So I just completed the story for this game, and then capped off my playthrough by finishing my remaining sidequests (the bigger, "proper" sidequests, not the extra activities littered throughout the map). Ultimately had Faith maxed out by the end, and playing on PS4.
I did appreciate the original game a ton for trying to be novel back in its day. I feel like I felt its influence in some other games since. And ultimately, I come away from Catalyst feeling like it's just as flawed as the original game.
That said, it's a bit disappointing. Clearly, a lot of effort was made to make this game a push forward for the franchise, but I think the open world design feels a bit flat, the story lacks hook and nuance, and the combat is, to me, actually worse than the first game.
Now I don't personally think taking Mirror's Edge and trying to expand it to open world is inherently bad, but the simple, abstract aesthetics don't mesh really well with it. I'd have liked to see a bit more grit and variety to make everything feel more lived-in in a natural way, personally, and I actually do feel like the original game did have more of that sort of element to its otherwise-similar aesthetic. Catalyst feels unfortunately really quite empty by comparison, even when you're going through strings of residences. Even though they're high-end residences, I still have a hard time believing that it's so clean and smooth everywhere. Perhaps it's due to image quality problems but I feel like there were multiple times in the game where I had a difficult time recognizing pathways due to the similar nature of many of the aesthetic elements, it all kind of just blurred together into a less-than-coherent (though not entirely incoherent) mass sometimes. To me, it felt like the more focused design in the missions felt like more entertaining dexterity puzzles than navigation recognition puzzles, and that's the sort of approach that I prefer in Mirror's Edge -- a test of keeping my momentum rather than recognizing where I need to be going at all. I think the first game sort of excelled at this, since it was a more focused level-based design, and part of my does still believe that this type of approach can even work in an open world setting, but as it stands, I feel like Catalyst drops the momentum far too often for navigational puzzle approach that I just find extremely unappealing compared to the moments of dexterity and speed.
That's exactly why I can't really stand the combat in either of the games, but I think Catalyst is actually worse. The original Mirror's Edge felt like it had systems that allowed the player to more deftly handle combat scenarios, and Catalyst feels like it tries to marry techniques for avoidance and momentum into the combat, but it largely feels underwhelming, momentum-killing, and lacks a sense of visual and tactile feedback that I would hope it to achieve if it is going to stop my running. Many light attacks still sort of enter into a semi-lock-on perspective, even some of the ones that are meant to maintain momentum, and the heavy attacks seem to stop things almost entirely. Combat feels like it magnetizes the player toward it, even when the player is trying to avoid a fight, and to me it comes across as a big nuisance.
If there ever is another Mirror's Edge game, and I kind of hope there is, I sort of want to see it handed off to another studio for a try. I was super excited when Catalyst was finally confirmed and revealed, and I bought into a lot of the marketing about how they intended to improve this one over the original, and there's clearly a lot of production effort visible when I do play the game, but it all still seems to fall a bit flat to me. Not outright bad, but not great, either. I enjoyed some moments immensely in this game, but I am left wondering if DICE is actually capable of fully realizing this series themselves. Even though I personally feel I'd be more interesting in seeing another studio take a crack at it, I don't necessarily think it'd be great for that next studio to reboot again. I didn't find the story particularly well written or intriguing this time around, but I feel like it did leave off in an interesting enough place that I don't mind seeing it continue.
