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My honest review for Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, Great job DICE.
I feel obligated to write this review after seeing all the undeserved low scores this game is getting from the major reviewers. I hope the devs at DICE read this review, they should know that they nailed it with this one. I've put a lot of thought into this, so here's my in depth review of the game.
The Combat
I felt I should start here since there's a lot of confusion about the combat. The main reviewers complain that it's wonky, spammy, repetitive etc. But that's completely their fault. The game gives you plenty of different ways to take people down, but it's up to you to use them! Mix things up. Try not to damage or take down an enemy the same way twice, be always thinking about using your environment, and if a certain method makes the combat too easy,(kicking people over railings) stop using it. When you try to keep the combat diverse it adds more depth and challenge to each encounter, and there's enough animations to keep each arena feeling fresh as long as you spice it up a bit.
There's been times where I've cleared rooms of all enemy types without getting the same animation to play more than once. If you can do that, the combat really shines. In fact I often found myself running back toward groups of enemies to take them on in the open world. The only problem I have is that there's not quite enough enemy diversity towards the end. I feel the game could've used one more enemy archetype above or below the sentinel to keep the difficulty gradient going up throughout the game. But overall the combat is awesome if you're a skilled player.
The Story
The game has a solid story. It's not groundbreaking in terms of writing and narrative, but it's engaging enough that I did feel some sense of urgency that made me run to the next story mission rather than doing dashes or delivery missions. A complaint I often hear is that the dialogue is "cringeworthy", but the word I would use is actually "realistic". The lines delivered in this game are clearly not written to be very compelling or powerful, but I find them to be more like what normal people would actually say in every-day conversation.
In real life you don't have time to produce shakespear on the spot, so you just say what's on your mind. When I thought of it like this, the dialogue seemed more genuine and relatable, which brought me closer to the characters. Since the voice acting is good and the facial animations are spot on, any feelings of discomfort or awkwardness between the characters was probably intentional, and not caused by poor execution. The level design is where the Story really shines. The story missions offered unique puzzles and clever navigation around memorable setpieces. I'm really looking forward to replaying these story missions with the skills I picked up after the first playthrough. So overall the story is quite good.
The Open World
Making mirror's edge open world was a contraversial decision, but I now conclude that it was definitely the right one. I'll lead with saying that the City of Glass is hands down, my favorite open world. I've never seen a city so majestic and functional depicted in a videogame. The city is clearly designed for parkour, and you really feel it. This is the only open world game where I actually don't use the fast travel very much. It's so fun to traverse the environment that when the next mission is on the other side of the map right next to a fast travel point, I'd rather just run there. It's impressive that DICE was able to achieve this when moving from to the next waypoint is usually quite boring... *cough*The Division*cough*
Now on to what there is to do in this open world. I'll admit I was worried that this game would suffer from open world syndrome, but I'm glad i was proven wrong. It's not just another open world filled with forgettable side missions, it seems ME:C has taken the quality over quantity approach with most of the open world. There's not that many actual side missions, which means each one is unique and important. Since these side missions are nice ways to explore additional landmarks and learn more about the characters and their motivations, they often seemed as important as the main story missions.
Even though I said I don't use fast travel, I did enjoy unlocking them. To unlock fast travel for one or two districts you have to sync up with a gridlink node. These massive datacenters offered unique traversal puzzles with security lasers and shifting platforms that were fun and challenging to get through. Again this game takes the quality over quantity approach, only having 3 or 4 gridlink nodes so each one feels unique. Since there's not many side missions or gridlinks, the majority of sustenance comes from the vast array of deliveries and dashes all over the city. These are quite challenging and still manage to avoid feeling completely repetitive. Each NPC has their own little personality, and they tell a story while you're delivering their package. The insight into the lives of ordinary people makes each run somewhat interesting, and let's not forget that quirky AI voice that seems to be contemplating it's own existence...
