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Just finished Mirror's Edge Catalayst...

SmoothBrain

SmoothBrain

Member
And I almost broke the CD in half to eat the fucking shards. The last two main missions are so fucking bad. Holy shit, there are no words to express my anger. I only paid 10€ and still feel ripped off.

I probably saw more loading screens than I played the game, thanks to the fucking bugs. This is easily one of the worst implantation of wall runs. "Hey, you need to jump against this wall to do a wall run aaaaand you just fell down. Sad!" Also, "hang here right on this edge and try to pull yourself up. Oh, seems like you have a sudden case of spagetti arms and can't do that! Time to let go and do it all again LOL". I think I kind of get the art direction, but the excessive use of glass made it really tough to find a route without runner Vision.

What a fucking turd of a game. Great story, especially that ending. Unexpected. Hope they can wrap it up in the next game.

The parkour was better than Assassins Creed (although I didn't play the recent one), where I got stuck on all kinds of tables.

Sorry for the rant. Just had to vent it. On mobile. Did anyone else suffer through this?
 
Bashtee said:
And I almost broke the CD in half to eat the fucking shards. The last two main missions are so fucking bad. Holy shit, there are no words to express my anger. I only paid 10€ and still feel ripped off.

I probably saw more loading screens than I played the game, thanks to the fucking bugs. This is easily one of the worst implantation of wall runs. "Hey, you need to jump against this wall to do a wall run aaaaand you just fell down. Sad!" Also, "hang here right on this edge and try to pull yourself up. Oh, seems like you have a sudden case of spagetti arms and can't do that! Time to let go and do it all again LOL". I think I kind of get the art direction, but the excessive use of glass made it really tough to find a route without runner Vision.

What a fucking turd of a game. Great story, especially that ending. Unexpected. Hope they can wrap it up in the next game.

The parkour was better than Assassins Creed (although I didn't play the recent one), where I got stuck on all kinds of tables.

Sorry for the rant. Just had to vent it. On mobile. Did anyone else suffer through this?
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I don't think we're getting one OP
 
My main frustrations were with the level design. In the first, the levels were built for a person to fully flow between jumps and running. There were moments in the original that slowed you down a bit but that was mainly a quiet area in which you're trying to figure out a parkour puzzle and where to go next. In this one, there are sometimes ledges and landings where your character just barely makes it or overjumps it, thus killing momentum for a bit. This happened to me quite a bit in this game compared to the first. The level design did not feel as tight. Also the Spider-Man-style cord could have been better and less contextual.

They dropped the ball with Catalyst. If you mess up level/map design, the rest of this game falls apart like dominoes because that is the crux of what makes it work.
 
Alpha Phoenix said:
I finished it and got 100% world completion and all, but I still wish they had never gone the open world route.
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Same here. I really liked the first one, but the way they implemented the open world design in this one kinda went against the things that made original appealing.

I'm still glad I bought it and played through it though because at the end of the day, it's still Mirror's Edge. More Mirror's Edge than I ever expected to get after the first tbh.
 
I couldn't even get halfway through it. Everything was so bland and boring. Another victim of companies making everything open world. :/
 
I thought it was...Fine?

Like I enjoyed it enough to play through all of it. The mechanics that made the first mirrors edge fun are still there. It's just a shame the combat sucks and that the open world doesn't really add anything to the gameplay.

I honestly didn't think it was nearly as bad as people made it out to be, but I also think a sequel to ME should have been better.
 
Game is so forgettable, I beat it like 3 or 4 months ago and have no idea what the OP is on about. My biggest gripe is the melee combat system and HOW MUCH of it there was, what a fucking disaster. Did they think that was better than the guns and avoidable combat of the first game? Because it really, really, REALLY isn't.
 
Alpha Phoenix said:
I finished it and got 100% world completion and all, but I still wish they had never gone the open world route.
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Same here. I ended up enjoying it using it as a podcast game and just running around the world, but I wish they would have scrapped that whole idea
 
I also got it cheap, played through about half-way until the open-world tedium drowned out my enjoyment of the story. Also the hand-to-hand combat is laughably bad.

Sad to see a franchise die like this, but hopefully someone, someday will make an attempt at quality first-person parkour again.
 
I will say, as much as people complained about the animated cutscenes from the first game, I honestly would have taken them over the uncanny valley cutscenes with poor facial animation that the second one had.

Some of those just looked weird.
 
Weirdly, I don't remember that issue on the last 2 missions. Maybe the PC version was less buggy? I also REALLY loved the environments in the last two missions. There were some drop-dead gorgeous areas.
 
I'm not even halfway through the game and I'm already fed up with it. Some missions have decent level design but it's all bogged down by inane filler content.

It really feels like the devs didn't understand what made the first game so good.
 
The last two or three missions killed the game for me. Garbage ending and the story went nowhere ...

Just running around the city was really cool, though.
 
Also, the story reboot was just unnecessary. They threw out the story of the first game... for this? I mean the first game was nothing amazing but this story is just terrible and doesn't do anything. It's not improved by being a reboot. At least if they made it a sequel they could have developed what they already had. It's just such a pointless decision that had no reason to be made. Literally fixing what wasn't broken.
 
