I never did post a review on this game and since I found myself replaying it these past days why not do just that?
Mirror's Edge, released by EA in 2008 for PS3 and Xbox 360, and 2009 for PC, tells the story of Faith, a Runner who relies on her honed parkour skills to run errands for her clients, people who'd rather keep their deals hidden from the preying eyes of the ruling elite of this totalitarian world. The police, or City Protection Force, tends to ignore these Runners as they have an unspoken agreement to stay out of each other's way, but everything changes when Faith's sister, Kate, a cop, is framed for the murder of Robert Pope, a friend of their father's and running candidate against the incumbent Mayor Callaghan. So starts an adrenaline-packed ride to find out who framed Kate and why, with the cops and private security forces hot on Faith's tail.
While the story's fairly standard, to the point you've probably already figured out the ins and outs of it from my short description, it could've been executed better, or tighter, than it was. By the time you finish playing and look back on it, the story's many inconsistencies become apparent, in particular the game's obsession with framing Kate and going so far as to keep her alive throughout the entire game. I get it, Faith needs a motivation, you need a motivation, and a dead sister is probably not a very good one, but it makes little sense that the bad guys wouldn't have gotten rid of her as soon as she served her purpose. The first thing that occurred to me the moment Faith met up with her sister at the beginning was, "This is an ideal situation to set up Faith as the fall gal and accuse Kate of trying to help Faith through her connections in the CPF." Indeed, given the "evil master plan" revealed towards the end, it would've been the better plan. Alas, the bad guys are not as good as Faith at improvising, nor are the writers apparently. The introduction of the Pursuit Cops later in the game doesn't add up narrative-wise, to my mind. Unless these guys trained in the field, and by field I mean on the city's rooftops, like Faith and the other Runners (and if they had I'm certain the Runner community would've known about it), there's no way in hell they'd be nearly as good as Faith, yet they are, what leads me to gameplay.
You could easily make the case that I suck at melee combat, in this game anyway, because Faith was made out of glass (ironically) every time I encountered an enemy. I remember having an easier time of it in
Catalyst; Faith was certainly not a tank but she could pull more moves to neutralize her opponents and far more smoothly. Maybe it helped that you didn't have people wearing full body armor firing machine guns at you. I never used a gun in
Catalyst, but I practically turned this game into
Battlefield:Faith, what's not easy seeing as shooting, while functional, is as barebones as can be. This at least makes sense narrative-wise, as Faith is a Runner not a soldier, but what a fine soldier did I turn her into! Perhaps combat's worst sin for me was how it interrupted the flow. As in
Catalyst, the sensation you get from running and jumping and parkouring is the franchise's strongest selling point, especially when you nail every jump, roll smoothly every time, and find the fastest route to your destination. The usual appearance of enemies coupled with the linearity of the levels hindered the flow more often than not.
Catalyst fixed this, in my opinion, by making the world larger and Faith a better fighter. However, its open-world nature also amplified the "beautiful emptiness" of the original, ironically, highlighting the absence of people, both Runners and others, in their day to day life. While I noticed this during my playthrough, the levels are usually short enough that you don't give it a lot of thought. Indeed, it took me around 8 hours to complete, though I'm missing around half the extras.
Another strength of the franchise that I have failed to mention is how damned gorgeous the game looks, and it's more than a decade old! You could argue it looks as good or even better than
Catalyst at times, and
Catalyst looks fantastic! Everything from the architecture, through the colours and textures, to the lighting, feels real, hyper-real perhaps, according to this video I found that explains how and why
Mirror's Edge is able to retain its good looks, comparing it to similar games released in that year, as well as
Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst. You can also click on the spoiler tags for a few of my screenshots from the game. Some character models, like Faith and Kate, could've been better, while others, like Celeste, look great. In this context, the choice to complement the game's hyper-realistic visuals with animated cutscenes may seem odd or even wrong for some, but I think it was the right one given the limitations at the time and I enjoyed the animation style. Shame they didn't follow up with a short animated movie in that style.
If I didn't mention at this point the franchise's great soundtrack by Solar Fields, I'd be doing them a disservice, as it complements the game's aesthetic to great effect, and these guys doubled down with
Catalyst, releasing a soundtrack that's over 5 hours long! "Still Alive," the game's main theme, sang by Lisa Miskovsky, is just perfect, and it's still number one in my heart above CHVRCHES' "Warning Call." I mean, just listen to the bloody thing...
I tend to favour story over gameplay in most of my games, meaning I can get through some bad or just plain gameplay loop if the story's captivating enough. However,
Mirror's Edge is one of those rare games where I appreciated the core gameplay loop in spite of a rather lackluster story. When you're running and jumping through the city's rooftops, pushing the boundaries of your freedom, becoming one with the flow and the music, that's when
Mirror's Edge truly shines. But those moments exist, as Faith puts it, "on the edge between the gloss and the reality - The Mirror's Edge." Maybe that's the way it should be.