Don't Call it a Review: Gravity Rush (Vita)

I expected to enjoy this game. Every piece of media about it I seen only reinforced the idea. I did not, however, expect to enjoy it so much. This is an amazing game, you guys. I'm only about halfway  done with the game, but I'm ready to state that it is a serious Game of the Year contender for me.

Vary rarely these days do you find something that feels truly new. The main mechanic of this game, gravity shifting, now feels to me like an essential for any game. At any point, you can press a button and float. Press another button, and you fly in the direction you're pointing. Land on any surface, and that surface becomes your "ground", with the entire world shifting to make it so.  Fuck all those games that make you walk on the ground now. I'm done with that forever.

Look at this shit. I just improved one of the greatest games of all time.

And now GTA is 100x better. Don't worry Rockstar, that one's on me.

What game wouldn't this improve? None, that's what game.

 Story wise, you play the role of Kat, who begins the game with no memory. She finds a cat, Dusty, that for some reason gives her gravity powers. There's like a rival gravity shifter, and me meets God or some shit. I don't exactly understand it all yet. I'm only halfway through, man.

This is Kat, seen here clearly having no memory.

Structurally, I was surprised to find out this was an open world game. From the screenshots, I was under the impression this was a typical level based affair. But nope, you've got multiple districts of the floating city of Heksville to fly all over. Other than the main story missions, there's a handful of challenge missions scattered about the city that test your use of gravity powers. But other than that, there's not much to do in the open world, which feels like a bit off a missed opportunity.  Though just exploring every nook and cranny of the detailed and labyrinthine city is fun in itself, and scattered on the floors, ceilings, and walls of the environment are crystals to upgrade your abilities, so there's always a reason to just fly around.

The graphics are a wonderful mix of realism and stylistic cel-shaded whimsy. The cutscenes in between missions are awesome comic book style slideshows, and you can move the Vita around for an awesome pseudo 3D effect, with the characters, backgrounds, and word bubbles on different layers. 

This game makes even pictures fucking awesome.

The music is also universally great, though sometimes it loops too frequently while you're just flying around. 

All in all, this game is amazing so far. It's from the creator of the Silent Hill series, and it's such a departure from that, and from gaming in general. It's so refreshing to see games like this still being made. If there's any argument for the necessity of the Vita, this is it.

 I'm going to go play it right now.