I keep forgetting it exists and that I actually played it until I see a new thread about it every couple months.

If that doesn't tell you right there, I didn't much care for it.
 
Yup. Game had its moments, but mannn I really wish they didnt go open world and just focuses on crafting levels like the first game.
 
Blizzard said:
Weirdly, I don't remember that issue on the last 2 missions. Maybe the PC version was less buggy? I also REALLY loved the environments in the last two missions. There were some drop-dead gorgeous areas.
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Completed it on the PS4 here and loved it, though the melee combat was undercooked. Had no problem with the final missions either.

I'm down for another one easily, and I enjoyed the open world for challenges, free roaming, exploration and chases as a nice extra. Didn't end up sitting down to put up my GOTY votes for 2016 but ME2 would have been on it.

Different strokes I guess.
 
The game wasn't that terrible but the open world really hurt the game. The first game was good because it was linear and was short enough to not wear out its welcome. This game added bloat and copy/paste missions just to tick the open world feature checkbox.
 
Catalyst's Shard is a big step down from the first game's final level, because you spend half the time just Magroping straight up instead of actually climbing it yourself. And at the end of ME1 you swing-kick a motherfucker out of a helicopter; in Catalyst you... watch Faith fight the two final bosses in cutscenes. I was legitimately stunned by that. The game has a perfectly competent combat system, it's been hyping up Kat's fighting skills all along, and then when it's finally time to fight her it's just a cutscene. Unbelievable.

I Platinumed both Mirror's Edge games, and I think they both have their strengths and flaws, but Catalyst has some really boneheaded ideas in there that just spoil it. The melee combat is actually pretty cool, but they spoil it by locking all the useful moves away behind the now-ubiquitous XP gates and skill trees that all modern games are required to have. They force you into fights before you'll have actually bought the upgrades you need to make figthting enjoyable, which only serves to frustrate people.

Catalyst has so many excellent improvements over the first game, like double wallruns, the Shift mechanic, and the brilliant Focus Shield that makes you bulletproof as long as you're running smoothly. It has some fantastically designed levels, some great races, and the new combat abilities (like being able to attack guys without having to slow down) are what I always wanted after playing the first game. Unfortunately, it's also a big dumb open world filled with content bloat, for seemingly no other reason than "Well, that's what AAA video games are these days".

If they ever make a third game, I hope they'll combine the best elements of both 1 and Catalyst, because I think there's a genuine masterpiece to be made.
 
Mirrors Edge was one of my favorite games last gen but I only managed to play Catalyst for an hour before selling it. It's unbelievable simplified, unnecessarily large and incredibly boring.
 
The problem is not the open world per se. The city is cool and it feels nice running around collecting things & exploring.

The biggest problem comes from how weak the story missions are. You would hope they'd add more complexity, good level design...NOPE. They're worse than anything from the first game.

The second biggest issue is that while the game at heart is a collectathon, there's barely any reward for collecting stuff. You almost unlock everything just by solely doing the story missions.

Other problems are forgivable. Combat sucks balls, but there's very little actually so it's not THAT bothersome. Story and world building suck as well (second chance they had at creating a nice Dystopia and they blew it up again) but they sucked too on the first game.

On the plus side, graphically it's really impressive, at least on PC at Hyper settings I think the graphical quality is bonkers.
 
dragonflys545 said:
I remember people were so hyped when it was announced.
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So many fans were concerned that EA might screw it up and meddle.

... I hated being right.

Still not a bad game, but it missed the point of the original.

Mirror's Edge 1 style level design with Catalyst's art and presentation would be a godly combo.

But I'm not sure EA is aware they themselves hobbled its potential...
 
It was worse than the first one but it was still better than most other games that have come out since the first one's release IMO simply due to the fact that it's got more or less the same incredible movement and control system. That being said, I'll agree that the last level was pretty terrible in terms of level design. The level design in general was quite a bit weaker than it was in the original.
 
Great game, though that last mission is underwhelming (but I don't remember encountering any bugs playing it). I beat it on PS4, collected all the GridLeaks, three starred all the Dashes, and picked up every recording and blueprints. I've been going through it on Xbox One the last couple days (thanks EA Access!). Movement is so smooth, even smoother than the first game, with fewer instances of "I swear I grabbed the pipe, why did I fall?!?"

The combat system is well designed, but enemies are too often plopped in places where you don't have any walls to use for the damage buff you get from running on them. Taking on enemies while traversing the world is sublime, but the world and the enemies are rarely laid out in a way to allow you to do that. Like the first game, there are not nearly as many forced combat sections as you'll think on first blush.

