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[SnapShot]

In the late 2000s, parkour emerged from obscurity, and took over mainstream entertainment. Movies, YouTube videos, and video games alike took to the urban jungle so that they could showcase the activity in all of its glory, and entertain audiences with fast-paced thrills. And no other video game managed to thrill quite like Mirror’s Edge. The brainchild of Swedish video game developer DICE, Mirror’s Edge cast players in the shoes of Faith, a raven-haired courier tasked with delivering messages across the rooftops of a gleaming dystopia. While many found the sum of its offerings to be far from perfect, most agreed that running through the metropolis was a delight, and that it’s clean, minimalist art was a welcome breath of fresh air from the browns and grays of its competitors.

After Mirror’s Edge came and went, however, it quickly became apparent that it would be a while longer before fans would be able to return to Faith’s world. While DICE would repeatedly express its desire to continue building out its budding parkour series, rumors and news stories alike perpetually suggested that DICE either was at a crossroads on how to proceed with it, or simply not working on it at all. And the more years that passed, the more the studio seemed to become further entrenched in the Battlefield franchise.

In the end, however, the series would finally receive a second lease on life nearly a decade later, in the form of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst – an open-world re-imagining of DICE’s opus that would be met with equal parts fanfare, and equal parts frustration.

 

[EightBit Man]

I absolutely love the art direction of the (original) game. There was nothing like it. The soundtrack is equally outstanding, and motivated me to explore modern electronic ambient music (hint: Solar Fields prior and beyond the soundtrack is amazing). Overall, one of my favorite games of the seventh generation of gaming. When EA still meant something.

 

[Ascend]

Mirror's Edge will always be one of my favorite games. It wasn't perfect, but it had what it needed. Uniqueness, originality, simplicity, beauty, elegance. It's too bad the sequel went the other way, being unoriginal with conflicting game mechanics and doing what every other game out there was doing. There are some issues with Catalyst that didn't need to be there if they simply stayed true to the formula...

Firstly, the original Mirror's Edge was too short, the story was uninteresting and shallow, and arguably the technology was not there to maximize its potential. Catalyst was most likely released too soon, but it had too many additional issues that removed the originality from the game...

• The first red flag for Catalyst was the skill trees. Why? In concept it is not a bad thing... Faith being in jail and being a little rusty and needing to get back into the game makes sense. The issue was that it was implemented like any other game out there. Do X to get Y points to unlock Z. Utterly boring and unoriginal.
• Another issue, and the biggest one for me, was the fetch quests. A game like Mirror's Edge does not need that. It felt like needless filler. Not only that, in the case of Mirror's Edge, it destroys the gameplay. The gameplay is all about flow and smoothness, and to do the fetch quests, you have to constantly stop, grab something, run a bit, stop again... There is no continuity and it is in direct contrast with the main mechanic of the game. Every other game out there has fetch quests, and it is basically a way to try to let you play longer, or give the illusion of having much content. Players don't really waste their time with that anymore. That needs to be scrapped. Or if you HAVE to do something similar, you have to incorporate it in a way where the player needs to do one particularly hard sequence, and then he/she gets rewarded with something. That is satisfying and completely different than going to A, getting to B and returning to A.
• The combat was not great either... It definitely had some great elements. The attacks while running/jumping/sliding were fine and simply superior to the first Mirror's Edge in many cases. The issue was when you were required to stay in a small area or in a room and fight multiple enemies. The combat felt shallow. If there is any improvement that can be made here, I suggest DICE to look into what For Honor does. They do it in 3rd person, but there is little reason a similar mechanic cannot be done for first person. It would make the combat have more depth and more interesting. It's not for everyone though, so, it should be adapted.
• The story was disappointing... And more importantly, sometimes I got the sense that it was trying too hard to appeal too much to a feminist audience. The SJW agenda definitely rubbed off on the game. Faith had multiple comments of jealousy and contempt against other runners, particularly a male one that was better than her, and ultimately, they make it so that the guy runner tells her that she's better and he becomes completely pussywhipped. Get that woke stuff out of the game, and it will be better for it.
• The level design was annoying, because it was advertised as an open world, but in reality, it wasn't. I'll get more into that below, since that is most likely not a choice by the designers, but a necessity to maintain performance of the game.

I think Mirror's Edge was too ahead of its time and that hampered its potential, like I already mentioned. One of the issues the developers mentioned since the first game, was the streaming limit of the hardware at the time. They mentioned that you run so fast through the levels, that the hardware cannot keep up at some point. That's why they needed to add elevators, air ducts, ladders, pipes to crawl up & down or walk on etc. In Catalyst, the same issue became apparent, where the game was not really open world, but was divided in multiple sections... Because once again, the hardware could not stream everything quick enough to make the game open enough. This made it so that you either still ran in the same straight line as always, or you fell off a building... When they announced it was open world, I expected to be able to go down to the street level, jump over cars, enter buildings, run on rooftops... But I think that was not a realistic expectation at the time due to the hardware limits.

