Gungrave G.O.R.E Review (Bardiele)
Gungrave G.O.R.E. is the Gungrave game we wanted but not the one we deserved.
I'll divide in chapters this whole thing so you'll know what are you going to keep reading.
If you've never heard of Gungrave you will probably don't like this game or, at the very least, will not understand NOTHING of this by the story perspective...because there is absolutely no story here. It tries to be there but it's a fake, lazy and useless one.
This game is like...you have TONS of money and buy the bestest oil colors, the best brushes, the best canvas...but you can only paint a stickman.
No mocap in the cutscenes was fine in the old days or in low detailed video environments....with this level of detail (that is really good) makes the characters akward, visibly fake and altoghether ugly.
I speak from the bottom of my heart, these cutscenes makes me wanna carve out my eyes.
Now, the story: There is none. It starts abruptely out of nowhere and ends up nowhere.
Usually in all Grave's games we have a precise motivation of why they are waking us up, a precise goal usually with Mika at our side that points us where to shoot and we always ends up saving her somehow developing ever further the love Grave kept for his family even after death.
"You have to like, Mika."
In this game we follow an unknown brat that seems has been infected with SEED, we will never know why, how or anything...but this won't stop her from yelling at our ears every 30 seconds. She say to follow Mika and their "group" to get rid of SEED once and for all...for the third time. Point is that if you never played the previous games (last one from 2004) or seen the original anime you probably don't know what is happening or what SEED is and THIS GAME will not tell you nothing. So if you're a new or old fan of the series, do NOT look for some new engaging story here...you will end up starving and hoping your PS2 works again...
Gameplay wise...it's Gungrave. It has a couple of new gimmiks but after all these updates it's the best Gungrave game I've played. Yeah, ok there are some minor issues like Putting Executuoner's Blood as a low level low damage Demolition shot but hey...at least you can use it much more...WAY much more since it hits like a peeshoter but those are details.
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If you don't know how Gungrave games works, here is a rundown:
Gungrave is a linear corridor where you start shooting at the start of the stage, point at things that go *BOOM* or *SPLAT* and you stop because the level ended or you died. Seriously, if you stop keeping the shoot button pressed for longer than 2 seconds, you're playing it wrong. Just like the original game there are no secrets in the missions, no easter eggs, nothing. You just walk and shoot for 50 seconds to 8 minutes and then press a couple of buttons to start the next stage. They added some new stategies to make harder difficulties a little more tactical like the ability to take a hostage and use it as a shield but it is still one of those games where the absolute best defence is killing the enemies before they can hit you.
All in all I really like the game. I really REALLY hate with all my might the cutscenes and the "story" they tried to came up with.
Gungrave G.O.R.E. IS the game all Grave's Fans wanted...but it's not what we deserved after almost 20 years of cooking from the same developers. I know they can do marvels but seems like they either bite more than they could chew or got lazy...or they couldn't find the founds to do the story properly.
I do NOT regret spending 60€ on this game...damn if they put more DLCs I will buy them just for the hope they will continue and do a better job next time.