The story is... there. It's not great, it's not awful. Nothing really hits as hard as it should. The big twist, in particular, is telegraphed before it comes up and then just plops out. Even with the game tipping its hand a little too easily, it could have worked if we saw a bigger effect on Faith. Instead, it's blurted out while you're running. The game just rushes between big moments with characters without building them up first. They're all interesting in concept, but only Plastic is really interesting in practice. The voice acting and cutscene animation was great which helped the story from cratering. The central strand of the story of the first game, Faith working to free her sister and clear her name, was a breath of fresh air, surrounded by dystopian gobbledygook as it was.

After all my time with the beta and then the final game, I had a large portion of the world essentially memorized. Running through it was an absolute joy. I almost never touched the fast travel. Finding my own optimized routes through the world was much more fun. The new areas are absolutely gorgeous; pure eye candy. And the open world allowed for immense freedom with the Dashes. Just a start and an end. You decide how you get from one to the other. And thanks to the open world, we have user created time trials.

The GridNodes were delightful. I wish there were more. I'd pay for more. The GridLeaks were fun. Large enough to be found easily, and with a great sound effect for collecting them. The recordings were often interesting and fleshed out the world. The electronic chips were useless. The blueprints weren't much better. The bags had at least a small bit of puzzle solving to them. The Mag Rope worked so well it's hard for me to remember Mirror's Edge without it.

I hope for a third game, but I do not expect it.
 
Garlador said:
So many fans were concerned that EA might screw it up and meddle.

... I hated being right.

Still not a bad game, but it missed the point of the original.

Mirror's Edge 1 style level design with Catalyst's art and presentation would be a godly combo.

But I'm not sure EA is aware they themselves hobbled its potential...
Click to expand...

YEP. The open world and forced melee only hurt it more than it helped.
 
I feel you OP. I finished the game 2 days ago myself and agree with most of what you say.

For a game that has a VERY high chance of dying, the load times are very long. The game could have used a convenience feature (optional so as not to hurt the 'purists') for rewinding like how the Forza or Prince of Persia games do.

The second to last mission where you have to jump on some circular platforms to activate transit trains was absolutely bat-shit TERRIBLE. You have to do a lot of run + quick turn + jumps, however even at a perfect straight launch, I was jumping WAY off the mark leading to frequent deaths. Thankfully, I didn't have a lot of issues with the final mission which I was dreading.

The story is terrible, they didn't resolve the main arc with
faith's sister
, the game has absolutely horrendous texture streaming (PS4, probably resolved via Boost, but the game isn't worth waiting that long). Bought it for $9.99 during a recent best buy sale, selling it off for $8.99 tomorrow at GS. No regerts.

The game is a very hard 3.5/10 for me.
 
Jawmuncher said:
I don't think we're getting one OP
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Harmen said:
Not happening.
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plasmawave said:
Great story? lol
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Should've added a /s. I mean, the first missions were okay and the break-in at KrugerSec was interesting, but then... nothing. Not even mentioning the ending. It's mind-boggling how they dropped the ball there. Seems like they had to wrap it up and that's what they did.

Alpha Phoenix said:
I finished it and got 100% world completion and all, but I still wish they had never gone the open world route.
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MCD250 said:
Same here.
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boredandlazy said:
I liked it. I liked the first one better though.
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Fantastapotamus said:
Same here.
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Monsters! LUNATICS! How can you people sleep at night?!

chandoog said:
The second to last mission where you have to jump on some circular platforms to activate transit trains was absolutely bat-shit TERRIBLE.
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Oh fuck yes. I didn't have that much problems with the controls, but all of a sudden I was jumping too far, not far enough, not high enough, high enough and sliding over it, against one of those pillars, doing a jump from one of the pipes instead of standing on it and so on.

Game was really boring up until this part and most of the bugs were "eh, let's try that again", but that mission was driving me insane, wanting me to throw the fucking controller into the screen.

I was really hyped for it back then, but the mediocre reviews made me wait. I'm glad I did. All in all, it's just another EA game.
 
I don't want to say I fucking hated Catalyst, and I don't think I did, but man. Maaan. Maaaaaaaaan.

Thing is, I really like the feel of motion and control over Faith. For most part the game does feel good to play. I also think the open world idea is neat in theory for the kind of game systems Mirror's Edge offers (even if I appreciate the love for more confined missions). But maaaaaaan.

Catalyst is probably the big 2016 game where outside of the game I'd think to myself "Oh it feels good to play, and it looks pretty nice, I should get back into it!", and then the moment I'd boot it up I'd be instantly bored and disinterested in absolutely everything.

Dull narrative and cast. Dull mission arcs and climaxes. Dull objectives. Dull level layouts that rarely challenge or explore the core game systems in an interesting way. Unbearably dull and intrusive combat. Dull open world layout. Dull visual design with ludicrously excessive blur and post processing that muddies the IQ and makes fast movement look more disorientating than the original. Dull soundtrack.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a super dull game.
 
I got maybe a third of the way in before just giving up on it. Irredeemably bad for me. I absolutely adored the original but this game should never have been open world. And yeah, the game was a bug filled mess half the time
 
played it when it came out and finished it. what got me is that side quest were repeatable so they never vanished from the fucking map. Me no likey a cluttered map in open world games makes it feel like I've done nothing.
 
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