I need another quick paragraph to describe a unique experience I had with the open world. After I completed the story, I spent almost an hour just freerunning around a beautiful district called "The View" at NIGHT. I was in a trance. Just running through all the fancy furnished apartments, the brilliantly lit fountains and gardens, and seeing the vibrant skylines all stimulated by a lovely dynamic soundtrack. A great example of how amazing the art team is at DICE. Definitely try this out if you have the game.
The Verdict
I'll start with the cons since there isn't that many.
-Not quite enough enemy diversity
-Finishing moves didn't trigger enough, I only got about 3 or 4 throughout my entire playthrough
-That annoying Allcom chip removal animation, the only truly unavoidable repetitive animation in the game
-Constant K-sec alerts interrupting me in the open world.
The Pros
-Beautiful graphics and animations
-Great optimization
-Immersive sound design
-Fast fluid gameplay
-Awesome Dynamic soundtrack
-Easy to replay any missions
-Good narrative
-Unique gameplay in story missions
-Great combat system that promotes skill
-Best looking open world I've ever seen
-Extremely well put together open world
-Meaningful side missions
-Cool parkour puzzles
-Interesting NPCs
-Rich backstory
-Grappling hook
-Well it all comes together and you're in the zone with the music and the parkour
My score: 9.5/10
You can tell DICE put a lot of passion into making this game. It's a truly unique experience that combines fun gameplay with art in a believable, yet surreal setting.
DICE you did an amazing job with this one, IGNore those bad reviews and push EA to let you make a sequel. That's something I would really like to see.
The Combat
I felt I should start here since there's a lot of confusion about the combat. The main reviewers complain that it's wonky, spammy, repetitive etc. But that's completely their fault. The game gives you plenty of different ways to take people down, but it's up to you to use them! Mix things up. Try not to damage or take down an enemy the same way twice, be always thinking about using your environment, and if a certain method makes the combat too easy,(kicking people over railings) stop using it. When you try to keep the combat diverse it adds more depth and challenge to each encounter, and there's enough animations to keep each arena feeling fresh as long as you spice it up a bit.
There's been times where I've cleared rooms of all enemy types without getting the same animation to play more than once. If you can do that, the combat really shines. In fact I often found myself running back toward groups of enemies to take them on in the open world. The only problem I have is that there's not quite enough enemy diversity towards the end. I feel the game could've used one more enemy archetype above or below the sentinel to keep the difficulty gradient going up throughout the game. But overall the combat is awesome if you're a skilled player.
The Story
The game has a solid story. It's not groundbreaking in terms of writing and narrative, but it's engaging enough that I did feel some sense of urgency that made me run to the next story mission rather than doing dashes or delivery missions. A complaint I often hear is that the dialogue is "cringeworthy", but the word I would use is actually "realistic". The lines delivered in this game are clearly not written to be very compelling or powerful, but I find them to be more like what normal people would actually say in every-day conversation.
In real life you don't have time to produce shakespear on the spot, so you just say what's on your mind. When I thought of it like this, the dialogue seemed more genuine and relatable, which brought me closer to the characters. Since the voice acting is good and the facial animations are spot on, any feelings of discomfort or awkwardness between the characters was probably intentional, and not caused by poor execution. The level design is where the Story really shines. The story missions offered unique puzzles and clever navigation around memorable setpieces. I'm really looking forward to replaying these story missions with the skills I picked up after the first playthrough. So overall the story is quite good.
The Open World
Making mirror's edge open world was a contraversial decision, but I now conclude that it was definitely the right one. I'll lead with saying that the City of Glass is hands down, my favorite open world. I've never seen a city so majestic and functional depicted in a videogame. The city is clearly designed for parkour, and you really feel it. This is the only open world game where I actually don't use the fast travel very much. It's so fun to traverse the environment that when the next mission is on the other side of the map right next to a fast travel point, I'd rather just run there. It's impressive that DICE was able to achieve this when moving from to the next waypoint is usually quite boring... *cough*The Division*cough*
Now on to what there is to do in this open world. I'll admit I was worried that this game would suffer from open world syndrome, but I'm glad i was proven wrong. It's not just another open world filled with forgettable side missions, it seems ME:C has taken the quality over quantity approach with most of the open world. There's not that many actual side missions, which means each one is unique and important. Since these side missions are nice ways to explore additional landmarks and learn more about the characters and their motivations, they often seemed as important as the main story missions.
