A Letter About Mirror's Edge: Catalyst

Okay, so before I get started on this tirade, I want to preface with: I am a very big fan of the Mirror's Edge series. I enjoyed the first one despite its faults, and I enjoyed Catalyst. That being said, I felt that this game was a somewhat begrudging peace-offering to the fans who have been demanding a follow up since the original released back in 2008. I was one of those people, and while I was not disappointed overall, I have a few main issues that I need to pick a bone over. Short of writing DICE a good long email that will be undoubtedly ignored, I'm instead coming here to vent to you. Take what you will, and as per usual, whether you agree or not, please feel free to post in the comments below.




Graphically, Catalyst was an obvious upgrade. The fact that we were given real cutscenes instead of the cell-shaded cartoons was a huge plus, and it gave a sense of realness to the characters that was somewhat lacking in the original. The addition of a utilities arsenal to expand Glass over time was also a nice touch, ensuring that the player wasn't overwhelmed with the scope of everything available to them all at once (and limiting-if only slightly-the potential to get lost through the game). There were admittedly times where I felt like Batman, and as well all know, if you can be Batman, you always be Batman.

Combat was...well, still is broken. Without the upgrades that Catalyst offers you, the vanilla combat system offers about as much as the original but, at times seemingly more limited. The fact that your combos were easily predicted by your assailants very soon into melee was very frustrating, and the lack of firearms made things a little more irritating as it negated a ranged attack against another ranged enemy, forcing you to close in on someone with clear advantage. As you upgrade overtime however, this gets a little better but the system is still a little curmudgeony. The reticle on screen gets a border circle with highlighted segments showcasing where surrounding enemies are at, but they blend in too well with the already white border and the white surroundings of the game, making them easy to overlook if you're too focused on getting away or fighting.

The runner's vision has been upgraded as well. No longer do various instances of the environment just turn red to guide you. This still happens, but you are also met with a red pathway beacon to guide you in the proper direction. Well, at least most of the time you do. I'll address my issue with this later, but first let me wrap up a few more things about the game overall.

The story is one in the same, but also different. Mirror's Edge: Catalyst is a reboot, not a sequel as it was once originally touted. Familiar names and faces do make a return, such as Celeste, Pirandello, Kruger, (Originally Pirandello-Kruger from the first Mirror's Edge, and the main antagonist corporation) and Pope, but some new names are here as well. Instead of Merc (Mercury) being Faith's adopted father/trainer, we have Noah Kekai who admittedly shows a much deeper connection to Faith than his original counterpart. Project Icarus has been reimagined to some extent as a person, Icarus - the arrogant newcomer fuckboy that started at the cabal halfway through Faith's stint in juvie. While toted as a romantic interest akin somewhat to the original series' Jackknife, I personally don't see it. Kate Connors is of course still kicking (figuratively and literally) but now seems to go by Cat, short for Caitlyn (I'm still wondering if this is a play off of Catalyst somehow, but I haven't quite put my finger on that yet) and no longer works for the "blues" but actually takes a much more interesting character twist which I haven't quite decided if I liked or not.

Overall we are dealing with a much deeper Orwellian construct in Catalyst as Gabriel Kruger, head of Kruger-Sec, is set upon releasing a sort of nanobyte tech that will be injected into the citizens (called employs) of Glass, enabling complete and utter control over their minds, making the already more or less complacent citizenry putty in the conglomerate controlled city. Needless to say, Faith and friends wins the day, but that doesn't mean the game is perfect. In fact, I have a few major issues with the game that I need to take up right here.

Note, from this point on, there will be a lot of spoilers. If you haven't played the game yet and care, do not read past this point.

What was wrong with Mirror's Edge: Catalyst?

1) You Can Outrun the Runner Vision

Or at least something to that effect. There were a few times where I was faster than the runner vision pathway guide was, and I was stuck either waiting or backtracking to find it again. This was the must frustrating when dealing with diversion runs where I was faced with multiple groups of Kruger-Sec at any point in time throughout a run. I can't tell you how many times not knowing where I was supposed to go killed me, and it was one of the most irritating points of play.

Solution: Remember that reticle border I spoke of earlier with the highlights of where surrounding enemies were? Once you've coded a runner vision that is fast enough to keep up with the player, add a red highlight onto that reticle to direct the player to where they're going. You don't have to worry about it overlapping with a white node showing where an enemy is because if the player is going to turn around they're going to see the foe anyway. Something like this would have been a huge help. If you don't want to use the reticle, have a portion of the HUD light up red to show the player where they need to turn. Granted, none of this is of any use if the runner vision can't keep up.

2) You Don't Need to Look for Icarus in Flytrap

Just...see the embedded video below (yes its mine). This is mind bogglingly insulting that someone didn't bother to delete the pawn prior to this part of the game. Someone really screwed up here in the design department here and I'd be surprised if I'm the only one that saw this. I'll use this point to lead into my third and probably my most biased...

Solution: Pay attention, or fire some QA Testers that didn't bring this up.

3) Noah Didn't Need to Die

Never mind the fact that we did this already in the first Mirror's Edge - the death of a parental figure is a great way to motivate the typical reluctant hero trope. However Faith is NOT a reluctant hero. If anything, she's the first person sticking her nose where it doesn't belong to defend people. The first instance where we think Noah is dead is fine, it gets Faith in with Black November long enough to get some new tech and information, but finding Noah in Kingdom and just being a few seconds too late was a slap in the face. Why not have him linger with Reflection like Icarus and have him just be one more person she needed to save from it?

Sure, you could argue that we needed to see just how dangerous Refection was (Noah having been injected with it off screen) but even that wasn't all that dangerous because he had to be killed remotely. He could have just as easily been shot and it would have had the same effect in the end. This plot point pretty much leaves Faith alone with the cabal at the end of events in game. She still needed Noah because essentially, Faith is still a kid. He also needed to be there to keep Dogen from perving on her, and to guide her into adulthood. Faith being on her own just opens her up to more trouble right now.

Solution: Stop reusing all the same tropes. It's boring, and its insulting. You're killing characters for the sake of plot development without any actual plot development.

4) The Story Wrap Up

Did Cat Conners have advanced asthma? Was she injected with Reflection? Was it keeping her alive? If so, how? Has Cat forgiven Faith? Is Cat going to continue her adopted father's legacy, or stop it for more morale pursuits? Who was originally trying to steal Reflection in the beginning? Was it OmniStat? Who is OmniStat? Stay tuned next time kids in...this series will never be properly fulfilled to it's potential.

Solution: Get better writers.