Despite the banal plot and shortcomings of the gameplay, this is the best tracer simulator, where running on walls and jumping from one pipe to another is fun even after several hours. And the open world, although it seems out of place at first, can offer several additional hours of gameplay that you won’t have to regret. But after Catalyst the series is unlikely to be continued, and players will probably not see the perfect Mirror’s Edge.
Pros: improved parkour mechanics; freedom of movement and excellent sense of speed; Lots of fun in the open world.
Cons: boring plot with banal characters; fights remain the weakest part of the game.
