ANATOMY OF A MAJOR LETDOWN
Let’s begin with the good news.
Everyone should take a moment to look at screenshots and videos of what Team Siren achieved artistically with Gravity Rush 2. The game presents a vast, levitating open world of remarkable verticality and imagination—one of the most creative spaces I’ve encountered in a long time. You traverse it by manipulating gravity itself. Want to reach the top of a cathedral? Aim for the steeple, press a button, and quite literally fall into the sky. You can even halt your momentum midair and redirect your descent. Unshackled by conventional movement, the world invites exploration from every conceivable angle, rewarding curiosity with hidden treasures and optional bosses.
The story is political in the true sense of the word—and unapologetically so. At least in its first half, Gravity Rush 2 displays a rare, old-fashioned class consciousness. It depicts a city suspended in the sky, where a pampered elite live on floating islands far above the clouds, basking in perpetual sunlight.
Below them, an underclass survives in a fog-choked underworld of ramshackle buildings and filth, living off the scraps of the wealthy. Between these extremes lie workers, markets, entertainment districts, and harbors crowded with levitating freighters. The city feels alive. Floating cars ferry passengers—those who can afford it—between districts. The soundtrack subtly mirrors each location’s mood, while the color of the sky itself reflects the living conditions below.
Add to this a spectacular cast of memorable characters and you have a triumph of world-building. Kat, the heroine you control in immersive third person, is charming, impulsive, and deeply human. Her extroverted personality swings wildly depending on how she’s treated by the community around her. She longs to belong. As a gravity shifter she is, on paper, a superhero—but her insecurities make her far more relatable than most.
She begins the game aboard a fleet of houseboats, working alongside its inhabitants as they drift through the ether, stopping at mining locations to extract precious crystals—the world’s currency. The first chapters focus on the politics of this fleet and the forces that seek to exploit it, before expanding into an entirely new city. The story held my attention throughout, and Kat’s friendship with her equal, Raven, is genuinely touching. Raven’s introverted, mysterious demeanor contrasts nicely with Kat’s energy—and yes, she’s undeniably striking.
The story is largely conveyed through comic-style panels, and the whole experience feels like it could have been lifted from a well-written manga. Comedic interludes land surprisingly well, and even minor side characters feel thoughtfully established. Structurally, the narrative is divided into mostly standalone chapters (not unlike Dragon Age II). Some may dislike this, but I found it refreshing.
So far, so excellent. In terms of story, characters, dialogue, inventiveness, and world-building, Gravity Rush 2 is top-tier—arguably even stronger than its predecessor. This is where many video essays stop, declaring the game “underrated,” “an unsung classic,” or “a forgotten gem.” And that frustrates me to no end, because it’s only half the truth. It conveniently ignores a host of glaring flaws, bad ideas, and outright disastrous gameplay execution.
I cannot overstate how disappointing this is.
I’ve looked forward to this sequel ever since finishing the first Gravity Rush, a game bursting with promise despite feeling unfinished. And here’s the painful irony: my own political convictions lean heavily left, so encountering a game whose themes align so closely with my ideals should have been a cause for celebration. I wanted to join the choir. But I couldn’t do so honestly—because actually playing Gravity Rush 2 is often dreadful. Obnoxious. Tedious. Exhausting.
Mission design, movement, camera control, and combat are an absolute train wreck. The only mechanics that consistently work are the free-form flight controls during open exploration—activities that offer little progression beyond collecting gems for upgrades. You can enhance Kat’s gravity kick, dodging ability, and stasis field (used to grab and hurl objects at enemies), but none of these combat tools feel reliable.
Once story missions or side quests begin, combat takes center stage—and that’s where everything falls apart. An auto-targeting system meant to help you hit enemy weak points routinely fails. Kat frequently overshoots her target, glides past enemies, or fires projectiles harmlessly into the terrain.
This is tragic, because with competent combat the game could have been great. Some boss encounters—especially later ones—are visually inspired. But the constant struggle against the camera and movement system undermines every fight. No equipment tweak can compensate for broken hit detection and an uncooperative camera.
The camera routinely loses its mind, desperately trying to track auto-locked enemies as you miss them. Crash into a wall or the ground and it often gets stuck behind geometry, leaving you blind. While you scramble to reorient yourself, off-screen enemies pummel you with impunity. By the time you recover, your gravity gauge is depleted and you’re plummeting toward the ground again—only for the camera to reset to a new, equally useless angle.
Floating combat might sound stylish and anime-inspired, but this cannot be what Team Siren envisioned. Encounters drag on endlessly, spawning wave after wave of identical enemies with obvious weak points you repeatedly fail to hit. This is no power fantasy—it’s a disempowerment nightmare. To put it bluntly: this is not a force for good, it’s a farce for bad.
Worse still are the missions that strip you of flight entirely, forcing you into awkward stealth sections. The game lacks proper stealth mechanics and offers almost no freedom in approach. Deviate slightly from the intended path and you’re unceremoniously teleported back to the start. Some missions require taking photos of objectives, forcibly integrating the photo mode into gameplay. What should have been a harmless creative tool becomes a tedious obligation.
Then there are the “dungeons”—long, uninspired trials built around tired objectives: collect gems before time runs out, defeat waves of enemies, or showcase newly unlocked forms. One form makes Kat unbearably floaty; another is heavy and powerful but so slow to charge that enemies have ample time to slap your cheeks while you wait.
Nearly every mission hinges on a bad or boring mechanic. I can recall only two standouts: a side quest inspired by Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), and a late-game 3D puzzle involving the manipulation of blocks to form an unbroken path. Both were creative and worked flawlessly. Unfortunately, they are drowned out by a sea of failures.
Beyond that, I have nothing positive to say about the gameplay. I cannot believe this is the sequel to a game with such strong ideas. Perhaps critics were too forgiving of the original’s flaws, because I expected Team Siren to learn from them and deliver a superior follow-up—much like Assassin’s Creed II did for its series. Instead, they doubled down on what already worked and ignored what was broken, even adding new mechanics that feel worse than before.
To make matters worse, I encountered several serious bugs: a hard freeze, a crash, clipping through geometry, and a mission that repeatedly reset for no reason. I was lucky it wasn’t worse.
Even Kat and Raven couldn’t lift my spirits. Their charm only made me feel guilty for hating long stretches of the game. If you’re the kind of player who can focus exclusively on narrative and world-building while ignoring everything else, you may well adore Gravity Rush 2. I can’t. Especially when the flaws actively obstruct the story I wanted so badly to love.
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