But now that the new consoles are coming out, the SSDs should eliminate this issue... This will be the chance for Mirror's Edge to shine like it truly deserves to. I just hope that they are still interested in creating another one, and more importantly, that they will not be hampered by corporate politics to put in shallow mechanics like repetitive fetch quests and skill trees. They have to take inspiration from the original trailers of the first Mirror's Edge... In fact, those little snippets of the trailers are more interesting than the whole story of the game... We see runners exchanging packages while on the run. They have to focus on that. Running. Keeping the flow. And I see no reason why they can't have you be on the street as well. Imagine how exhilarating it would be to run in the city between people, with cops behind you, even some people trying to stop you, while you jump over cars, climb up a lamp post to jump on a roof or a fire escape to outrun the cops or hide somewhere. The main point is, crowds need to be there and are important. Otherwise you get an empty world like Catalyst.
There's more in those trailers of the original Mirror's Edge that can be used... Make the game about her origin story. The trailers of the first Mirror's Edge gave hints of that, but never materialized it in the game itself. In Catalyst, there really is no origin story. There are snippets of her past, and they show reasons for that later, but those were all about everyone else in the world and why they did what they did, and not about Faith herself. Faith does not really grow in Catalyst, nor do they ever show that she has grown. They need to show the marches, how she lost her parents, how she became who she is now. The whole story needs to be about her, her sacrifices, how she overcame them, and how she got where she is. Her growth needs to be portrayed. If they combine that, and figure out how in the 'present' she is reminded of what she went through in the past, they can easily create a relatable and powerful story that does not conflict with the gameplay.

I seriously hope that they will take another shot at it... Because right now seems like the perfect time to revive the franchise with the new consoles and SSD streaming...

 

[GHG]

There will be nothing like the original Mirrors edge ever again unfortunately.

It was a masterpiece in game design, level design and art direction. It's the seamless fusion of those three elements that makes it so special.




It's a game that will be able to be picked up in any era and hold up both in terms of visuals and gameplay.

What happened with the second game is a travesty.

 

[Thomasina]

Cool video. Mirror's Edge is my favorite game, and I'm replaying Catalyst on PS4 right now so it was the first game I searched when making an account here.

Gave the vid a watch. Thanks for posting.

 

[DrNeroCF]

Don’t know how I missed the video the first time around, but Mirror’s Edge 2d gets a mention, nice

 

[Agent_4Seven]

One of my favorite video game series of all time. DICE, if you're reading this - whatever it takes please - make another one!

 

[sono]

Thank you for linking that well put together video. As others have said the first game was awesome in so many ways. Trying to make the second one open world was a mistake. One is hopeful of a third. I would like to see more on character development including NPCs, puzzle solving, improved fighting (but limited fighting) and a fantastic soundtrack (again) and a loot system with a strong sense of progression.

 

[rofif]

Somehow catalyst was worse in every way. Not as clean looking, too much backtracking, skills.
First game is magic. And it still looks incredible. Even better now on 4k monitors

 

[Elektro Demon]

I love that channel, so much amazing content and game documentaries.

 

[sublimit]

The original game was phenomenal. It was very unique and sometimes it also gave me vibes of my beloved classic Tomb Raider games.
I still haven't properly played Catalyst.Need to give it a proper chance one day.

 

[hyperbertha]

The problem was that neither games were really fully realized in terms of the vision they had. Watching an experienced player play a level he had completed 30 times over was cool and intense looking but if you're playing a level for the first time, it was rather clunky and slow. And both games had mediocre combat which imo was better off not being in the game.

 

[Birdo]

I loved the original. I never played the sequel.

I loved it's simplicity. No inventory, no skill trees, no crafting shit, just get from point A to point B as fast as you can. Perfect.

 

[SnapShot]

(split to its own topic)

 

[SkylineRKR]

Where Catalyst fails next to the token open world, is the lack of momentum. The original ME felt rewarding if you timed your slides etc well so that you gained momentum. It wasn't unlike the original Sonic the Hedgehog games.

They rebooted the story of the second game even, but made it worse. wtf were they thinking?

 

[Beer Baelly]

Original is a modern classic.

 

[SnapShot]

It's premiering now

(on second thought this would be better off split to its own topic)

 

[EverydayBeast]

Simple, original game.

 

[Ascend]