Even though I said I don't use fast travel, I did enjoy unlocking them. To unlock fast travel for one or two districts you have to sync up with a gridlink node. These massive datacenters offered unique traversal puzzles with security lasers and shifting platforms that were fun and challenging to get through. Again this game takes the quality over quantity approach, only having 3 or 4 gridlink nodes so each one feels unique. Since there's not many side missions or gridlinks, the majority of sustenance comes from the vast array of deliveries and dashes all over the city. These are quite challenging and still manage to avoid feeling completely repetitive. Each NPC has their own little personality, and they tell a story while you're delivering their package. The insight into the lives of ordinary people makes each run somewhat interesting, and let's not forget that quirky AI voice that seems to be contemplating it's own existence...
I need another quick paragraph to describe a unique experience I had with the open world. After I completed the story, I spent almost an hour just freerunning around a beautiful district called "The View" at NIGHT. I was in a trance. Just running through all the fancy furnished apartments, the brilliantly lit fountains and gardens, and seeing the vibrant skylines all stimulated by a lovely dynamic soundtrack. A great example of how amazing the art team is at DICE. Definitely try this out if you have the game.
The Verdict
I'll start with the cons since there isn't that many.
-Not quite enough enemy diversity
-Finishing moves didn't trigger enough, I only got about 3 or 4 throughout my entire playthrough
-That annoying Allcom chip removal animation, the only truly unavoidable repetitive animation in the game
-Constant K-sec alerts interrupting me in the open world.
The Pros
-Beautiful graphics and animations
-Great optimization
-Immersive sound design
-Fast fluid gameplay
-Awesome Dynamic soundtrack
-Easy to replay any missions
-Good narrative
-Unique gameplay in story missions
-Great combat system that promotes skill
-Best looking open world I've ever seen
-Extremely well put together open world
-Meaningful side missions
-Cool parkour puzzles
-Interesting NPCs
-Rich backstory
-Grappling hook
-Well it all comes together and you're in the zone with the music and the parkour
My score: 9.5/10
You can tell DICE put a lot of passion into making this game. It's a truly unique experience that combines fun gameplay with art in a believable, yet surreal setting.
DICE you did an amazing job with this one, IGNore those bad reviews and push EA to let you make a sequel. That's something I would really like to see.
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Comments
I knew something was strange about how the reviews were coming out during release because I really did believe in this game, and it still paid off. I just kinda love how the ones that really care the most have the more optimistic mindset and I suppose... Faith. Well at least that's one of the many ways to put it. The way in which people's opinions about this game have spread over the internet is unlike any other titles I have seen before, which is... amusing and a little daunting. Regardless, I can expect if people like us voice our opinions with the content that we have, these larger and horrendously negative reviews can easily be a thing of the past.
I know I'll be sticking around.
I would say I don't think the optimization is quit there. I'm comparing to Battlefront, and I feel like Battlefront runs better, and doesn't have some of the odd low-fi elements some of us are experiencing with MEC.
Battlefront was really well optimized, but I think they had to tone things down a little more to get this game running smoothly without loading screens. You can run through the entire city which has to be rendering on the fly, yet it still looks good and is at 60 FPS. That's impressive, especially with the PS4's CPU based rendering.
unfortunately one of those with this issue. Every pre-rendered cutscene lags so much i cant get what is happening in any of them and the sound stutters to much to be understandable. Not a problem with my PC. I'm inside the range of specs you need to play. And the cutscenes are pre-rendered video files which means the devs messed up the codex or something. And people with even better computers than me lags with the same amount of lag in these.
