Gravity Rush 2 Catch-All

Well, the reviews are in and positive, so I'll be getting this game when it releases January 18. It's a little strange it's releasing on a Wednesday. I loved the original game on Vita, so I imagine this updated and improved sequel will be great.

There may not be a lot of discussion, but I'm sure I'll have some things to say and don't want to clog up the PS4 thread.

I'm looking forward to impressions.

Wait, releases on the 18th? For some reason I was sure it was releasing on the 20th. Huh.

Reconsidering my plan to have it delivered to my parents' house via Amazon.

This should probably go here. I think it was posted in the video thread, but I didn't watch it until today. So cool!

The prequel anime shorts are good:

Really looking forward to the game later this week. I hope it has a photo mode.

I have admit that the first game wasn't super great, and this second entry doesn't look like it's solved most of the problems of its predecessor... and yet, I just can't help being enamored with the series for the confidence it has in its art style and music. Count me in for another Gravity Rush!

If a game is ambitious enough I'll forgive its clunk.

I'll still acknowledge that clunk, but sometimes an ambitious vision and experience can transcend common problems.

I know a lot of people are looking at both this and Nier Automata, so I thought I'd post this fan art from one of my favorite artists.

IMAGE(http://i2.pixiv.net/img-original/img/2017/01/17/03/41/10/60976717_p0.jpg)

She has a lot of fan art from both games on her site.

Weird. The release time on the store changed to Thursday at midnight Eastern time which is when you would have thought it was gonna get released. Somebody must have screwed up the release date on the PS Store initially because the 18th was a weird day.

If you preordered, be sure to manually start the preload by going into you library of purchased items.

Due to my apartment's new locks on building doors, I can't get shipments. I'm going to my family's this weekend, and so was having this shipped to their house...until Amazon just told me the arrival date was the 24th.

I'll either pay the extra to snag this digitally or I'll just grab it at BestBuy with my gamer's club discount.

I just finished Gravity Rush Remastered, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm so happy to roll right into the sequel.

I played through about 3/4 of the original on Vita about a year ago, but I'm just gonna catch up on the story via reading/Youtube. Didn't play the remaster, so I'm really excited for my first taste of Kat on a big console!

Played the first couple hours, and it's great! It's beautiful and all the mechanics and characters are very fun. The starting areas are a bit drab, so I'm looking forward to getting to some more vibrant and colorful locations.

I also played an hour or so tonight. The opening parts are very hand-holdy, but it's starting to open up. Coming directly from Gravity Rush Remastered, the controls are much better. The status field power which lets you throw objects is greatly improved from the original. I'm pretty happy so far.

Yeah, I was ready to throw the status field power option out the window, but it really feels like an extra gun vs an alternate gun now which is great.

I enjoyed the last one we'll enough, and I'll probably get this one at some point. Probably not till next week at earliest, though.

IMAGE(http://pre06.deviantart.net/7cc8/th/pre/f/2017/019/1/2/kat_raven_selfie___insta_by_koyorin-daw1uhn.jpg)

Starting to take screenshots now. There is also a photo mode which lets you take instagram-style photos. It's even implements that feature as a Souls game style hint system for treasure chests which is very cool.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/yjgWX13.png)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/D9k6Vf1.jpg)

Only got to play through Chapter One tonight but I'm having a good time. Was certainly the highlight of my night. It's still clunky but now that I have the full game, yeah, there's a lot of improvements over Remastered, even.

I ran into a side mission that I thought was interesting given Japan and the anime and games industry. You run into the typical old pervy guy who asks you to get 5 pictures of beautiful women in order to save his health. *groan* You then try and find five different types of women to take pictures of and have to use yourself as the fifth picture because you can't find enough women in the area, so I took these photos. There's a wide range of body types, races, and clothing styles which I thought was really nice and positive. Turns out, the old perv likes all of them except the selfie you take.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/0Hp135b.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/sLjoIT0.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/KkGKovX.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/AJrinzw.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/OQgwVHF.jpg)

I think it's worth spoiling that mission to show this positive side of the game. It may not be perfect, but I think they were trying to be inclusive and positive, so I think it's a net positive for gaming.

