Gungrave G.O.R.E Review (JokerCorvus)
The gave devs clearly love Gungrave. You can tell they put a lot of heart into the game. His outfit reminds me of the first Gungrave and the pre-order bonus lets you play as Overdose Gungrave so I can deeply appreciate the love they have for Brandon Heat and the Gungrave franchise.
The game looks beautiful. It's great to see Grave in modern gaming graphics. The core Gungrave (GG) mechanics are there from Overdose. Health, Shields, Coffin, Cerberus, Beats, Demolition shots, and even his bullet dance. They made it so you can upgrade Grave which I really appreciated. The only upgrades you could get from Overdose was new demolition shots so this feels much better to get overpowered. I see a lot of people complaining it's just "Shoot, melee, repeat" but I think those people never played GG before if that's your takeaway. Since both previous GG games were basically the same thing. It's just mindless fun.
The devs definitely wanted to bombard you with mobs tho. You can get overran with enemies to the point where you're stuck in one spot surrounded by mobs. You can't just stand still and spam the melee button either like in Overdose. So I often got stuck surrounded by enemies to the point that I died. I hate BS deaths like that. The most notorious level so far was the train level and anyone who's played it will know that is the most BS level ever. Don't give players a time limit to traverse a train but then spam landmines and armored enemies that spam rockets and melees. Grave staggers way too much. Even with full shields you can get interrupted mid melee combo by a shielded enemy which is ridiculous. Shotgun mobs stagger Grave with every shot and it's infuriating. You basically can get stun locked A LOT.
Conclusion: The game has a lot of heart into it. The devs clearly loved Gungrave and I can appreciate their dedication to reviving the game from the grave. There's a lot of game mechanics that would make the average player rage quit, but as someone who's played Overdose I can tell you this isn't new to the GG games. The final levels of Overdose made you want to quit the game at every death. I haven't beaten G.O.R.E. yet but I'm sure it'll make me want to quit many times before I've finished it. If you love Gungrave and you want to play a mindless shooting game pick this game up. If you rage easily then don't play it.
TLDR; 4/10
Edit: The Quartz level is hands down the worst level in this entire game. By far. This is some of the worst platforming I've ever experienced and playing as Quartz is absolutely infuriating. Bunji was fun to play as but this is ridiculous.