Gravity Rush 2 review for PS4

On some level, as a diehard Vita fanatic, it kind of hurts that we’ll never get to see Gravity Rush again on the handheld. Even now, years after the system’s launch and the game’s release, it still stands as one of the top titles — not because of any lack of competition, but because it’s just that darn good. It made use of the Vita’s many features in a natural, intuitive way, and it gave a system a little lacking in unique experiences one that showed everything the little handheld could do. It would’ve been amazing to play Gravity Rush 2 (and 3, and 4, and 5…) on there.

Of course, now that I’ve played Gravity Rush 2, I can see why there’s no way the game would’ve worked anywhere other than PS4.

For one thing, it’s gorgeous. It takes a little while for the game to open up and show everything it has to offer — which, I’ll note up front, is a bit of a running theme with Gravity Rush 2 — but once it does, it’s a visual feast. The colours are vibrant, the environments are lively, and everything just looks amazing. It takes the original’s comic book style and makes it into a living, breathing world. I don’t want to take too much away from the first Gravity Rush, but once you get beyond the first few fog-filled stages and into Gravity Rush 2’s proper setting, you don’t have to look too hard to see the improvements.

The same goes for the way main character Kat moves. The first game took the “gravity” part of its title pretty literally; it generally seemed like you were falling through space no matter which way you were jumping. Here, by contrast, when Kat takes flight, it really feels like she’s soaring. At its worst, when she’s tumbling through the air, it feels on par with any other game where characters can fly. And at its best…let’s just say that if anyone ever gets around to making a proper Superman game, they should just steal what Gravity Rush 2 does. Kat soars and swoops and dives and generally moves in a way that just wouldn’t have been possible on a handheld (or anywhere else, really).

Flying is undoubtedly made more fun by the fact that you have a pretty cool open world to explore. Again, the first few chapters are spent in a foggy world that consists of a few floating sky boats and some rocks. It feels like a significantly lesser version of the first game’s city of Hekseville. Then the story takes you to the actual setting, and you’re introduced to a literally whole new world of possibilities.

Really, that’s the overarching theme of Gravity Rush 2: it takes what made the first game intriguing, it builds on the proof of concept that was Gravity Rush Remastered, and it shows what Kat and co. are really capable of doing. It may start out a little slowly, but once it hits its stride, it quickly becomes apparent that the sky’s both the literal and figurative limit as to what this game can accomplish.