The positive interpretation is a nice one, but honestly the biggest reason they likely did it was the superficial punchline that there's something about Kat that makes her less attractive to the old perv. Even in the first game that sort of thing is a running joke, but it's one as old as Sailor Moon.

I think the author's intent is still negative, but depending on what critical theory you subscribe to it can be argued that the author's intentions don't matter so much as how the end product is received and interpreted.

ccesarano wrote:

The positive interpretation is a nice one, but honestly the biggest reason they likely did it was the superficial punchline that there's something about Kat that makes her less attractive to the old perv. Even in the first game that sort of thing is a running joke, but it's one as old as Sailor Moon.

I think the author's intent is still negative, but depending on what critical theory you subscribe to it can be argued that the author's intentions don't matter so much as how the end product is received and interpreted.

Yeah, like I said, I think it's a net positive, but it's not hard to get better than things like Dead or Alive.

It took me about 2.5 hours to get to Chapter 2, which opens up a huge town that is much more colorful than most of the opening areas. The online stuff kicks in which involves uploading pictures, finding treasure based on a pictures and sending challenges. I sent one to tuffalobuffalo and ccesarano. It's no big accomplishment, but I wanted to try it out.

Yeah, I played a bunch more today. I dig the treasure hunts. I did get one particularly frustrating side mission that I just quit out of. I figure I'll have more powers that'll make it easier eventually. It's essentially an escort mission in terms of frustration.

I found out something really cool about the game just now. They have these "photo collections" that give you photo shots to hunt down. Right now I just have 10 men's portraits and 10 women's portraits to hunt down but there are at least 4 other collections from what I can tell. They give you a vague description like "A woman in a white one-piece in front of the Tritower hotel". While it tells you it's in the marketplace, that's a big area, and I have no idea where the Tritower hotel is, so it turns everything into a Where's Waldo hunt which I really enjoy. It encourages you to explore and really get a feel for the world rather than heading from checkpoint to checkpoint. Up until this point, I've just been rushing from checkpoint to checkpoint and haven't really stopped to look at all the detail in the environment and the characters.

The only one I found so far is a student by the swingsets in the park. After finding the park, it took me around 10 minutes of exploring before I found the swingsets. I then had to leave and come back before a student showed up at the swingsets. After taking the photo and saving it to the collection, it says something about the person: "Leaving Youth Behind - She enjoys getting a few swings in after classes".

Anyways, that little bit about the game surprised me. I'm REALLY looking forward to figuring out and hunting down all these photos!

They definitely threw a lot of detail in regarding the people and the environments. I took a photo of it, though I wasn't expecting to initially, of scaring a Juggler into dropping his pins. I just wanted to imitate an expression of awe on Kat's face as she watched, and instead I got a pretty good photo of startling the Juggler. You can do the same to people holding balloons and watch them sailing through the air.

Just an unexpected bit of charm.

Finally played the demo, and I loved it. I'll definitely get the game at some point this year .

I thought talismans would be an equip and forget item, but they may be more complicated than that. The talismans usually offer upgrades to abilities, but I have found one that makes a big change to one of your abilities. "Auto Status" automatically pulls items into a Status Field, and it works all the time. It causes havoc when going around town, but I imagine it would be useful to equip in a fight.

Aristophan wrote:

I thought talismans would be an equip and forget item, but they may be more complicated than that. The talismans usually offer upgrades to abilities, but I have found one that makes a big change to one of your abilities. "Auto Status" automatically pulls items into a Status Field, and it works all the time. It causes havoc when going around town, but I imagine it would be useful to equip in a fight.

Yeah, I unequipped that one right away. It made me feel like a bad person. As you say, it'll probably be useful for fights and particularly the challenges.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

I thought talismans would be an equip and forget item, but they may be more complicated than that. The talismans usually offer upgrades to abilities, but I have found one that makes a big change to one of your abilities. "Auto Status" automatically pulls items into a Status Field, and it works all the time. It causes havoc when going around town, but I imagine it would be useful to equip in a fight.

Yeah, I unequipped that one right away. It made me feel like a bad person. As you say, it'll probably be useful for fights and particularly the challenges.

My latest mission attacking a ton of soldiers was a LOT of fun with that power. The final enemy went down real quick.

And here's the photo where I realized you could scare performers and balloon holders into dropping their gear.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3N3U_aXUAEVUvY.jpg)

Ha!