Gungrave G.O.R.E First Impressions – Simple Shooter With Style

When I first saw the trailer for Gungrave G.O.R.E, I was drawn to the flashy gameplay, which promised lots (and lots) of bullets and action. After playing a preview build of the game (which encompasses the first four missions), I can say they definitely deliver on the promise of a badass third person shooter. I am worried about the game eventually feeling stale, however.

You play as Grave, the protagonist of the series, trying to take out a SEED refinery in a place called Scumland. The story is pretty straightforward, though I wish they would have explained what SEED actually is — as someone who has not played the previous Gungrave games, I felt a little out of the loop. Grave does not say a single word in the whole preview. Instead, we get all the story and dialogue through Quartz, who is Grave’s contact throughout the missions.

The combat is probably what most people will be interested in this game for, and it is just as fast-paced as advertised. Grave wields two pistols and a massive weapon on his back called a Tomb. He uses both weapons to great effect, though it would be nice if he had another weapon or two to switch to.

You are encouraged to shoot at absolutely everything in this game — this is because there is a Beat counter, which increases when you hit any enemy or destructible object. Keeping the Beat counter high will help get you more rewards at the end of a mission, and give you access to one or two other types of attacks with your pistols. There is also an Art score you can raise by using certain skills. These systems are a great way to keep your trigger finger happy, and they encourage the player to use a variety of techniques.

There are a few different moves Graves can use in combat, such as executions, Demolition Attacks, and even a grapple. You will learn most of these gradually through the first couple of missions, while you will be able to use DNA (the game’s resource), to learn new combos and Demolition attacks.

While the combat is fun, I can see it eventually getting repetitive. There isn’t a huge variety with the different moves (minus the Demolition Attacks), and most of the enemies feel more or less the same to fight. Hopefully, the enemy variety gets better later in the game, and there are still a few more techniques for Grave to learn.

The game seems like it will be short, as the first four missions only took between 1-2 hours to complete. As far as I saw, there are no hidden items to find within levels, and the linear structure of missions doesn’t give any room to explore — this might be for the best, however, as Grave is a pretty slow runner. As of now, it doesn’t look like the game will have much replay value outside of playing harder difficulties or wanting to fully build Grave.

Gungrave G.O.R.E looks like it will be a solid shooter game if you’re looking for some over the top action. Hopefully, they will explain some of the backgrounds for the characters and lore for newcomers to the series, and add some more variety to the enemies later on. I look forward to continuing the bullet rampage when the full game is released!