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
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