Gungrave (2002) Ps2 Review
Gungrave, is a third person shooter released and developed in 2002 by Red Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. The game is noteworthy for featuring the character designs of Yasuhiro Nightow, who was the creator of the western influenced manga series Trigun. The game plays out as a stylish yet simplistic third person shoot with a unique aesthetic and well done story.
The game puts players in control of a mysterious individual known as Beyond the Grave, although most of the times he is simply referred to as Grave, as takes the role of a one man army fighting to take down a sinister crime syndicate known as Millennion which has kept a stranglehold of the city with the sale of a drug known as Seed. Other important characters on Grave’s side are; Dr. T, a man who acts as a kind of mission control that both keeps Grave’s body in good condition and supplies him with the information that sets of each level of the game, and Mika, a younger girl whom Grave has taken on a protective role for and seeks to support.
While this game is a third person shooter, it has several odd ways in which is plays differently from most other third person shooters. For starters, Grave is in many ways a fast shooting slow moving tank, he has limited mobility and is best at shooting while standing still, he can’t even shoot while running. When standing still Grave’s attack and turning speed increases, making not moving the best option for most encounters. The only real way to avoid taking damage is with a dodge that is only worth using in boss fights or against specific enemies. In return however he has two health bars, a normal non refilling health bar and a second shield bar that refills when not taking damage. This crates a primary gameplay loop of each fight with normal enemies is based around trying to kill every enemy on screen before they can take down Grave’s shield.
Another primary mechanic of the game is the Demolition Shots. As players go through the game there is a limited combo system, each time the player does damage to an enemy or part of the environment their Beat number goes up. The higher the combo the more the Beat Meter goes up. Each time the bar gets filled they receive one Demolition Shot, and they can store up to 9 shots at a time. Players can use the Demolition Shot in multiple ways, to activate a special more damaging move, their are 4 different options but you get the last three as you play through the game, or to restore some of their non refilling health. There is also a more extra way to use some of these, when a boss’ heath has reached a certain low point a skull icon near the Beat Meter will glow and then players can use one Demolition Shot to activate a Graveyard Special, a flashy and stylish method of killing a boss slightly earlier in the fight.
Also, there is no real way of aiming in this game, as long as players are facing in the general direction of the enemies the bullets will find their way to each target. While this could have made the game far too easy, the later levels and boss fights will require a smart use of dodging and Demolition Shots.
One of my favorite parts of the game was these between level almost intermission like segments back at the characters home base. While their player’s could save, talk to Dr. T about the upcoming level, or talk to Mika about the events of the game in general. It was always a nice little way to slow down the pacing of the very chaotic and sometimes ridiculous gameplay.
Graphicly the game is pretty good, especially the cinematics which have a heavy shadow-high contrast-cel shading look to them which gives the game a darker more noir-like atmosphere. The in-game graphics still look good as well due to the character and environmental designs still coming together nicely.
Something I have always found interesting with this game is how it just throughs the player into its world, there is no real tutorial and no plot exposition dump, players will have to figure out how to play the game and what the story is even about as they play though it on their own. The lack of explanation of the game isn't an issue because the gameplay is fairly simple enough for players to get the idea on their own.
Now, while I enjoyed this game, it has its fair share of issues. The game is very simple and can get repetitive as it does not change how you play though most of the game. The game play has always reminded me of the Dynasty Warriors style game play, as its is a repetitive button masher but one that is viscerally satisfying to mow down hundreds of enemies at ease so if you’re not into that kind of thing then this game wouldn’t be for you. The only thing keeping this game from being overly repetitive is its short run time, their are six levels in this game and the game can be finished in around two hours total. The only replay value this game has is that each time you beat the game you get ranked by how well you did, so you could try to get higher scores. Level Design is also not that varied, with most of the game consisting of linearly connected hallways and rooms that just serve to take players to enemy encounters.
There is also the controls and how there is no direct camera control, the only way to move the camera is to have Grave move in the direction you want to look at. That can become a problem in boss fights or when turning a corner as the enemies can see you but you can’t tell where they are. There is a lock on that does help in most boss fights to keep a track of the enemy’s location. The movement isn’t great either, with Grave being slow and tank like with the lack of camera turning not helping, but because the player is not often designed to move and shoot at the same time it doesn’t become a real issue until later. One thing that the movement works well with is the rocket launcher enemies. Those enemies are the most dangerous standard enemies in this game, their rockets can mostly destroy your shield in one hit and are the only non boss attack where you need to dodge. That would make every encounter with the extremely tense as I would need to be quick with my dodges and try to finish them off asap, which actually served to make more those moments more engaging as I couldn’t just mash square and win.
The part of the game that bothered me the most would be some of the boss fights, as the game progresses they begin to require more uses of proper movement to get past boss fights, such as the final boss making you constantly be going backwards to avoid an ever approaching enemy, or one where the enemy spends most of the fight trying to run away behind a pillar where they can refill most of their health within seconds while out of sight. Which always bothered me how a game with a main character not designed to move and shoot would layer on make the players move and shoot all the time to progress. Like how most boss fights turn the player from a tank into a glass cannon where every hit will mostly destroy your shield, which felt weird considering how most of the game otherwise were the opposite. The normal levels teach the player that staying stationary is the best option for combat and then the boss fights completely disregard that and make the player suddenly learn a different way to play.
The parts of this game I like the most are the style in how the game delivers the story, while one can argue that the story in the game is closer to a excuse to get players to each level and fight, the stylish neo-noir atmosphere the game has works really well with the tone of the story. The games aesthetic feels like a combination of a dark neo-noir mafia tale of betrayal and vengeance meets an over the top bullet-fest with zombies, airships, people turning into giant monsters, and what may be aliens. It was not surprising to hear that the game also got an anime adaptation that fleshed out the events of the plot into a deeper and darker character based tale. I feel its worth mentioning that most fans of the anime consider that when it actually starts being more like the original game and not fleshing out the background elements as the show’s worst part. Another side note in that this is like the only video game adaptation where people can talk about the show without mentioning the fact that it was based off of a video game, which could be considered a sign of quality as it stands on its own instead of in the games shadow.
Ultimately this game is one of the few that I would call “Style over Substance”, I typically don't like that term because most times I find that style can deliver something of more than enough substance that it makes up for a perceived lack of it. But this game is one that, while it gives off an truly unique style, lacks the complexity or detail to truly be something great.
My feelings are ultimately conflicted as I even ended up rewriting part of this article because I thought it cam off too negative for a game I still really enjoy. Even though I enjoyed my time with it, I would ultimately only recommend to people who are looking for games with a strong sense of style and can overlook flawed but sometimes fun gameplay. For most others I would either say to skip this or watch the show instead.
