Gravity Rush Week Begins


I didn’t write about Gravity Rush 2 nearly enough. Yes, I talked it up a great deal before its release and even ran a contest about a ridiculous note pad, but I was silent about it after it arrived.

This was by design. I didn’t want to review it in the traditional sense, because that would mean rapid playthroughs and quick impressions and a patina of hasty accomplishment that would nag at me. I wanted to savor Gravity Rush 2 in the traditional sense, which involves settling in and taking a month or two to finish a game instead of hurling through it for nothing but the warped obligations of social media.


And Gravity Rush 2 was worth it.

I know it wasn’t the best game of 2017 when put under merciless critical scrutiny. It lacks the spacious worlds of Super Mario Odyssey or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the bleak turns of Danganronpa V3 or Persona 5, and the wonderful narrative knife-juggling of Nier: Automata. The Gravity Rush formula is still flawed, after all. Technical problems are inevitable when you send a superheroine flying through the sky, walking on the undersides of floating isles, and fighting monsters with unfettered aerial freedom. Gravity Rush 2 even makes some less excusable missteps by including a few mandatory stealth missions, never realizing that it’s the worst possible game to host them.

I loved it anyway. Gravity Rush 2 may not cohere the best, but it’s my favorite game of the year even with its inbuilt advantages. Kat her companions are endearing, their world is a lovely blend of Mobius-manga cities spread atop a marvelously surreal cosmology, and I never tire of visiting it. Soaring through a skyscraper archipelago. Plunging into the toxic mists of bizarre city ruins. Sending Kat off a building, watching her plummet, and then reminding her that she can fly the second before she hits the ground. I could play it forever.

There’s a problem, however. Sony plans to take down the Gravity Rush 2 servers this January 18, which leaves us only a week and change to enjoy the game’s online features.

This may not seem a great loss. The online element offers no multiplayer battles or vital interaction. It just lets you leave hints and challenges for other players, with Dusty Tokens for rewards. The single-player storyline will remain intact, minus a few of the bonuses available only through online tasks. It’s not as grievous as, say, a Street Fighter game losing its netplay.



Yet it’s unfortunate all the same. Gravity Rush is a series forced to fight for any scraps of attention, and losing any piece of it is a shame. One gathers that Gravity Rush 2 didn’t sell up to Sony’s standards, and it probably won’t get a sequel. Perhaps it was lucky to exist in the first place. That’s all the more reason to save every bit of it, especially a bit that lets Gravity Rush fans share the game.

Those fans will not endure this in silence. There’s a small campaign making the rounds under the Twitter hashtag #dontforgetgravityrush, and you’ll find the usual pleas and protests. I doubt it’ll do any good, but I’ll plead right along with them. Surely the tide will turn once Kid Fenris himself tells Sony to keep the servers up.

In fact, I’ll dedicate this week to talking about Gravity Rush. Each workday will see a new entry about the series, even if it’s just a list of merchandise I’d like to see for it. Space pens and balancing toys are the keys to Gravity Rush’s future, I swear.

Day One: You're...uh, reading it.




Day Five: Dressing Up!

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