Mission: Backlog Hiatus

I'll be going into Army Basic Combat Training tomorrow, and as a result won't be able to play, much less review anything for a bit (Thanksgiving time at the earliest). I'll hopefully be able to get a couple games done over Christmas break though.

M:B #25 Star Fox

Pros: Super FX chip; three completely different paths; the voice acting; great soundtrack
Cons: Super FX chip; hit detection can be spotty; completely worthless teammates

Star Fox has always been a bit of a Moby Dick to me. As a kid, I played the game constantly, memorizing just about every detail of the first two paths that the game offered. I could easily reach Andross and defeat him as long as I chose Levels 1 or 2. However, I could never finish the third path. I'd try, getting to the third level without too much difficulty, but inevitably the boss would kill me and I'd give up, opting for one of the other paths instead so that I could actually finish the game. I vaguely remember beating the third level boss once, but I know for a fact I didn't make it past the fourth level out of seven. When Star Fox 64 came out, I played that game even more, unlocking literally everything by getting gold medals on every level. And yet in the back of my mind, I always knew that I had cheated a little bit by never actually finishing the third path of the original. No matter how satisfying it was to unlock playing multiplayer in tanks, I still couldn't finish a measly five levels in the first game. And so for the 25th Mission: Backlog I went back to a classic for some much needed closure.

As most people know, Star Fox is an on rails shooter in which you fly through each level destroying as many enemies as possible before encountering a boss. What made Star Fox so special at the time was that it was one of the first 3D games on a 16 bit console thanks to the Super FX chip which helped simulate a 3D environment. At the time, the game looked completely unique because of this, but now it just looks like an incredibly early 3D game like the original Descent. It's a bit unfair to knock the game for this now though, considering it used a completely new technology at the time. You're tasked with defeating Andross on the planet Venom, but there are three different paths to get there, each of them completely unique. The Level 1 path is of course the easiest, with the Level 2 path being slightly more difficult, and the Level 3 path being fairly punishing.You'll always start on Corneria, but even this level changes depending on what path you take, so you really haven't completed the game in its entirety until you've cleared all three paths. Granted, all three paths probably won't take you more than three hours to beat, but the variety of levels (19 in all) is definitely welcome.

In each level you'll be accompanied by three co-pilots (Falco, Slippy, and Peppy), but they're completely worthless. You can save them if you want when they're being attacked, but they'll never really take down enemies on their own. In face, I ended up killing them all off when they began to actually hinder my progress on the Level 3 path. In one of the later levels, you'll encounter gates that open a certain way depending on the direction of the blinking arrow on its front. If you shoot this arrow, it'll change directions, and you need to know which way the gate will swing so you can fly the opposite direction. Well, after rescuing Falco, he proceeded to shoot said arrow as I was about to pass the gate, causing it to open in my face and damage my ship. I might have just laughed it off if the level wasn't so damn difficult and the damage hurt me bad when it came to fighting the boss. Needless to say, there were three downed ships within minutes. The one saving grace of your teammates is the "voice acting" which is just gibberish but still incredibly entertaining. In addition to the sound effects being great, the soundtrack is one of the best I can remember on the SNES. I don't know how I didn't appreciate it more as a kid, but just about every level has an incredible theme and the opening as well as closing themes are also both classics.

There are two types of levels in Star Fox, although they're both still shooter levels. All levels that take place on a planet as well as several in space take a third person perspective and tend to be a bit more wide open. There are some levels in space that take a first person perspective, with the camera automatically returning to the center of the screen if you aren't pressing in a direction. Overall, these levels are much more restricted in terms of movement and will require you to shoot down the enemies before they strike as opposed to the third person levels where you can also dodge their shots more easily. One minor complaint is that the hit detection doesn't always seem quite on target, and this is particularly true when the enemies are further away. Granted, in the third person view there is no shooting reticule, but I was still making a lot of shots that I thought should have connected. Once the enemies are close, the detection is fine so it didn't ruin the game for me, but it still could be better. The one exception to all of this is a certain boss on the sixth stage of Level 3. I couldn't ever seem to actually hit his weak point, no matter how close I was, and I honestly ended up winning the fight with a decent amount of luck. You'll use your Arwing's blasters as well as bombs to advance through the levels. The blasters can be upgraded twice by a special powerup that comes up about once every level and, while the upgrades aren't necessary to beat the game, make it a lot more manageable. Bombs are handed out via a powerup a bit more liberally and will clear most of the screen of enemies as well as do decent damage on most bosses.

