SPOILER WARNING: This essay will go into spoilers from both Mirror’s Edge and Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst. You have been warned.
In the realm of video games, the first person perspective genre is mostly associated with shooters, like Call of Duty or Battlefield.. But in 2008, EA company DICE, the company behind Battlefield, an aforementioned FPS developed a game which used the first person perspective, but was not a shooter and more of a platformer with more freedom of movement, such as sliding and wall crawling, inspired by parkour and no heads up display so you could see the character’s arms and legs. That game was Mirror’s Edge.
Written by Rhianna Pratchett, the daughter of famed novelist Terry Pratchett*, the game was set in a futuristic city where you play Faith Connors, a runner in dystopia where she has to save her sister from a corrupt system. When the game was released the reviews were mixed, but later gained a cult following.
In 2016 a reboot was released called Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst. This one didn’t have the original writer and was released to mixed reviews. I’ve recently played both games this year and I liked them. While I didn’t finish the first game** I still enjoyed it even if I did get frustrated on some segments and there areas that i felt uanessacry and I liked Catalyst fine, if for a few blemishes. But let’s go into detail.
Story
Now what’s a good game without a story (unless it’s a battle royal or an MMORPG).
Both games do share some plot elements, but have completely different stories. The main pitch is that the game is set in the fictional city of Glass, in the original it was a totalitarian government while in Catalyst it was more corporations. years before the events both games there was a massive riot dubbed “The November Riots”. It during these riots where the parents of Faith and Kate/Caitlyn Conners were killed. This sent both sisters to go into separate paths. Faith became a runner, a member of a resistance movement who send out messages across the city, whereas Kate went the opposite path in both the original and Catalyst, but under different pretences.
In the original Kate became a police officer, in contrast to Faith’s rebellious nature, while in Catalyst Caitlyn (name changed in this game), was left behind by Faith and taken in by Catalyst’s villain Gabriel Kruger as his adoptive daughter.
As mentioned previously the games have similar stories. There both mysteries. The original was a murder mystery with a politician’s murder being pinned on Kate and Faith uncovering a huge conspiracy to eradicate all runners, while Catalyst is more of a conspiracy story involving a MacGuffin called “Reflection” which are main character’s parents has a hand in it.
The first divergence is the amount of story. The first game is very linear, Faith following a lead which uncovers a bigger conspiracy at hand. Catalyst has more story, it has Faith out of juvie, having to deal with several factions. Both plots are good, if a tad generic. The simple story in the original didn’t let game get bogged down in useless details, while Catalyst balances the details with the story, but that information isn’t really important on a larger scale, than just collectables.
On thematic level, both games shares the same theme of personal freedom. The original game has Faith come head to people who question her job as a runner and we see that the totalrian government is sacrificing personal freedom. In Catalyst, we have Faith shift from faction-to-faction throughout the plot and showing different ways they fight the main antagonists. The MacGuffin in Catalyst was a serum that replaced people’s own emotions (it’s very cyberpunk), stripping away emotional freedom.
Level Design and Gameplay
One of the highlights of the original game was how it allowed more movement with the character utilising the environment around her to jump, wall run and progress further in the game. Along with taking away the heads up display let the player look at the world. Catalyst keeps the original tone, now has updated many mechanics. You can steal do stuff like wall run and jump on pipes, but now you have a MAG rope, which is basically a grappling hook. It helps your character to get to locations faster. Also Faith has body hacking, it really doesn’t effect anything else, other stop fans getting in the way and disrupting enemies. Now on enemies. Also runner vision both appears in the game and helps lend itself to the world setting.
In the original combatting enemies there were two ways of going abut it. You can disarm them and knocking them non-lethally or, which is how I played it, shoot them up. Now I thought it was a bit unnessacry to add shooting as a combat mechanic, especially when you had less ammo, so you had to watch how much you shoot, but was helpful. Catalyst rectifies that, with a similar combat system, which allows more combos which also helps tie into the movement themed combat, but gets frustrating if you enclosed and kept dying over and over again.
