Gravity Rush: Remastered doesn’t do much about the original game’s shortcomings

When Gravity Rush came to the Vita, it was a flawed but promising action game with an endearing and likable protagonist at its center.

However, from my time within the remastered version of Sony Japan’s gravity-manipulating quasi open-world, I was left with a fear that the jump to a bigger screen with a higher framerate may have only magnified some of the problems that held the original game back three years ago.

Gravity Rush is about bending the laws of gravity to propel yourself across large areas, and this is, kind of by design, a little disorienting. Navigating through Gravity Rush’s world can be a fairly confusing and it’s not helped by the fact that the camera can have a mind of its own when Kat is “falling” to the opposite end of the map.

This is all the more pronounced during combat, when Kat has to utilize her gravity powers to launch herself feet-first into an enemy. Kat’s standard attacks aren’t nearly as effective as locking onto an enemy and using some momentum gained from falling to deal more damage, but the precision that players have to have isn’t something that Gravity Rush really lends itself to, which can make fights incredibly frustrating and time-consuming.

But these are all problems that Gravity Rush had on the Vita in 2012. On PlayStation 4, the higher framerate at 60fps can even add to the perplexity, as it’s now easier to overcompensate camera movements to keep an eye on Kat and where she’s going as she falls.

Gravity Rush still feels like a solid game, and the remaster will bring it to a larger audience, but I’m hoping that when it finally comes to PlayStation 4 on February 2nd, I’ll see something that prioritizes improvement instead of merely preserving something with flaws that shouldn’t be left unchecked.

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