The original Star Fox isn't quite as good as it's sequel on the Nintendo 64, but it definitely laid a strong foundation for what was to follow. By no means is this a knock against the original, but for those with the option of playing either, Star Fox 64 should win out due to its more varied combat, amazingly cheesy voice acting, and great setpieces. Still, Star Fox is a classic that is worth visiting because much of this can be seen in its infancy in the original and because of the title's place in SNES history as one of the first 3D games.

Overall: 8.4
Recommended Price: $12.99 (or if you're cheap emulate it)

M:B #24 Killzone Liberation

Pros: Good synergy between optional missions and mandatory missions; cover mechanic works surprisingly well for an isometric shooter; decent number of different weapons...
Cons: ...but most are useless; hit detection problems when meleeing

I think that I thought Killzone Liberation was a different game when I first bought it. I had purchased a PSP last year and was pretty enthused to pick up a variety of games for the system, and so I bought this and Every Extend Extra at the same time. Unfortunately, I believe I was thinking of SOCOM when I purchased Killzone Liberation and I was under the bizarre impression Every Extend Extra was as well regarded as Lumines, so the entire trip seemed to be a wash, as I went home and read the reviews for each game and any enthusiasm I had evaporated. As a result, both games were set aside as I focused on Jeanne D'arc and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. I tried to play Killzone Liberation earlier this year but got stuck on the fourth level. Unfortunately, I wasn't willing to show any patience when playing the game, and after playing the same section four times I put it aside, assuming I would never come back. This ended up having the opposite effect, however, as I wanted to beat it more than ever after starting Mission: Backlog because of the difficulty I had had with the game. Killzone Liberation is a better game than I initially gave it credit for and is an all around decent action game, but it doesn't quite do enough to make it a game everyone must play.

Killzone Liberation is about the ongoing war against the Helghast, which is all the information one really needs to know. I've never been much of one for reading screens of text in an action game, and as a result Killzone Liberation's backstory was more or less lost on me. However, even without the overarching story, the missions themselves did a good job of stringing together the narrative of Templar, a soldier pitted against one particular Helghast general. Along the way, he'll be helped by a few teammates, but for the most part it's a solo mission. While the story isn't incredibly compelling, it really doesn't need to be in this type of game. At the same time, I'm not sure if the screens of text that pop up at the end of every set of missions would be more interesting to those that played the original Killzone, but I can't really make that call since I didn't have an interest in the PS2 original.

You fight from a third person isometric view in Killzone Liberation, much like in the early Zelda games or, more accurately, Smash TV. There are 20 levels in all, and the game should take about 5-7 hours to complete total. The levels feature different objectives that keep you from just going from point A to point B, but you'll never really feel lost as the objectives are presented in a logical progression and you have a map that will show you where objectives are located. You start out with a standard three shot burst rifle, but can swap it out for any weapon you find on the battlefield. Additionally, as you collect cash boxes hidden throughout each level, you'll be able to choose new weapons at the beginning of the fight. There are eight weapons in all, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but you'll probably end up playing most of the game with one of the two assault rifles as every other weapon in the game has a drawback that makes it almost useless in certain types of combat. You can only carry one weapons at a time, so you'll be faced with the decision to pick up a weapon that could make a certain section easy but another near impossible. A little further weapon balancing would have been appreciated, or perhaps the developers could have given the simple option to carry two different weapons, but as the game stands most of the weapons just aren't feasible options for any stretch of time.

You're also given a melee attack that will knock down most enemies, leaving them wide open to massacre, but unfortunately the melee just doesn't always seem to connect when it needs to, leading to some moments of frustration as you swear that you hit someone, only to have them knock you down and kill you. The other combat option you'll have are grenades. These can usually take an enemy out in a hit and are invaluable for taking out entrenched or hard to reach enemies. Oddly, the game gives you the option to swap these out for smoke grenades, but these only seemed to serve to keep you from being able to lock on to enemies and seemed to have no effect on the enemies themselves, making them more detrimental than helpful.

Perhaps the two most invaluable tactics you'll have in Killzone Liberation are the cover mechanic and the lock on mechanic, both of which are handled incredibly well. I very seldomly locked on to the wrong enemy, even when several were standing in the same direction away from Templar. In order to cover behind an object, all you have to do is hold the right trigger and Templar will crouch behind the object. Firing you're weapon will cause him to pop out, but the section you stop firing he'll crouch back down. Coupled with the targeting system (that actually works), combat in Killzone Liberation feels intuitive.

