|
Gun-slinging, rocket blasting, blood splattering, cel-shaded, anime-style action from the creator of Trigun.
Gungrave
Developer: Positron/Ikusabune
Platform: Playstation 2
Genre: Action
A friend of mine introduced me to this game about a year ago. He had never played it, he didn't know what it was about, all he knew was that Yasuhiro Nightow, the creator of Trigun, was responsible for it and because of that, he knew I would probably flip out over it. I did. He showed me an advertisement in an issue of Newstyle and told me what it was. I began readin up on it, and found out a few things. 1) It was a heavy action title. 2) It was about 2 hours long. Both of those factoids are correct, although, the second one is a little skewed by a few other things. Anyway, I went in search of it, and everywhere I saw it, the game was priced at 50 bucks. No way in hell was I paying 50 dollars for a 2-hour game. About three weeks ago, though, I managed to find it on sale, brand new, 20 bucks. I snatched it up immediately. Here's my recommendation, if you like action titles, and you can find this one for 20 or 30 bucks, pick it up.
Anyway, on with the review.
Story
Brandon Heat is a scary fuckin' guy. He used to be a top assassin for the mysterious "Syndicate", which sits at the top of the city's organized crime pyramid. He was betrayed by one of his closest associates in the Syndicate, a man named Harry McDowell. Brandon was shot several times and hurled through the glass wall of an outside elevator, plunging hundreds upon hundreds of feet to the concrete below.
Years later, Brandon is revived by the enigmatic Dr. T, a scientist whose true intentions with Brandon lie veiled. After being rejuvenated as a monstrous, gun-toting killing machine without a soul, Brandon was given the name "Beyond the Grave", or just "Grave" for short. Equipped with a twin pair of behemoth-sized handguns (called "Cerberus") and a giant coffin-like armament strapped to his back, Grave unleashes his own personal war against the Syndicate, mowing down anything that stands in his path.
Gameplay
Shoot things. Shoot things, shoot things, shoot things. You will fill an endless supply of goons with an even more impressive supply of searing lead. You will dodge bullets, mash the fire button, string together combos and unleash devastating Demolition Shots from your Coffin. That's about all there is to say.
Gungrave is an action game, through and through. No exploration, no puzzle-solving, no stat-building. Just a ton of bodies and bullets. Grave's abilities include firing his guns, jumping, walking, running, swinging his Coffin around as a melee weapon and firing a Demolition Shot. Pretty simple all in all, but that's where a lot of the fun comes in. It's not overly complicated, and as such, it's pretty easy to just jump right into. The central reward system in the combat is based around stringing together combos. The longer you can go, constantly firing at enemies, without allowing the chain of gunfire to break, the more "Beats" you recieve. Earning large amounts of Beats will fill your Demolition Gauge, allowing you to use more Demolition Shots.
The Demolition Shots are the real reward for successful combos. Grave has five of them to choose from, four large attacks and one that burns a Demolition Shot in order to heal Grave's health meter. The four attacks come in two types: bullet attacks and rocket attacks. The two bullet attacks involve Grave firing wildly in all directions, while the rocket attacks involve Grave launching a volley of explosives into his opponents. These attacks prove to be extremely helpful in large groups of enemies as well as against bosses, so it's always a good idea to rack up those Beats.
In addition to Grave's badassery on the offensive front, he can take a substantial amount of damage too. Grave has two health bars, one blue and one red. The blue bar represents the amount of damage he can just sort of shrug off. He can take direct bullet hits without it phasing him until that blue bar empties, at which point he'll start taking actual physical damage. The blue bar actually recovers fairly quickly once there is a break in the action. Any damage to the red bar is permanent unless the "Restore Health Now" Demolition Shot is used. There are no health pickups, so you've gotta be on your toes in this game.
On the gameplay front, Gungrave is simple, but very entertaining. The purpose of the game isn't based around party-management, item use or exploration. It's just about killing hundreds upon hundreds of opponents solely for the acquisition of points. It's just a lot of mindless fun.
The one complaint I have with the gameplay is the length. Honestly, I think I beat it in two hours. Maybe a bit less. Now, while this seems ridiculously paltry at first, the reasoning behind it is pretty solid. The fact is, this game is meant to be played repeatedly. It's meant to be played multiple times through, enticing you to strive for a better overall score each time. How does the game entice you to do this? By offering a ton of extra crap to play with. You can re-view the cinema sequences (which are amazing), re-play any level individually, activate a time-slowing ability for Grave and inspect all of the 3D character models in a "trophy gallery" of sorts.
