Mirror’s Edge was a complete surprise when I first saw the trailer for it back in 2008 or so. My imagination on the concept pictured it as a highly non-linear adventure, where you follow the bag as different Runners grab it. So you would play levels as different characters, crossing paths with characters you followed before and seeing glimpses of some interesting character lives. No one made game stories like that, to my knowledge (hell, even not a lot of movies attempted this). While I was wrong about that, I actually also had a game idea at the time, which was different overall, but one aspect of which was incredibly close to that of Runners and the movement in Mirror’s Edge, so I was excited to see someone attempt to implement that in a real game. And while it certainly wasn’t great due to numerous frustrating flaws, I loved it and still do, occasionally replaying it. And then a reboot was announced…
Now, let me preface the opinion with the fact, that to actually play the game I had to go through a lot of frustrating shit, because EA still doesn’t realise that it’s 2018, it’s the digital distribution era and everything is world wide. You see, Ukraine, in Origin, is shoehorned into the Russian region. Region, which is, along with other East European countries (like Poland), may have prices exactly the same as for the rest of the world, but get Russian language only, or Polish language only and crap like that, if you try to buy anything via Origin. Or even if you get it “On the house” (for free worldwide), you’re still locked into that “ghetto people language version”. Something that you cannot get around even via VPN, so you cannot pay money for the product you want. And even if I was interested in playing English-language games in the Russian localization, the issue is actually not as much with the language, as much with the fact that EA is incredibly cheap with these localizations having translations like “EA is proudly presentation game:” (If I were to translate it back to English), and rarely ever bothering to adapt the fonts of the game to Cyrillic, instead just switching it to Arial or some other basic font with incorrect size. Okay, special “fuck you, EA” paragraph can end now. (also fuck you, Ubisoft, for doing the same shit both on Uplay and on Steam)
On the surface level, it feels like Mirror’s Edge Catalyst wants to take what was great about the original game and keep it as is or, better yet, improve them. But also fix some of the broken ideas and expand on some of the things that were implied, but never shown. You can almost see the team compiling the list of complaints, suggestions and “what people liked” things for the first game and then going through it, and “solving” everything to make the reboot a “better game”. Oh, combat was frustrating people? We’ll make it better! People loved the city and wanted to explore it more? Let’s make an open world! People didn’t like how story was short and cutscenes crappy looking, let’s make a longer and more complex sounding story! And all of the above can be fine. But it lead to is a game that barely fixes anything and introduces a hell of a lot more issues.
Combat first. Original game had a fantastic idea: when you are forced to fight, you’re meant to do it on the go and use every mean available. So you’d run around some enemies, disarm others, grab their weapons and shoot a few other enemies, drop the gun and run away. Basically, what Superhot or Hotline Miami would do years later, but with more parkour. What didn’t work about the first game was that at times you were forced to fight, and it didn’t fit the flow of the game nor the fact that combat was clearly designed as a “last resort”, not something you’d actively want to partake. So, for some bizarre reason, Catalyst didn’t remove the forced fights and kept the already solid combat system and instead focused on having more forced fights except now with a rather competent first person combat system. Which work better, sure, but this is still a game about running, not fighting, so every time you’re forced to fight, it’s as annoying as it was in the original. Moreover, this time around you cannot use guns either, even though enemies still carry them and can shoot through walls. And lots of basic moves from the original games are now locked as “skills”, which for whatever reason even includes a quickturn and a soft landing roll. Because EA, I guess.
Okay then, so what about making the city of glass more alive and free to explore? The original game was all mission based, but all missions had open-ended routes and you could run the same course in slightly different ways. All of them usually felt right, natural, which also meant that every single mission had some really memorable set pieces, something that stays with you long after the game is done and makes you go “wow, that totally happened”. Could Catalyst keep all of that while also having the open world design? Maybe it could, but it sure doesn’t. Instead there are “optional missions”, “collectibles” (which make you go to a full stop when you collect them – fantastic fit for a game about running fast) and a bunch of other crap that just doesn’t work with the game at all. Because EA, I guess. Some of it could work, like the races, in which you can compete against other people’s leaderboard times… except a lot of the sections of the open world map can only be traversed in 1 or 2 ways, meaning that you end up using the same routes through most of the places. Which is “fixed” by a quick travel option, which basically means that you don’t have to explore this open world that was supposedly designed for exploring. Far more disappointingly main missions, which all take place in unique locations, rarely have memorable set pieces and far too often have sections where you might have to stop and go “okay, now where”, which rarely happened in the original title. Also this game has a bunch of tutorials at the start, which, if you happen to solve the requirement in a more efficient and cool way, fail your mission and require you to try again, but exactly as developers tell you.
And the story… Ugh. It’s a retelling of the original, with all the same problems, but many more characters, longer cutscenes, yet even less charm or good pace. It just kinda happens and then kinda ends with no solid story beats and amazing EA franchising gems like “to learn who the heck is this character, read the tie-in comic book!” Also, while the original was bland, at least it wasn’t frustrating. Catalyst, on the other hand, has some truly terribly written obnoxious characters, while also having some genuinely intriguing characters disappear almost immediately after being introduced. Can’t believe a simple story about the Runners who live in a dystopian city has been done so poorly a second time.
But it’s not all terrible. Soundtrack by Solar Fields is amazing, though a bit less memorable than the first one, probably just due to the whole open world nature. Game does look amazing, though I actually found it quite a bit more of a muddy sensory overload, whereas the original had a much cleaner, easy to read look. The basics of running are probably better then the original, since Faith now has less chance of just ignoring something she can hold on to (she still does that occasionally, though). And some new moves and interactions do improve the flow, while some (most of the grappling hook stuff) just slow it down.
At its best, this game hits the same levels of fun as the original Mirror’s Edge, where you run around the visually stunning places, surprising yourself with quick reactions and cool parkour moves. Yet all of the additions made on top of the basic mechanics lead to a far less enjoyable game. Instead of being improved, the original amazing concept got buried with unnecessary and pointless elements. And in the end, all that the game did was make me want to replay the original Mirror’s Edge yet again.