Every five levels, you'll unlock a new set of challenges related to those five levels. These challenges range from target shooting to item collecting to killing off waves of enemies. At first, there doesn't seem to be much call for completing these challenges, but in fact you'll unlock perks that can be used in the single player campaign, giving a nice little incentive to actually play the optional material. I'm really surprised more games haven't done this in order to make optional content seem more worthwhile, but I also have to acknowledge that the challenges really aren't an absolute pain to complete, unlike a lot of bonus material in games. You can take three perks in to any mission, and these can be anything from carrying more grenades to a health boost at the beginning of a level.

Killzone Liberation is a fun action game that more perfects mechanics that most games screw up than it presents anything innovative. While it might not revolutionize the genre, it was surprisingly refreshing to see a game on the PSP that actually does the cover mechanic well, especially after playing so many games on home consoles that can't seem to get it right. Killzone Liberation is one of the better action options that exist on the PSP and should at least be considered by anyone that enjoys a decent arcade style shooter done right.

Overall Score: 8.0
Recommended Price: 6.99

M:B #23 Mister Mosquito

Pros: Unique premise; bizarre plot
Cons: Short; repetitive levels; pathfinding issues; some obnoxious obstacles; no auto-save

I've always had a soft spot for batshit crazy Japanese games. If I have to ask the question, "How was this brought to America?" I'm probably interested in the game. An RPG that features simulated suicide every battle mixed with a high school simulator? Sold. A game where the your father is the king of all cosmos and destroys the entire night sky in a drunken frenzy, leaving you to roll up objects on earth in to balls to become new stars? Sign me up. An action game where you need to store up enough blood to last you through the winter and, in the process, tear a family apart emotionally? I've got to have it. And that's how I ended up with Mister Mosquito, a game whose premise is completely unique but at the same time not really worthy of emulation, at least not without some major changes. I bought the game along with a couple others and as a result, it got shelved, but after reading all the mediocre reviews the excitement for playing the game evaporated. Mister Mosquito is a repetitive and frustrating third person action game that tries to slide purely on its charm but fails.

You play as Mister Mosquito, a creature who must suck blood out of a member of the Yamada family in each level in order to have enough blood to survive the winter. The levels each feature a single member of the Yamada family (with the exception of the last level) and you must suck out a certain amount of blood by flying up to them, landing on predesignated points, and rolling the left joystick. Roll the joystick too fast or too slow and you'll attract the family member's attention, which can lead to an instant death. You must approach the spot quickly or else the family member will spot you, triggering a battle sequence where you must hit certain "relax points" on the body in order to calm them down. With a few exceptions, the levels will bleed together because that's all you do. Approach the member, suck out the blood and the level's over. Sure, there are some hidden objects in each level to find, but the game never requires you to find any of them and doing so doesn't really affect the game (unless you love finding every object in every game). Granted, if you find all of the extra containers and fill them with blood, you unlock "Year Two" where the levels are slightly harder versions of the same thing, but you honestly won't care about playing them by the end of the game. The environments even often repeat themselves, as you'll play in the girl's bedroom 4 times out of twelve levels.

Additionally, there are certain obstacles in later levels that are incredibly frustating because you'll never be sure if you're going to be hit by them. The biggest offender here are the smoke coils, as you don't have a clear idea of how large of an area the smoke is occupying. After playing this, I sincerely believe smoke is the worst possible enemy imaginable in a game. You'll find yourself hitting these over and over accidentally in a certain "Japanese Room" level in addition to being hit into them by Mr. Yamada, leading to several moments where I just about turned the game off.

The controls are functional, which is actually an accomplishment in this case as you really can wander around the entire 3D level relatively intuitively. The only two places where the game could have improved are a better 180 turn mechanic (the one in the game seems sloppily executed) and a better dash system. The dash only works when a certain object of interest is targeted, but the game will lock on when there are objects in the way, leading to you dashing into random objects when you don't mean to. Additionally, the targets sometimes need to be hit from very specific angles without any real warning, leading to you wondering if you're hitting the target from the completely wrong direction or just a few degrees off.

There are cutscenes at the beginning of each level, and as the game progresses, the Yamada family become more and more frustrated with one another because no one can kill you. It's by far the best part of the game, but its cute at best and in no way a reason to play the game. Mister Mosquito's levels only last about 5 minutes each, meaning its possible to beat the entire game in a couple of hours. You won't find much of a reason to come back afterwards unless you really want to play the aforementioned Year Two, so the game's replay is pretty low overall. If Mister Mosquito interests you, you're probably better off playing Katamari Damacy, because even if the premise doesn't involve playing as a mosquito, it's just as batshit crazy and a much better game overall.

