Mirror's Edge Catalyst Reviews
Despite clunky combat and an unremarkable story Mirror's Edge Catalyst star still shines thanks to excellent community features.
Forgetting about the repetitiveness and lifelessness of the environments for a moment, it's clear that there's strong art design behind it all, combining clean lines with bold colours to create a world that feels clinical, cool and futuristic
If you're a big fan of the first game, I'm sure you'll enjoy this one. However, if you never played the original, you might want to take a test drive first to see if you want to commit to it.
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst is less 'Still Alive' than it is 'barely breathing', yet it retains a special place in my heart as a game that tried to offer gamers something a little bit different to the norm. Ultimately it's a failure, a broken game with repetitive action and a mechanic that lends itself far better to arcade like linearity rather than open world botch-jobbery. An admirable failure, but one that's left a huge cloud over this poor reviewers' head. I can only hope we eventually get the sequel we deserve that's tight, addictive and stunning. I know you've got it in you, Dice.
EA's sequel gets lost in its open world.
To be honest, I was disappointed shortly after I first started playing Mirror's Edge Catalyst as I was put off by the open world approach that quickly got boring and repetitive.
Mirror's Edge Catalyst tries hard to engage players and develop the concept outlined in the original game further, but it doesn't completely succeed. It's a pity that the developers haven't put a a little more effort into it and it's kind of a missed opportunity. If you're a fan of the first game, Catalyst will surely delight you, but the rest of the players may not be interested.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst will likely make people feel the same as the original, it'll be a divisive game. The freedom of movement is excellent, vastly improved over the original, but it's let down by a poor story, unrelatable characters and an incredibly annoying combat system, which it forces you into all too frequently. Still an exciting game to explore and look around, it's hard not to recommend Mirror's Edge if you're looking for something different, which it still is.
Your enjoyment of Mirror's Edge: Catalyst will depend greatly on how willing you are to accept its flaws. The load times can be a pain to deal with, there's not much of an inclination to take on side-quests, and the combat doesn't seem to have improved much from the first game, despite the abandonment of firearms. At the same time, the idea of a platforming-heavy, first-person game remains intriguing, and your moves and the layout of the city make the running aspect one of the more legitimately enjoyable parts of the title. Though it may not appeal to all players, those looking for something a bit different will enjoy one more go-round in Faith's shoes.
Despite its flaws, Catalyst is a worthy concept of the game, and the improvement from the last one to this shows that it can mature into a quality game franchise, beyond its concept. The sense of scale and the way the world has been designed for travel makes for a fantastic experience.
Mirror's Edge Catalyst isn't as good as it should be. It's maddening, because there's so much potential here for it to be a good game, but so many odd design decisions result in an experience that's actually less than the sum of its parts.
For a game about running fast, Mirror's Edge Catalyst sure is slow
Mirror's Edge Catalyst still feels like a lot of fun to play through, as the parkour system remains a really successful mechanic for navigating the game world. Dice have made a lot of changes that both hurt and harm the series, but at least you couldn't say that this is a lazy re-working of an eight-year old game.
A flawed but effective take on parkour
Ultimately, Mirror's Edge Catalyst falls short of all our hopes and dashes what little faith I had in the series, pun intended. There are some truly brilliant moments and Mirror's Edge Catalyst looks gorgeous and feels brilliant to navigate once you finally get all the gadgets and extended slides etc. but forcing you through the campaign to get any real modicum of enjoyment hurts the experience drastically.
Mirror's Edge Catalyst brings back a welcome second portion of high-speed free-running in a beautifully gleaming setting, but its concessions to modern AAA game design bloat let it down.
The gameplay is fast paced and fun if it weren't for the slow battle system. I can imagine the game eight years ago being a unique game that's so different from others, but this sequel is only a redo of the same ideas that adds no value even with the Open World element, but it will suit those who never tried the first game.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
There's a clear set-up for more stories to be told with Faith and the runners of Glass with Mirror's Edge Catalyst, and while it isn't quite as shiny and perfect as the city of Glass, hopefully in due time we'll get to see more from Mirror's Edge and experience the series at its full, untapped potential. Though it trips itself up occasionally with combat and a lackluster story, at a full run few games can catch up to Mirror's Edge for pure exhilaration and Catalyst is more than ready for the race.
The first 'Mirror's Edge' was a surprising risk with interesting gameplay that developed a niche audience, and its follow-up tries, mostly successfully, to recapture that same effect. There are stumbles with its open world, combat, and narrative, but Faith's freerunning world persists. Chasing after every red zipline, railing, and air duct is still fun eight years on.
I think that there's the potential for a brilliant Mirror's Edge game in the future that has none of the flaws of Catalyst or its predecessor. Unfortunately, that isn't this game, and while I'm relatively satisfied with what's here, I will keep hoping for a genuinely great *Mirror's Edge* title.