Punishing Gray Raven Review
Around 5 months ago, I wrote an article detailing the disastrous launch Punishing Gray Raven (PGR) had. I, however never went into detail about my thoughts regarding the gameplay for I believed I needed more time to feel it out before I can safely say I gave a comprehensive review. I also backed off from it because at the time, Kuro Games got caught doing some shady stuff behind the scenes on their gacha which no amount of gameplay can save it. Looking back at it now….is hard to believe Kuro Games actually did those things! This will be my review on the game as well as my thoughts on Kuro Games as a developer and why I believe they can be a prime example of what a good mobile developer should be like.
A brief history on the game’s development and developers. Kuro Games, a small game studio based in Guangzhou and founded in 2013. A lot of you might think that Punishing Gray Raven is their first game considering the mismanagement they had on the initial launch, but nope. Prior to the launch of PGR, they had developed a game before, a 2D turn-based gacha game named 战场双马尾 or in english…nah I’m not gonna do it. It went Open Beta in June 2016 but because it was opened the same time period when Onmyoji, Honkai Impact 3 as well as FGO are on the horizon, they didn’t have much sucess and eventually had to close down their server in December of 2018. Note that the game is only developed by Kuro Games and not published by them. Is quite bold for them to jump from a 2D turn-based gacha to a full blown 3D ARPG on the phone. I know that mihoyo did the same, but unlike them, Kuro games first game wasn’t as sucessful as theirs nor do they have the money. Punishing Gray Raven was announced in 2018 before the death of 战场双马尾 and had its first beta test in February 20th 2018.
We are introduced to their take on the ARPG genre. Instead of mimicking the artstyle and gameplay of Honkai Impact 3 directly like VGAME did, Kuro Games instead decided to go with a more Nier like setting with robots and a more cyberpunk world setting. They also decided to change the standard skill buttons into RNG orbs instead, adding RNG into the gameplay. This decision is, for the most part, received well by the public. They enjoyed the system and the more fast-paced combat that the game offers. However there was issues with the gameplay as well, the dodge is limited, very limited infact, you can only dodge up to 3 times if I remember correctly. The combat well fun, lacks weight behind it and enemies at the time, didn’t have a good enough signal on when they are going to attack. All these issues are swiftly addressed in subsequent beta test and with each beta test the game got better and better and better. The hype around the game is insanely high and now Kuro Games have more to deliver because VGAME failed, if Kuro Games can’t deliver players expectaction, they are going to fail even harder with this game. Well, you guys know what happened. (https://medium.com/@pinkydinkyhere/trainwreck-punishing-gray-raven-574e154e831d in case you didn’t) They lost a bunch of players in just a mere 1 week but there are also a lot who stayed because the combat is rock solid, the gameplay is amazingly smooth and fun, is challenging as well. I assure you first, after that fiasco, Kuro Games pulled the biggest W in mobile gaming I seen. However, before I talk about that, let’s talk about the game itself.
The game itself.
The combat in PGR is fairly straight forward if you have played Honkai before or most spectacle fighter (DMC), you have your movement, your attack button, your dodge and orbs. Each color of orbs correspond to a skill, each character have 3 skills that corresponds with 3 different orb color. Orbs are recovered through normal attacking. This adds a layer of management on top of the existing combat, not only that you have to pay attention to what’s on the screen but also what orbs you are receiving, in order to maximize damage you have to 3 orb combo them, there’s no cooldown you can spam them as much as you want as long as there is an orb, I see this as a good thing. It adds a bit of RNG to the gameplay that makes it a bit more exciting. The dodge is limited but after playing for 5 months, it started to become a good thing to me. I initially found it stupid to do that, the combat here is more fast paced than Honkai is, enemies are faster and group up more, adding a dodge limit is just ridicolous. But after awhile, it stop bothering me, having a limit on dodge means you have to dodge more smartly instead of just dodging whenever you feel like it, it also avoids you from playing blindly, making you play smarter. You can’t just rush into the the boss and dodge blindly, once you lose all the dodge, you are on a cooldown which can kill you. The QTE is also slightly different from Honkai in which instead of requiring a condition to trigger them, you can trigger QTE with just a 3 orb combo that matches the character’s ring color on the side. They also don’t switch your current character but instead just gets summoned and back to the foreground after they finish the QTE.
There are currently 3 class within the game, DPS, Support as well as Tanks. Unlike Hi3 which failed to make tanks useful and just kills their tank class entirely later on (Himeko cries), PGR makes their tanks useful, actually viable. All of the tanks in the game is viable and have their own unique use within the game, that I applaud them. Supports are usually healers and healing is crucial in this game because enemies don’t drop health orbs or any sort. DPS is just your attackers, makes you go THAT’S A LOT OF DAMAGE. There are also the usual, elemental and physical damage but like Hi3, element damage doesn’t have any cool status effect which is sad.
The graphics and performance. The game looks amazing and runs at 60fps consistently without drops, 120fps if you have the phone that support it. The optimization is definitely up there, ways ahead of Hi3. (25fps bullshit) The models, the enemies and effects all look crisp and detailed. However, I do want to complain that the lighthing effect can be a bit blinding in some situations and just make you unable to see what’s happening on the screen entirely.