The game itself runs like a dream when not in a cutscene (stalled my gameplay until these are fixed). Playing nicely on Ultra settings without any lag or stuttering. And the city looks amazing. I will admit i like this allot more than the first game. My gameplay is just stalled for now until dice can get their **** up to release a fix for all of us with this annoyingly issue.
4/10 releasing a broken game with a gamebreaking issue for those interested in the story...
While the story missions are good, the story itself is very poor on a technical level – missing content, undeveloped characters, etc. Not ‘solid’ by any means. As for the open world, it worked well with the game’s design and the visuals were quite beautiful at times, but some of the textures and shading/lighting issues were awful, and a huge detractor from the experience. Side missions were okay, I guess, but definitely repetitive. And the NPCs weren't all that great either. I also don’t think you can talk about rich backstory or meaningful side missions with games like The Witcher 3 or Skyrim on the market.
Don’t think I dislike the game; I love it. But I’d be blind not to call it flawed and a bit disappointing. I think its place is between a 6 and an 8 out of 10. While the gameplay might be a 9.5/10, when the story and quality/quantity of content are a 4/10, you can’t give it a free pass. As a AAA title, you have to compare it similar games on the market. I recognize that it was ambitious for DICE to make an open world game like this, and that we were lucky to have this sequel. However, that doesn’t excuse the games problems. I would still like to see a third Mirror’s Edge game though. Hopefully one where the developers are given all the time and resources they need to fully execute their vision. My overall rating for the game is 6.5/10.
I disagree. The reviews on the first Mirror's Edge game were around 8.0 range. This story and the characters are not any worse than the first game, and might be better. They certainly aren't bad enough to drop a 9.5 gameplay to a 6 or 7. I actually found the characters in this game to be more memorable overall than the first.
On the subject of holding AAA games accountable, I can think of half a dozen media hype AAA titles that ship with worse stories, worse characters, and even game breaking bugs, yet couldn't get a 6-7 if they tried. haha When I see critics stop giving those games free passes for the same things or worse, then I'm going to start worrying about docking major points for critiquing cutscene personalities in a title like Mirror's Edge that works, has fabulous game play mechanics, a great open world, and in general does what it's supposed to do very well.
And really what do you compare it to other than the first game? There really isn't anything. Maybe Infamous Second Son? I think this open world is better than Second Son. The story is just as good. The characters are just as good. There's actually more to do in Mirror's Edge Catalyst after you finish the story than in Second Son. Both have very fluid gameplay of their own style. Infamous Second Son has a 8.0 metacritic score which is honestly about where I would expect MEC should be or better given all the improvements over the first game.
If you read some reviews of the first game, it appears that DICE did a lot of the things critics said would make a better Mirror's Edge game.
I do however think the technical issues are a problem i received significant slowdown in one of the areas (the area with all the ocean on the bottom) The graphics are a bit disappointing, the trailer really made the graphics look better then it actually is (i play on Hyper graphical settings).
I personally feel like certain things should of been done better and added more variety such as more variety in move-set and also Progression. You can easily max out on Faith waaaaay before the story ends which is a disappointment.
Oh and I wish there was a hard mode or at-least a mode where they don't show you trails and disabled fast travel.
They kind of held my hand throughout the entire game compared to the original. I don't remember trails but only highlighted red objects.
Wish people would react to you more, it feels awkward when you're running by a glass window or hallway with people on the other side and they don't hear you or sense your presence.
The collectibles and the delivery missions become kind of pointless especially when you're maxed out.
Oh and the end seems a bit lackluster as it's just all cutscenes, I wish we could of at-least fought Kruger and Isabel.
Oh and it would be nice if once you beat the game all the collectibles show up on the map.
Aside from that however it was one super fun game, I really hope they'll make another game with better improvements.
I saw a setting in the game options that allowed you to do this to the runner vision. You could adjust the runner vision to be in a "classic" mode I think it's called. That will just highlight red objects like in the first game. Alternatively, you can turn the runner vision completely off.