Overall Score: 5.5
Recommended Price: $1.99

M:B #22 Gungrave Overdose

Pros: Improved combat; fairly lengthy; challenging; lots of unlockables
Cons: Combat eventually still becomes repetitive; using other characters requires you to restart the game; level design can be a bit bland

The first Gungrave didn't wow me. Even when I first bought it and played through the first couple of levels, I knew it was a mediocre game, which is probably why I didn't finish it until recently. As I stated in the review, the combat was mediocre and uninteresting, which is all that really matters in a third person action game. So I'm not quite sure why I was so quick to pick up Gungrave Overdose. Part of it was undoubtedly the price, as it was released for $15 originally. I picked it up along with Katamari Damacy for about $30 total, but my interest in Katamari far outweighed my excitement to play Overdose. I knew that the sequel had gotten much better reviews than the original, but I still can't say that I was excited to play it. As a result, I bought the game and quickly shelved it, waiting for a rainy day that I would finally get around to playing it. Turns out that day was never going to actually happen until Mission: Backlog, but I didn't care. The game was only $15 bucks, so the amount of buyer's remorse I would have for buying a game and never playing it would be minimal at worst. While I can't say that I was incredibly pleased with Gungrave Overdose, it does fix most of the problems of the original and is a decent action game in its own right.

Gungrave Overdose begins several years after the end of the first game, as Beyond the Grave is revived once more by Miko to do battle against an evil company. This time, it's in the form of an organized crime family that is spreading a drug called Seed that more or less possesses its users. After the first few levels, you meet Rocketbilly Redcadillac and Juji Kabane, two heroes that are also walking dead. You can switch to one of these characters if you want, but doing so requires you to start the game over and repeat the first few levels. It seems a better option would have been the ability to switch characters at the beginning of any level. This would have given the game a bit more variety, but instead you need to finish the game with one character. Beyond the Grave has balanced long and short range attacks, Rocketbilly excels in long range combat, and Juji is the melee expert. The option to play through the game with a completely different approach adds a bit to the replay, but once again the option to change characters mid story would have been welcome.

This time around there are nine stages of varying lengths, and overall Overdose is much longer than the original. The level design still feels a little bland, although there are many more objects to destroy in Overdose. It's also a much more challenging game, requiring you to master certain tactics like the lateral jump shot in order to pass more difficult sections of the game. This works in the game's favor, as even though it can be frustrating to repeatedly die on certain sections, the game offers a couple different tactics that will see you through any battle if you can employ them properly. Certain characters will have an easier time with specific enemies, but every character has the ability to trounce the enemy if used correctly.

The combat itself has been drastically improved as it's been complicated just enough to be interesting but still accessible. Perhaps the most welcome change is the pace that Grave naturally walks at. In the original, you needed to hold down a separate button to have him run a little bit faster, but Grave always runs now and at a quicker clip. The main tactic in combat is to build up your beat meter by continually hitting enemies without being hit yourself. Doing so adds points to your Demolition gauge, and filling this up will give you access to a Demolition Shot. Demolition Shots are specials that will drastically hurt just about every enemy on screen, and you'll gain access to new shots depending on your combat performance. When the level ends, you'll gain skulls depending on certain parameters such as time, health left, and highest beat count, and after you get a certain number of skulls a new Demolition Shot will be unlocked. You also now have a shield meter that needs to be depleted before your health starts to drain. You can regain your shield by waiting while no enemies are around or by using your Demolition Shots. This adds a bit of strategy to fights as you'll try to use Demolition Shots in order to gain back shield as well as damage enemies. Combat can become a little repetitive near the end of the game, as certain tactics seem to work better than others, but overall the combat will keep you interested for the duration of the title. The boss fights are much more interesting than the ones found in the original and will require different tactics than the ones used on normal enemies. Additionally, several of the bosses are dead versions of characters that you killed in the original, so there's a bit of fan service for those who actually played the original.

The game offers a slew of unlockables depending on how well you perform in the game, which will definitely entice some to play again with the different characters. The normal mode was fairly challenging in and of itself, but there are two more difficulty levels above that if players feel so inclined. Overall, it's obvious that a lot more work went into the sequel, as much of it seems like a labor of love.

