Gungrave G.O.R.E. – Review

Where Gungrave VR and Gungrave VR U.N left off, Gungrave G.O.R.E continues. To understand what G.O.R.E is laying out, you don’t need to have played any of the previous Gungrave games or watched the anime adaptation. However, if you are new to the series, there is a short video that will help you along. The setting is a little silly: SEED, a drug that was thought to be eradicated due to its ability to turn users into monsters, has actually survived. This time, it’s being sold by the Raven Family, so Mika, Past the Grave (Grave to his companions, and your fundamental hero), Dr. Aso, newbie Quartz, and the remainder of the fairly forgettable El-Al Canhel head to Scumland to stop SEED creation and take the Raven Group, and its four managers, down.

Of course, things get worse from there, but neither the plot nor the characters in Gungrave G.O.R.E. are strong enough to keep readers interested. The other characters are mostly there to provide exposition, and Grave is silent like his name—he only has five lines in the entire game, and none of them are longer than four words. It doesn’t help that the voice acting is likewise out of control and the interpretation is pretty winning big or losing big – there are observable syntax mistakes in the composed text and abnormal manners of speaking that don’t seem normal in English. The majority of the story in G.O.R.E. is told through cutscenes. In most missions, Quartz will just lead you from A to B with a lot of rehashed and useless dialogue like “Grave”. They are coming from every direction! or “There’s the exit,” which quickly becomes tiresome. G.O.R.E’s story is just there to convince you to venture to the far corners of the planet, meet new individuals, and kill them.

You’re here for the action, and Gungrave G.O.R.E does almost exactly that. Grave possesses several abilities, including a couple of guns, a charged fired, a major final resting place to swing around for different three-hit combos, Destruction Shots (extraordinary capacities that cost energizes your work by managing harm), the capacity to mirror specific shots, an evade, and a leap. Pretty standard stuff, but Grave’s unique abilities make him interesting to play. Grave’s coffin, Death Hauler, can be used to grab enemies and use them as a human shield. You can also enter Burst Mode by shooting repeatedly while standing still, allowing Grave to deal a lot of damage quickly. In Burst Mode, Grave cannot move, but you can rotate the camera to eliminate enemies in the area. The grave can also kill enemies with low health, so he can get his shield back much faster than if you wait to recharge it.

Of course, things get worse from there, but neither the plot nor the characters in Gungrave G.O.R.E. are strong enough to keep readers interested. The other characters are mostly there to provide exposition, and Grave is silent like his name—he only has five lines in the entire game, and none of them are longer than four words. It doesn’t help that the voice acting is likewise out of control and the interpretation is pretty winning big or losing big – there are observable syntax mistakes in the composed text and abnormal manners of speaking that don’t seem normal in English. The majority of the story in G.O.R.E. is told through cutscenes. In most missions, Quartz will just lead you from A to B with a lot of rehashed and useless dialogue like “Grave”. They are coming from every direction! Or “There’s the exit,” which quickly becomes tiresome. G.O.R.E’s story is just there to convince you to venture to the far corners of the planet, meet new individuals, and kill them.

You’re really here for the action, and Gungrave G.O.R.E does almost exactly that. Grave possesses several abilities, including a couple of guns, a charged fired, a major final resting place to swing around for different three-hit combos, Destruction Shots (extraordinary capacities that cost energizes your work by managing harm), the capacity to mirror specific shots, an evade, and a leap. Pretty standard stuff, but Grave’s unique abilities make him interesting to play. Grave’s coffin, Death Hauler, can be used to grab enemies and use them as a human shield. You can also enter Burst Mode by shooting repeatedly while standing still, allowing Grave to deal a lot of damage quickly. In Burst Mode, Grave cannot move, but you can rotate the camera to eliminate enemies in the area. The grave can also kill enemies with low health, so he can get his shield back much faster than if you wait to recharge it.

Sadly, everything else is less clear. Gungrave G.O.R.E.’s campaign takes you through a wide range of environments, including the filthy alleys of Scumland, the neon-lit streets of Hong Kong, and the forests of Vietnam, among others. The levels are stunning. Studio Iggymob has done an excellent job of infusing each location with a distinct vibe, which is reflected in the way it looks, feels, and plays. The problem lies in the fact that levels themselves are completely linear processes; Small detours and side rooms exist, but there is no need to explore them unless there are enemies there. There are no collectibles to be discovered, no optional objectives to be completed, and nothing at all. Good thing you only need to kill because that’s all you’ll do.

The adversaries themselves are the second issue. By the time you reach the tenth level (out of a total of 31), you will have seen most of the enemies in Gungrave G.O.R.E., and many of the ones you see after that are just variations. You might see phrases like “guy with a rocket launcher that shoots four rockets” or “guy with a rocket launcher that shoots really fast and does a lot of damage” instead of “guy with a rocket launcher”. You might encounter a clawed Orgman bruiser that moves faster and hits harder rather than your typical SEED-infused bruiser. Even though these variations aren’t a problem in and of themselves, levels that use the same few enemies over and over can get old. This is particularly perceptible in the last couple of levels, which highlight a great all out of four types.

Additionally, Gungrave G.O.R.E. likes to throw enemies at you that require specific strategies to defeat, severely restricting your combat options. For instance, if an adversary possesses a shield, you will never be able to break it by shooting normally. It must be struck with melee attacks, a charged shot, a rocket deflected into it, an environmental explosion, or particular Demolition Shots. That probably won’t sound terrible, however, scuffle assaults are slow and will frequently miss foes they ought to hit, a charged shot expects that you quit shooting to the point of charging it, and that implies possibly losing your Beat Count, and Destruction Shots are an asset. Even so, even if you hit multiple shielded enemies with Demolition Shots and Charged Shots, they typically only destroy one shield. Additionally, you must address them right away; Grave may be powerful, but he is also slow. Shielded enemies will run up to you to prevent you from targeting their friends, knock you down, and sometimes hit you through or out of your attacks. Worse yet, none of that removes the shield itself. After the fact, you still have to kill the man who is holding it.

