➤ Gravity remastered 🎮

Three and a half years have now passed since the release of one of the first, and sadly few, masterpieces for PlayStation Vita. Gravity Rush (Gravity Daze, Japan) was born from a heterogeneous mix of ideas, authors and influences. A little anime, a little comic and a little video game, everything revolves around gravity: before the explanations of Anne Hathaway and the hallucinations of Sandra Bullock, there were the adventures of Kat, a blonde superheroine forced to protect, against her will, the steampunk town of Hekseville from the threat of the Snows. Waiting for Gravity Rush 2, which will be released in 2016, Sony has well thought of converting the prequel for PlayStation 4, entrusting the remastering to Bluepoint. And with this we can say that the last nail has also been planted in the coffin of PlayStation Vita ...

Gravity Rush Remastered is the best way to enjoy Kat's first stunning adventure

Cats and crows

Kat wakes up in Heksevelle with no memory, in the company of a strange kitten who apparently gives her the power to alter gravity. At first, Kat is confused and scared, also because the inhabitants of this strange steampunk town treat her with distrust: before becoming a real heroine, Kat will have to sweat the proverbial seven shirts and prove that she is not a simple troublemaker.

And that means starting small and learning how to use his new powers in the meantime. The story of Gravity Rush is told to us through a mix of dialogues and comic strips: you have to be patient and read each line to get to know the characters better, also because in Hekseville they speak a fictitious and incomprehensible language that vaguely resembles French. In this sense, Gravity Rush surprises with a plot that is anything but obvious and delightful characters, starting with the sweet but gritty Kat. Already the aforementioned illustrations are the first sign of a remastering with controfiocchi: the 1080p resolution allowed us to admire the details of the comic strips, embellishing the city of Hekseville in every detail. The heavy aliasing of the PlayStation Vita version is now only a memory: the anti-aliasing filter cleans the image very well, almost completely reducing the infamous "ladders". This embellishment also intervenes twofold on the gameplay, to be honest. First, the image is now much less muddy. Exploring Hekseville is a joy even more than in the past, also because the size of the screen allows you to better see details and objectives, especially when you are floating in mid-air looking for a surface towards which to redirect the gravitational attraction. Those who have already played Gravity Rush will surely remember how chaotic it can become, especially in the advanced stages, but this remastered version lets you breathe its peculiar gameplay, thanks also and above all to the granite frame rate. Gravity Rush Remastered, in fact, runs at 60 frames per second at any time, even when you splash through the crowded streets of Hekseville, attracted by the force of gravity, in the midst of passers-by who may be dragged along with us. The constant fluidity not only embellishes the overall visual rendering, of course, but clearly improves the gameplay, making the fights even more intense, especially when facing the gigantic bosses.

PlayStation 4 Trophies

The trophies are the same as in the PlayStation Vita version: 25 Bronze, 10 Silver, 4 Gold and the inevitable Platinum, plus 8 DLC trophies that have been integrated into the game from the beginning. Most of them are easy to obtain, just complete the various chapters of the story or defeat all kinds of enemies, upgrade Kat's skills to the maximum and complete all the challenges.

You look but you don't touch it

Gravity Rush was designed to show the muscles of Sony portable hardware from every point of view: the original version, in fact, made a lot of use of the touch screen and the gyroscope, integrating them into the gameplay between highs and lows. The player, for example, had to move the PlayStation Vita to orient Kat and determine her destination when she was suspended in midair and manipulated the force of gravity. That mechanics worked well and made the experience very original. Less convincing, however, the gravitational slide control system, which was performed by moving the handheld while touching the lower corners of the touch screen: it was an abstruse choice that made the challenges based on the skill in question decidedly frustrating.

By converting the game to PlayStation 4, the developer Bluepoint had to adapt the control system to the joypad with a perhaps less original result, but certainly more effective. Now the orientation of the gravitational force is simply controlled with the analog stick ... or you can move the DualShock 4, using its integrated gyroscope: in any case, you have a much better mastery of each situation. Almost every input entrusted to the PlayStation Vita touch screen is now linked to the simple press of a button, but some features remain, such as the ability to move the joypad to tilt the comic tables during the narrative interludes. Bluepoint has basically thought of offering a new traditional control system and, when possible, an alternative that mimics the feeling of the experience on PlayStation Vita. Dodging, for example, is entrusted to the pressure of a dorsal together with the analog stick ... but you can also touch the touch pad of the DualShock 4 to make Kat twirl in the same direction. The infamous gravitational slide, on the other hand, is now entrusted to the simple simultaneous pressure of the lats, and the player can limit himself to directing our blonde heroine with the analog stick. The challenges that we had once abandoned, frustrated, are now back within our grasp, now for another reason too: uploads. If the PlayStation Vita version took at least half a minute to load - or reload - a challenge, there is no comparison with the roughly five or ten seconds it takes on the PlayStation 4. Bluepoint has also integrated DLC missions into the game, so there remains the division between main and secondary missions, which appear on the Hekseville map with different colored icons. The new control system, combined with the excellent frame rate, allows you to face much more serenely even the latest and chaotic clashes of the game, eliminating the occasional peaks of frustration that happened to catch in the original version.

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The problem with remasters is that they sometimes retroactively degrade the original versions. That's the case with Gravity Rush, needless to say: the 2012 PlayStation Vita title is undoubtedly a big game, but the PlayStation 4 version is simply better. Not only on a technical level, thanks to anti-aliasing and the frame rate anchored to 60 frames per second, but also from the point of view of the gameplay, which throws some now obsolete touch solutions to the winds in favor of such a traditional control system. how effective. Gravity Rush Remastered is, in short, an exceptional conversion, which opens the door to a sequel that we really can't wait to play.