I left it in default mode with the trails. I wanted to see where it would take me to get a first glimpse at whats in the area. But then I would often ignore it once I was familiar with where I was going. It doesn't give you necessarily the fastest route, and like a GPS in your car, if you ignore it then it will replan and suggest a new route for you. "Suggestion" is a good way to describe what the runner vision is.
interesting, I wish there was a mandatory mode because I don't believe in purposefully gimping yourself in games to make it harder.
Yeah I find this open world to be large and complex enough that it takes a long time to figure out what is where. I'm still not sure about what's in nearly half the map. So you really can get lost without the runner vision. Early in the game, I tried turning it off. I'd get turned around and then kept having to check my map every couple of rooftops to make sure I was going the right way haha
The story and fighting was more of a filler thing in the first game anyways, not that it´s bad in this game neither. Just enough to keep things interesting but main focus is on free running, as the hints section describes it also. There´s almost always a way to use Light Traversal Attack and move on, if fighting becomes boring;) And as with the first game I think same applies with this one- its so unique, so one either hates it or loves it. I love it.
There could be more advanced graphic settings but the game atm runs barely smooth on high end rig and hogs enough VRAM. For future PC builds there could be extra better settings but as it stands today the game looks good and especially the Ocean Pier looks amazing. Climbing some cranes in night time is breath taking also. While standing still wall textures look blend ofc but the games main objective is to run in runners vision and gaze at the distance, all silky smooth. I find it being a matter of optimisation.
The sound score is nice chill beat in background as with the first game, similar but not copy paste. Was afraid they will mess this up really hard style. Instead they managed to grasp the feeling from the first game. Really well done!
I also find the open world being justified for the first time in games. At first its good way to navigate the city with a help of friends- being it fellow runner marks or GPS. Later when the city starts to make sense one can always turn Runners Vision off and discover the city on his own. And the scratch marks on walls etc are only on the most commonly used ways, haven´t been able to finish runs, especially Diversion Runs following the suggested route. So I don´t see the hand holding problem here... The idea that I can free run from one part to other is worth in its own and the city is big enough.
I´ve not yet finished it but already have 15h gaming hours gathered, I try to make couple of runs, side missions and then advance with the story with better equipment and more skillfully. Will need skillz in Grid missions, really fun to make a way to the top of towering servers.
Wanted to point a few things out briefly but oh well, a good game needs a lot of appraisal.
Long story short, I really like this game and am glad they only took the first game and improved on it without making any unnecessary adjustments to the game (play) (like some other sequels have been doing.)
Well I'm glad someone at DICE read my review! Even if most of the reviewers aren't getting it, you can see from this thread and others like it that we do appreciate all your hard work. You did a great job, and you should keep it up! I'll gladly buy DLC, and eventually (hopefully) a sequel to this great game.
This...this...this...so much of this....All we have are "professional gaming critics" who seat on their a$$ and complain when an enemy can't be beaten with a gun or grenade. "Whaaaaaaa....whaaaaaa...I can't fight these enemies, the game is bad whaaaaaa"...Is like everyone said, "hey, let's complain about the combat cause we all suck major d1cks." The combat on ME:C is fine, it could be better, but is fine if you are player who actually learns the game and isn't rushing to post a mediocre review.
"The lines delivered in this game are clearly not written to be very compelling or powerful, but I find them to be more like what normal people would actually say in every-day conversation."
Every is so effing fed up with Joel and his "you're trending on some mighty thin ice here" that all of the sudden a simple "bring him back" is bad writing..".whaaaaaaaaaaa....these characters don't say profound and deep provoking things" whaaaaaaaaaaaa." Why can't a character just say a few things to get his or her point across, not everyone needs a whole speech.
"Finishing moves didn't trigger enough, I only got about 3 or 4 throughout my entire playthrough"
Hey..yeah...hmmmm I only saw like 3 of those and I liked them all.
Anyways DICE, I don't really buy that many games, but for a FUN and GREAT game like ME:C, I will surely spend the coin. If you wanna do some DLC go ahead I'll get it.
Also, if you guys think about another game, then make an official thread for ideas...I'll gladly tell you everything I wrote down.