The same is true of adversaries armed with powerful guns or rocket launchers. Because G.O.R.E likes to have several of them attack you at once, their attacks are extremely difficult to dodge (you can’t really dodge a guy with a machine gun, and rockets basically have to be deflected because they track you), and they hit very hard. If you don’t deal with them right away, you’re probably going to die. All every of this makes battle less about utilizing Grave’s choices and more about utilizing whatever the “ideal choice” to manage that particular kind of adversary is. Gungrave G.O.R.E. is better when you can come up with creative ways to solve problems, but enemies like this completely shut that down.

Meeting bosses is much better. There are a lot of bosses to fight in G.O.R.E., some of which have multiple phases. Except for a few later exceptions, each is very individual and almost all are enjoyable. Unfortunately, boss fights don’t start appearing regularly until you’re more than halfway through the campaign in a level. A stage will typically end with a large battle against a large number of smaller enemies or simply stop once you reach a certain point. The first is acceptable, but the second is extremely jarring and can really detract from the experience.

I wish I could say that each level was excellent, but they’re also very inconsistent. Even that seems like an inadequate description of Gungrave G.O.R.E.’s general improvement over time. However, the initial levels are definitely less enjoyable; the majority of them lack boss fights, and G.O.R.E frequently tries to trick you. For instance, on one level, Grave must navigate the top of a moving train while avoiding approaching tunnels and signs. This makes sense in theory, but Grave is a slow character who thrives in silence. Standing still to use Burst Mode, which exposes you to the risk of running into a passing sign or not entering the train before it reaches a tunnel, is the only way to effectively eliminate the enemies in your path, especially early on when you only have a limited moveset. Being atop the train when it enters a tunnel means instant death and having to redo the entire segment while hitting a sign is bad because it will cost you all of your shield and about half of your health. If you try to move quickly while avoiding the signs, you open yourself up to enemies with rocket launchers and shields, both of which deal a lot of damage and have the potential to knock you off the train, resulting in instant death and having to complete the entire section over again.

These difficulty spikes are extremely frustrating in the early game. Most of the time, you die because you lack the skills or tools to deal damage quickly enough, not because you made a mistake. The sixth level, in which Grave must fight off a large group of what at the time seemed to be a lot of really tough Raven Clan enemies, was by far the worst example I encountered. I tried this segment for more than an hour, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t do enough damage quickly enough. There were simply too many enemies in too small a space, and each of them demanded that I deal with them in a particular way, making me frequently vulnerable to something else. In the end, I had to lower the difficulty of that encounter, which suddenly enabled me to pass on the first attempt. Even though Gungrave G.O.R.E. actually encourages you to switch difficulty settings when things get too hard, it hurts when you have to do so because your damage output isn’t up to some arbitrary standard because you didn’t get enough points to buy the upgrades you need yet. I was able to easily complete that level on normal difficulty when I returned to it later with additional abilities.

Upgrades can be purchased from the main menu or at the end of each level. G.O.R.E. scores you in five different categories, and you earn points by finishing levels: time, kill rate, life staying, most elevated Beat Count, and Craftsmanship Score on a scale from D to S. It then, at that point, midpoints the outcomes for the last score, and focuses are granted in light of how well you do. At first, it’s hard to score well because you don’t have the skills to keep high Beat Counts (reference: On most levels, you can get a C) or Art score with a Beat Count in the 300s, but it gets easier as you unlock abilities.

You can go to The Lab when you have enough points to spend. There is a lot to buy: upgrades to damage, shield, and health, as well as new melee combos and skills and Demolition Shots. G.O.R.E expands significantly as you acquire new items, making combat much simpler and more enjoyable. In the event that you get stuck, you can also request a refund for your abilities at any time for their full purchase price. If you maximize Grave’s targeting range and bullet damage instead of his Storm Barrage, which is mostly used for crowd control and building high Beat Counts against large groups, a one-on-one boss fight will be much simpler.

Sadly, Grave’s limited moveset cannot be concealed by any upgrades. Since his only new weapons are the twin pistols and the coffin, he never really changes how he plays. You can only iterate on what you already have with new moves. G.O.R.E offers two other playable characters, Bunji and Quartz, yet they’re just there for one level each and, for Bunji’s situation, a little piece of a later level. Their play styles are refreshing: I enjoyed playing Bunji more than Grave because he is faster and can dodge while in Burst mode. Quartz, then again, is more blended. She is a melee character in a game that wasn’t made for melee characters. Her moveset is nice, but it’s just a novelty. Each character is only available for a limited time, and you are unable to purchase new ones or upgrade existing ones. They get what they bring with them. You can’t even rebind your controls if you don’t like how things are set up, so it feels like a huge missed opportunity. Grave never gets anything to really change his playstyle.

The Verdict

When it comes down to it, the majority of Gungrave G.O.R.E. feels like an opportunity that was missed. Although the combat system is excellent, it is frequently let down by the lack of variety and repetitive enemy design. The art by Trigun’s Yasuhiro Nightow and Ikumi Nakamura is fantastic and oozes style; however, the story that is told in that appealing setting is not very interesting. Although the voice acting is a little uneven, the music and sound design are generally excellent. I can without much of a stretch see its true capacity, yet a mixed bag of slips up keeps Gungrave G.O.R.E from truly arriving at it.