Gungrave Overdose is a drastic improvement over the original game. It still feels a bit familiar, but the creators clearly recognized that Gungrave was flawed in some key aspects and set about to fix them. The combat in the game can get a little bland by the very end, but overall Gungrave Overdose is a challenging third person shooter that's fun to play, although there are better action games out there.

Overall score: 7.7
Recommended Price: $5.99

M:B #21 Final Fantasy V

Pros: Innovative job system; painless grinding; combat often allows for innovation
Cons: Often requires specific tactics that'll require you to reset the game; forgettable story; frequent load times on the PS1 version

Final Fantasy V should have been one of the games that I was looking forward to playing the most. The job system directly inspired Final Fantasy XI, the first MMORPG I ever really got in to, and I loved the job swapping in Dragon Quest IX (which was fairly similar to what was found in Final Fantasy V). However, for some reason, I had a hard time bringing myself to play it, let alone finish it. I think the conversion itself is partly to blame, as I knew that I was in for a game who's pacing was going to be hurt purely by the load times (I learned the first hand after starting Chrono Trigger on PS1 and then playing it through on the much smoother DS version). But I honestly don't know why I was less excited to start it than Final Fantasy II, a game I knew was partly broken because of it's combat. I have to say that after playing through it, I felt somewhat justified in my reluctance, as I found it often more frustrating than even the eldest Final Fantasy games due to its requiring cheap strategies and, frankly, cheapness.

Final Fantasy V returns to the roots of the series in terms of story, as the main quest features four heroes who must defend four crystals and save the world from danger. The only two Final Fantasies to feature more simplistic stories were I and III, and there is especially whiplash since V followed the game that had had the strongest story of the series to date. As the game goes on, things do get a bit more complicated when the existence of a second world exists, but the game never really strives for anything more than mediocrity in terms of story. In the end, you are predictably tasked with saving the world from a great evil, this time in the form of a sorcerer named X-Death (I've been told by a friend that the character was actually named Exodus in the Japanese original, but the phonetic pronunciation of the name somehow lead the American translators hearing it as X-Death).While I find it understandable for certain games to focus on particular elements to the detriment of others, I really don't find it acceptable to go so lightly on the story when it comes to RPGs, seeing as the story often offers the most incentive to continue playing a 15+ hour game. Humor in the game was also lost on me, as Final Fantasy V offered the most forced humor situations I've ever seen in a Final Fantasy. Perhaps the translation was partly to blame for every joke falling flat, but I doubt it (I kind of chuckled at the pun names in Dragon Quest IX, so I'm not completely adverse to bad humor).

The selling point of the game, and where most of the development clearly went, is the job system. You begin the game with an everyman class, but soon gain access to a handful of jobs that range from White Mage to Knight. By the eighth hour, you'll have found just about every job that the game has to offer (22 in all), but unlike Final Fantasy III, you aren't limited just to the abilities of the class you have equipped. As you level up a class, you earn abilities related to that job that get stored in a sort of ability bank unique to each character. Every character, regardless of job, can equip an additional skill from this bank regardless of their current class, which allows you to mix up the classes a bit. For instance, you could level up a white mage and then switch to a knight but equip the "White Magic" skill in the additional slot to custom make a paladin. The combinations can get pretty interesting, but there are some classes that are clearly inferior and that you aren't likely to touch at all. Overall, there are enough worthwhile classes to still make it interesting and you definitely won't end up keeping your characters in one job the entire game.

The jobs level up separately from your character's main level and you'll find yourself grinding in order to get a new skill for a particular job instead of just grinding to level up. In the last dungeon, I probably ended up unnecessarily grinding for the last battle for about a half an hour because I wanted to master as many classes as I could before facing X-Death. There's also a nice little twist on the system that the game doesn't mention explicitly in that two of the classes gain the best attributes of the classes that you have maxed out, which offers a good incentive to keep leveling up multiple classes. The combat itself is straightforward and more or less identical to the other SNES Final Fantasies, complete with the ATB gauge and frantic menu flipping. You'll find the full array of white and black magic here with the addition of a bunch of skills from different jobs that were not seen again until Final Fantasy XI, so the combat offers a nice variety.

