The original Mirror's Edge is a fond personal memory of mine. It's not only one of my earliest Platinum trophies, but it was also one of my most difficult during a time where my trophy collecting journey was still very much in it's infancy.
It's chapter-specific Speedruns and Time Trial mode are what made it stand out on the upper ranges of the difficulty scale, and beating these would require a reasonable grip on the learning curve of it's Parkour concept.
It didn't have a massive amount of depth to it though. The story was fairly short, levels were set on a clearly defined linear path from point A to B, and variety came in the form of beating these same levels against the clock or via a selection of time trials set on random maps, but it was a refreshing change of pace to just see something completely new hitting the catalogue.
Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a reboot of Mirrors' Edge, where you still play as Faith Connors, who is released from prison after serving time for unknown reasons. Upon her release, it's quickly revealed she is in debt to a black market boss, and won't truly be free until the debt is settled. During one of the earliest missions in the game, she diverges to steal a valuable hard drive that she believes will help settle the debt, but is seen stealing this by Gabriel Kruger, the CEO of K-Sec, the group who control the city of Glass. This lands her in further trouble, as the hard drive belongs to Kruger and the contents are important enough for him to want it back from her immediately.
Despite being branded as a reboot, there really isn't much of a difference to the original game here. The biggest change is the fact that the game now takes place within an open world environment, which definitely makes much more sense for a concept like Mirror's Edge. It naturally lends itself well to the parkour-emphasised gameplay, even if the city of Glass feels a little bit devoid of life and personality.
The game has alot of shortcomings, and I don't think it's better than the original Mirror's Edge, but the one thing you expect it do well, it definitely does. The control scheme is intuitive and well mapped out and it's fun to zip around an open world environment and feel like you're truly embracing the core element of gameplay. The parkour mechanics are strong, allowing you to effortlessly transverse across the city at speed, chain together moves seamlessly and signposting on your options as you approach obstacles is clear and concise, which helps you maintain flow.
However, too many of the other game elements outside of the parkour are weak. The combat is still terrible. It feels clunky and forced into the game in a flimsy attempt to make it relevant, and wherever you can, it's better to just bypass it altogether. The story lacks engagement, characters are mostly forgettable and side missions are just watered down variations of the missions you'll progress through within the story.
The Speedruns and time trials were the best thing about the original game. They added a level of mastery to the parkour element for those who wanted to seek a higher challenge and hone their skills, and it's a shame they're both omitted this time round. Coupled with the weaknesses that weren't addressed, it takes the series back a couple of steps, and that also extends into the trophy list, which presents a much easier challenge as a consequence.
The list is large in size, containing 50 trophies, including the Platinum trophy. Despite not having a proper Multiplayer component, this list does require an online connection to complete in full through a couple of interactive trophies.
The Multiplayer contribution to Mirror's Edge Catalyst comes through players being able to lay down pins for other runners across the city of Glass, allowing them to set their own tasks for others to try to beat. This will either be through time trial routes or simply placing a marker down for someone to try and find a way to reach it. However, it is still mostly a Single Player story-driven experience at heart.
The "Blood is thicker than everything" trophy, awarded for Defeating Kruger, will lead you to the conclusion of the story. There are just 15 missions to get through, and full completion will only take around 5-6 hours, so it's a very brief experience for a predominantly story driven game. Leading up to this point, you'll also unlock a further 15 trophies that are tied to story progression, which is effectively a trophy per mission, so the game really lays it on and the trophies come at you thick and fast.
There are also a collection of 15 side missions that run alongside the Story missions, but these only add a couple of extra hours on top at best. They do exist separately to the story, but they will need to be beaten if you want the Platinum trophy, as they form a sub-section of the trophy list dedicated to beating all 15 side missions in the game.
The biggest difference within the story-related trophies this time round is the fact there are no difficulty sensitive trophies within this list. The original Mirror's Edge contained a trophy for beating the story on Hard difficulty, with tougher enemies that dealt more damage and runner-vision disabled, which meant you had no guidance from the game on routes to take in order to progress through chapters. You also had to beat the game once in order to unlock Hard difficulty.