Graphics
The entire game is presented with a quasi-cel-shaded anime graphics engine, and it just simply looks amazing. The character models are a mixed bag, Grave's being phenomenal, and the enemies being pretty bland. The bosses are extremely well-designed, though, especially the last three, which are all exceptionally memorable. The level designs are all very well done, with appropriate use of lighting techniques and a lot of color. My favorite graphical aspect about the levels is how interactive many of the areas are. If you fire repeatedly at a subway column, it will chip away and eventually crumble altogether.
The animations are likewise impressive. Grave's animations in particular are astounding. He lumbers along, the Coffin swinging from the chains harnessing it to his back. He executes a number of impressive trick shots when in the midst of a combo, and he pulls off a devastating Demolition Shot with fluid style. The enemies are also very well animated, their best patterns reserved for their death throes, considering that's what you'll be seeing them do for the most part.
One other nifty atmospheric addition to the game is a bit of a secret. If you save one Demolition Shot for the very end of a boss fight, and decide to use it to finish the guardian off, Grave will go into a super-badass cutscene in which he utilizes all sorts of unfathomably cool attacks to devastate his enemy. Just wait until the boss is almsot dead, hit the Triangle button and watch Grave kick ass and fuck the names.
The last great graphical aspect I'll mention is the cutscenes. The character models are all presented in the same cel-shaded style, only much, much crisper and higher resolution than the in-game models are. The rest of the cutscenes are rendered in CG, and the combination of the two just looks fantastic. You'll see Grave flying through windows, evading a giant armored tank and outrunning the Police on his kickass motorcycle. In terms of cinematic presentation, this game has got it in spades.
Sound
The sound is another area where there really is no argument to be had. This game sounds amazing. Grave's guns blast with a deep roar, explosions reverberate through the hallways and the general pulse of Grave's chaos is just overpowering. The more subtle effects are very well done also, like the chains on Grave's Coffin clanking as he runs, or the sound of enemy gunfire coming from several rooms away.
On top of that, the score is phenomenal. You would expect that a game of this style would most likely be dominated by a more industrial/rock soundtrack, but you would be wrong. The score for this game consists mainly of big band-type horn arrangements over thrumming bass, and it's catchy as hell. The main theme in particular is just mind-numbingly memorable. If the main theme doesn't get carried over to the anime, I'm going to be very, very disappointed.
The final sound aspect to consider is the voice acting. Now, I know that any of the hardcore anime nerds on this forum are going to castrate me for this, but I'm extremely disheartened that the voice acting in this game uses the original Japanese as opposed to a proper english dub. Granted, this was done to appease those same hardcore anime nerds I just mentioned, but I don't see a reason for it other than that. The quality of english dubs these days is phenomenal, with Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Hellsing and Heat Guy J standing as examples of that. There is no earthly reason why this game shouldn't have gone through a more thorough localization process, with a full english dub, or at least the option to choose between an english dub and the Japanese with english subtitles. It just feels wrong to me.
Flaws
I'll re-post all of the flaws I've mentioned so far.
1) The game is extremely short. No more than 2 hours, and an expert could probably finish it in half the time. However, as I've stated before, the game is intended to be played multiple times, and there are several difficulty levels with which to do that.
2) The gameplay may be too simplistic for some. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but if you don't want a straight action game, this isn't the game for you.
3) The game does have some camera issues every once in a while. The game uses a standard FPS control scheme in which the camera is constantly centered directly behind Grave. Occasionally the camera will get caught on a wall and it will tweak out. Infrequent, but irritating.
4) I would have liked to have seen some more creative designs in the standard enemies. The bosses and Grave himself look fantastic, but the run-of-the-mill thugs you fight are exactly that: run-of-the-mill.
5) I would have vastly preferred an english dub over the original japanese with english subtitles. I prefer dubbed anime, I prefer dubbed movies and with the quality of today's english dubs, there's no real reason for the omission of this factor.
Overall
I loved this game. I'm not usually one for nothing-but-action games, but this one was worth every penny. Granted, had I paid full price for it, I would probably be a bit aggrivated, but I didn't, so I'm extremely happy with the purchase.
If you're a fan of high-action games, a fan of Yasuhiro Nightow's anime stylings or if you're just a fan of giant, soulless killing machines with massive coffin-shaped weapons strapped to their backs, you'll enjoy the hell out of this game too. Plus, you can't really go wrong with a game that proclaims "Kick Their Asses!" at the beginning of each level. That's just too cool for words.
Score: 8.1
 
Last edited by Raziel; 2005-01-03 at 04:43 AM.
|
 |
Linear Mode