The co-op ping is also not the best, it fluctuates around 70–100ms for me and goes up to 500ms for players that don’t live close to China. The game also disconnects a lot and a lot of players outside of China have issues loging into the game sometimes. It is a bit annoying when you finally completed a stage and it just goes into infinite loading, but Kuro Games have stated that they are working on it.
The content. There’s all the usual modes, your farm stages, your story mode, your memorial clone called Paincage (Boss fighthing) and your dirac sea called Warzone. The story in the game is definitely intresting, you play as a commnder in a dystopian future where Earth is ruined by a virus named Punishing and your job is to command Androids with the concious of a human called Strucuture and try to reclaim Earth. The writing isn’t as good as recent Honkai’s story but is definitely more coherent for now, Hi3 story is all over the place and retcons itself a lot. The character story is also better in my opinion here, every character has their own tiny backstory that you can play through and every new type of that character will have a corresponding story about it. You can also try the character out in their story which is a welcoming feature. Events are released every month, each time with their own exclusive mode. Like the current event has a mode where you choose a path for your train and discover what’s ahead and gain rewards. Is decently enjoyable. The events also have a bunch of resources to trade as well some exclusives like dorm characters and gear. (good ones) And yes there is a dorm that is inferior to Hi3’s dorm but is there if you want it.
One thing I want to point out is that the content here is harder than HI3. Not in the way that HI3 does it which forces you to use a very specific character to do well, the bosses here as well as mobs are just generally smarter and more unforgiving. They can have some really rough buffs that can ruin your day. Bosses are faster and hits way harder, one mistep can instantly kill you and it applies to all characters.
In short, there is no shortage of content for sure! Despite being a small studio, they go all out. (Looking at you Arknights)
The rewards and gacha. The game definitely rewards high tier players and low tier players equally. At the moment, the rewards between a whale and a f2p player isn’t insanely big, premium currency obtained by the 2 is actually the same, the difference is that whales will get like 2 more fragments and get to brag about it. This both a good and a bad thing depending who you are. If you are a f2p player, this is great news! But if you are a whale, you definitely won’t be obtaining 1000x more rewards. The recent addition of Babylonia tower does make whale have an advantage since they can bloat their scores on it but that’s about it really. The gacha? Oh let me tell you about the gacha. In PGR, you don’t pull for memory/stigma, they are instead farmed through stages and events, so that’s one less thing to pull. On the normal character gacha, the one that is permanent, you get to select the rate up. I don’t mean you vote, you literally just pick whatever A rank character you want rate up. Newly released A ranks will have 100% rate up when they are first released (No joke, that means the only A rank you are getting is that character) and others will have 80% rate up.
S ranks are also in the pool but sadly you cannot select the rate-up. S rank is guarnteed every 60 pulls. (I wonder what Hi3 did) There is also event gacha for newly released S ranks, in which they have 100% rate up in that pool. Meaning the only S you can get is the new one, 100% guarnteed. Weapons are the same deal. Select your own rate up, guarntees a 6 star every 30 pulls as opposed to 60.
The music in this game is pretty amazing. They partnered with Vanguard Sound to do their OST and they sound quite amazing. Is not vocal or pop like HI3 for sure, is more edm and fits the setting more. here a sample https://youtu.be/ZwZC4vlZTbI .
Now let’s get back to Kuro Games W. After the incident, Kuro games just went full santa claus. We complained there’s not enough premium currency? Add free 30 pulls on character and weapon! Elemental too weak against Physical? Buff elemental but not nerf physical! The speed in which they update is insanely fast and they respond frequently to their playerbase. Everything we echoed, they responded and provided a good answer. They have a monthly QnA that addresses issues players have as well as answer our questions regarding content. I was joking around how there is going to a bike stage in chapter 10, then what did you know, there really is one! We asked for effect changing skins, Kuro games immediately delivered one.
Their communication with the community to me, is unreal. And they embrace their memes. Even though it was used to insult them, they still use it as a name! They are the santa claus that keeps on giving. Just when we were worried that difficulty is getting lower because some casual whined, the next update showed insanely hard content that challenges players but allows casuals to still beat it. Balancing on Kuro’s end is also miles ahead of what Mihoyo is doing. They don’t lure you into spending for the new character, no they don’t do that. Instead, they take the players feedback and tweak it from there. Elementals use to get absolutely stomped by physical DPS but now with the recent balance patch that buffs them but still make sure Physical are just as strong. Now they are on equal footing and perform well in their own respective ways. PGR promotes investment in multiple characters highly, bosses all have specific weakness to certain ty[es but you can beat it just fine without using it, just lower score that’s all! They don’t shove it down your throat and force you to train. The events are also getting better and better with each update, with more modes, more challenge. Looking at them now, is hard to believe Kuro Games made such a mistake and pull such a shady move initially. It really does. If they keep this up, Kuro Games can really be a dev that people need to look up to.
In conclusion, PGR is at a great position right now and I highly recommend anyone who is a fan of mobile games to give it a shot or you just want something that is different from HI3. They might have a rocky start but they sure as hell have a smooth sail right now. The community adore the game as well as the devs. Definitely a game I will remember for a long long long time!
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