None of this exists in Mirror's Edge Catalyst. There isn't even an option to choose a difficulty, let alone any difficulty-sensitive trophies to tackle. It minimises the necessity to replay anything, and provides a fairly casual challenge which rarely tests your ability. Enemies are weak and easy to bypass, and runner-vision is enabled at all times, so losing your way is never an issue. It's a stark contrast between both games.
As previously mentioned too, Mirror's Edge Catalyst banishes Speedruns and Time Trials. These weren't only an extremely fun way to add replay value to the game previously, but they also added an extra layer of challenge, testing your sharpness, speed and timing in equal measure beyond the Story mode.
They're substituted out for "Dashes", which are effectively just Time Trials at their core where you start at point A, and need to reach point B within an allotted amount of time. You're given a star grading out of 3, and can earn one of the game's Gold trophies for earning 3 stars on all 22 Dashes, but they're so easy they're barely worth mentioning.
The fastest route to earning 3 stars isn't always that obvious upon first glance, but once you figure it out, it's almost laughably easy how quickly you can reach the end goal on some of these Dashes in order to acquire 3 stars. It is important to note that, the game implements a skill-tree feature, whereby you can unlock skill points as you progress the story which will allow you to upgrade Faith and unlock new abilities. You won't be able to 3 star some of these Dashes without certain abilities unlocked that make you quicker or allow you to use certain skill moves. The game never makes this clear so just be aware before you spend hours attempting to beat certain Dashes wondering why you can't actually beat them. It's purely because the game isn't letting you yet.
I can't overstate enough how much of a disappointment it was to see them choose not to carry through some form of Speedrun or Time Trial features to a game that cries out for these kind of things in order to really allow the true justice of a fluid and well-designed parkour system to flourish.
There isn't a specific individual trophy to mention, but the Collectibles here are worth touching on because the game is absolutely loaded with them. The list awards 4 trophies based on collectibles throughout the game, and this includes 324 Gridleaks, 45 Recordings, 42 Documents and 40 Secret Bags.
The original Mirror's Edge only required the collection of 30 Secret Bags, so the collectibles here have been ramped up to a significant degree. The 324 Gridleaks show shades of Infamous 1 and it's blast shards, but once you beat the story, these will all show up visibly on the map, so it's probably best to get a headstart and collect these as and when you see them throughout the game, purely as the best approach for tackling the sheer volume. The Recordings, Documents and Secret Bags are scattered around both the open world and amongst the 15 story missions, and their locations will never be made visible at any point, so a guide is strongly recommended.
With a collective total of over 450, this a sizable task, and such a large volume of collectibles is worth an extra point for overall difficulty. A handful of these collectibles are well hidden, but nothing to the extent a guide won't solve. It's still an arduous task though.
One final point, and something mentioned previously, the list also contains 2 Online trophies. The game doesn't actually have a Multiplayer component, but when connected to the servers, you can lay down markers for other players to beat time trials and challenge them to find ways to get to hard to reach places. There are trophies awarded for completing these tasks, however, at the time of writing, the servers have been taken offline, making this Platinum unachievable to anyone who didn't have either of these trophies in question.
The foundations of a decent game lie somewhere amongst Mirror's Edge Catalyst, but they're hidden behind poor decisions and weak gameplay elements that mean the series takes a couple of steps backwards. This is coupled with a trophy list which presents a much inferior challenge than it's predecessor, courtesy of how it strips away everything that made the first game so compelling to those that wanted to master it's mechanics. It just about tips the verge of 4/10 difficulty, purely for some arduous collectibles, but at least they promote the parkour effectively, which can be enjoyable when it isn't disrupted by the terrible combat or disengaging story. The only reason I could recommend this game would be for an easy Platinum trophy.
Notable Trophies -
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| Blood is thicker than everything - Defeat Kruger. |
Hardest Trophy -
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