Part of this is due to the fact that Final Fantasy V can be punishingly specific in the tactics it requires you to take, forcing you to change your characters classes in order to win certain boss fights. I'm all for a fight being much more difficult based on the personal choices I've made for my party, but the fights should still be doable. It happens all the time in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, and I loved it. But Final Fantasy V has a couple of fights that will just be impossible without certain classes which both forced me to restart certain sections and look at an online FAQ frequently to try and avoid further frustration. There are also certain optional boss fights that are near impossible, but you'll run in to if you don't see them coming. There are two in the last level that would require an insane amount of leveling to beat, but players will casually encounter them and inevitably die. I encountered one of these on my way to save my game, resulting in an unnecessary replaying of half of the last dungeon.


The game offers a decent array of optional quests at the end of the game that can lead to the last battle being significantly easier, and just about all can be done painlessly. There are a few optional boss fights like the ones previously mentioned that will test your grinding capabilities, but most bosses at the end of the side quests can be beaten without too much additional effort. While some might view it as fault, after some of the cheap boss battles earlier in the game I was fairly relieved. I was originally not going to get Bahamut, the last summon, because I feared that he would be as cheap as some of the other bosses, but I was actually pleasantly surprised.

Final Fantasy V annoyed me because of how much better it could have easily been. I found the job system innovative and it's more or less what drove me to finish the game, despite a completely lackluster story and frustrating boss fights. With a little more work in terms of story and a bit of tweaking on some of the fights, Final Fantasy V could have been up there as one of the top Final Fantasy games, but instead its faults hold it back and make it an above average RPG.

Overall Score: 7.3
Recommended price: $10, but buy the Game Boy Advance Rerelease

M:B #20 Gungrave

Pros: Interesting style; "beat" system makes combat interesting; nothing is broken
Cons: Too short; combat is monotonous; too easy; story is forgettable/incomprehnsible

 I'll never remember the appeal that the original Gungrave had for me when I bought the game. The game had gotten mediocre reviews, no one I knew owned it, and there was almost no buzz surrounding the game whatsoever. Granted, I'm all for a mediocre action game, but this one was so much so that it fell through just about every crack. After playing through the game, I wished I had a better insight into why I had bought the game in the first place, but to be honest, I'm still pretty clueless. I also don't understand why I didn't finish the game, seeing as it took me just about an hour to complete all of the game's six stages.  Gungrave proved to be a shooter that's art clearly aspired to something greater than what was produced, which is somewhat of a shame.

In Gungrave, you control Grave, a man that has been brought back from the dead to take revenge on the friends and organization that killed him. The story starts from this basic premise but quickly becomes nonsensical as elements such as a floating city named Billion are introduced. Thankfully, the cutscenes are skippable in case you tire of listening to dialogue that doesn't make any sense. There are six stages to the game that get progressively longer, but even the sixth level only lasts around 15 minutes total. In each stage, you'll walk down corridor after corridor at an extremely slow pace while firing two pistols. Occasionally you might want to use the melee attack to clear out an area, but it really doesn't do much to break up the monotony of the action. If you stand in place and fire your weapons quickly, Grave begins to do all sorts of gunslinging, but it doesn't change the fact that you're just tapping a single button to make him shoot forward. In fact, it's arguably more boring because you aren't even using your left hand. Each stage ends with a boss fight, but these are almost all completely forgettable as well. As you hit enemies, your Beat count continues to rise until you don't hit an enemy for about three seconds. Additionally, continually earning beats contributes to a gauge that, once filled, allows for a Demolition Shot, the game's equivalent of a super move. These often clear out the room or at the very least do major damage to the enemies. It can be somewhat fun to try to keep a chain of beats going as long as possible, but there isn't much of a reward for doing so and it doesn't affect the combat itself at all other than causing you to try and hurry.

At the end of each stage, you're ranked in several different paramaters including your max beat count, percentage of enemies killed, and time. Theoretically one could continually try to improve their scores, but honestly there's little incentive to do this outside of personal pride, so it doesn't really add much to the replay value of the game. You do unlock various Demolition Shots for getting decent scores on the levels, but I was able to get them all on the first try, so this alone is hardly a reason anyone will replay a level. Once you've gone through Gungrave once, you're not likely to return to it.

There really isn't much more to say about Gungrave, seeing as the game is over so quickly and doesn't give much reason to replay it. The creators would improve upon the game drastically for the sequel, but the original is so far behind that it feels almost like a tech demo in comparison. Gungrave Overdose came out for $15 and offered a much better experience, rendering the original Gungrave obsolete and not really worth anyone's time. It doesn't offer any new or innovative ideas and really is only going to be of worth to fans of the anime of the same name, seeing how it was based completely on the first game.

Overall Score: 5.0
Recommended price: $.50