Gravity Rush Remastered

Gravity Rush would not be a typical game that my taste's would naturally gravitate to, but it has really opened my eyes to a new style of game play mechanics that for all intentional purposes, genuinely works.  Gravity Rush or as it is known in Japan, "Gravity Daze" is a game that is set in the floating city of Hekseville. The story begins with the player character, a girl called Kat ("Kitten" in Japan), who has lost her memory. She then runs into a mysterious black cat she names "Dusty" that gives her the power to control gravity. Kat uses this ability in order to protect people from the threat of a gravity storm and the Nevi monsters that have appeared along with it. At its core it is a feel good story of girl with an unfortunate case of amnesia with an untapped resource of power.

Kat's amnesia falls perfectly in line with the game's progression. To emphasise, Kat has the ability to manipulate gravity and during progression and upgrading, more tools and abilities are at our disposal. All of these abilities generally have one thing in common and that is altering gravity in some form, in order to aid and assist in the overall goal of bringing a broken city and its people back together. These abilities don't always just upgrade your abilities and efficiency in battle, they also aid in movement and telekinesis style abilities in order to help solve puzzles or find hidden objectives.


At first I must admit it took me a little while to get my head around the variations of the gravity control and general air movements but once the basics began to click, it all settled down and muscle memory took over and I was off and flying, literally. Having the power of flight at one's disposal may seem like it would make the rest of the game easier due to just being able to high tail out of difficult situations and or attack from above giving you an instant advantage, but with the implantation of a power gauge that slowly depletes with every action taken, an element of strategy is introduced. Once the power gauge is depleted Kat must return to a normal state of gravitational existence and regain energy in order to continue on in a physics bending manner.

Orbs known as precious gems are spattered around the environment and these turn out to be the primary currency in the game. You have two main choices with what to do with these gems and they are upgrading and restoring the main working parts of the broken city or upgrading your abilities. These said abilities range from upgrading health and the gravity gauge, to fighting abilities and special abilities and at every tier of upgrading it becomes more expensive so the urgency of going on a gem hunt becomes more prevalent at different stages of the overall game progression.

The narrative is delivered in a very Japanese manner consisting mainly of a manga or comic strip style presentation which ultimately works. All interactions between characters is in the form of text and when played in its entirety, it really demands a lot of time for reading and remembering certain details in some cases. Surprisingly this did not come across as a chore at all as I found myself quite enjoying most interactions between the various main characters in the game. Although a lot of the interactions in the game were in the moment and really led nowhere further than just in the moment. This being said, it never drew from the games over arcing story and never diluted it either, it just added life to the already pulsing environment.

For a setting that at first was filled with such depression and anguish, even with resentment shown towards the protagonist. The world became a more joyful and spirited place and this was captured perfectly by the accompanying soundtrack. Given the game is very Japanese from its foundations, the music had a very western feel and took a lot of inspiration that I feel is from the Jazz scene. Gravity Rush does not really consist of a vast colour palette in its presentation but alternatively heavily relying on lime greens, browns and purples. Without any attempt of trying to inflict a dull notion on this game, I genuinely feel that the minimalist presentation has really worked in its favour.


There have been a few developers that have attempted to bring their titles across from handhelds to the thriving population of current generation platforms but from my experience this has been by far the smoothest transition with the most polished finish. It really puts the master in remaster and is at this point in time, in my opinion, can be considered the benchmark of quality that a gamer deserves if they are to invest or reinvest.