I liked the level designs in the first game, but they felt a little big generic, but after progressing you did see some variety, like the subway, shopping mall and the boat. But the minimalist style helped set it apart. Catalyst has a minimalist style, but more added detail with a more cyberpunk setting. We have a open world which allows more free roaming and we explore different areas of Glass and the detail put into each area is impressive, the areas you start in has the feel of a lived city which is busy, the high society areas look pristine and clean and the developing areas are all dirty with construction sites littered around the area. So can have collectables which you can get scattered around the city.
Catalyst has side quests and deliveries. There a bit challenging as you have to reach a location in a certain amount of time, which leads to a lot of trial and error. Both games have time trials which are fun to do if you want to farm XP to get upgrades. Yes, Catalyst has upgrades, which really shows the contrast between the originals simple gameplay and Catalysts more upgrade based which helps with the trial and error gameplay style.
Also the cutscenes were animated in the original. I liked them had a very sleek look to them and the animation was ok but Catalyst, the game uses the Frostbite engine to it’s fullest and the game looks beautiful, you get a lot of cool lighting effects
Characters
Now, this is gonna be a long one. Both games have a different cast of characters sans a few. The original Mirror’s Edge had a smaller cast of characters consisting of Faith, her sister Kate, Celeste, a runner who betrayed Faith, Merc, Ropeburn the Wrestler, Jackknife and Miller the cop. Catalyst has a larger cast of characters. Returning ones are Faith, her sister, now called Caitlyn and Celeste who appears in audio recordings. New characters include Icarus, Noah, Aline, Plastic, Nomad, Birdman, Rebecca, Gabriel Kruger the main villain and Dogen.
Now the supporting characters in the original were good, but more archetypes. Marc was the guy in the chair and the voice in your head, Celeste was the ally for Faith who turned out to be a traitor, Miller was the person who seemed untrustworthy, Kate, Faith’s sister was someone you had to save and Ropeburn and Jackknife were just villains you had to defeat. Again, very basic archetypes.
In Catalyst has more characters, but they are the same archetypes. Noah, Plastic and Aline fill in the Merc’s role as guy in the chair. Dogen and Rebecca fill the untrustworthy role. Icarus fills Celeste’s role as an ally. But the game does help with a bigger cast, with characters like Nomad, Faith’s best friend and Birman, an old runner. But the problem is they don’t do anything else outside side missions and don’t help with the main plot. The villains of both games are different Ropeburn and Jackknife were bland, muscle and cocky guy while Kruger does have clear motivations but isn’t elaborated further.
Celeste doesn’t appear in person but she appears in audio logs which you can find scattered around the open world which is a fun little easter egg.
Kate/Caitlyn, Faith’s sister is more of the same, but with more depth added. In the original Kate was a cop who turned into a damsel in distress. In the reboot, Caitlyn was left behind by her sister during a riot and was taking in by the main villain Kruger and put into his service. Again it’s the same like the original but with Celeste’s other role as ally turned enemy. Again this role feeds into the theme of personal freedom as it was Kate/Caitlyn’s choice to work opposite to her sister.
Now our main protagonist Faith have different motivations in her respective games. In the original Faith was inspired to save her sister from jail, figure out who framed her and help save the runners, very simple motivation which makes the player sympathise with the character. Catalyst adds a lot more depth to her character though. In Catalyst her parents were scientists working on the main plot device which lead to her deaths and her being separated to her sister. This adds more motivation and throughout the game she finds out things aren’t black and white. They add more stuff from her past and they give her more characters to bounce off. The stuff with her sister also adds motivation to save her.
Conclusion
Both games are good platformers, with there strengths and weaknesses but with more strengths over their weaknesses. If you have a PS3 or Xbox 360 you can still play the original and Catalyst is still being old at game shops. If you want a cool platforms then check out these gems.
*Yes. That’s cool.
**Got frustrated because my controller kept making Faith go to the left.
