Now this is what I've needed for a very long time! A game that unabashedly wants to be just that, a game. I have to first say that growing up I knew about the Gungrave franchise but sadly for it was only a video on a PS2 demo disc that I could only ever watch and wonder what it would be like to experience the game. I never got to watch the anime either or any other media works that released at the time but I know of it's existence.

Finally over 20 years later, I get the opportunity to play Gungrave GORE. Latest entry in the franchise after many years of silence. I can't say what happened on release as I only played this game on the new years of 2025. I know it got many bad reviews but after finishing the game, I can only ask why?

The game play loop is just so enjoyable and simple. Like a Shmup, learning the level layouts and enemy spawns allows you to keep your combo counter up (BEAT counter) and when you allow the gameplay to be, I felt a state of flow as I was going from one mob to the next, stage after stage. The gameplay loop allows you to make incremental improvements to your level times and flow. If you waste time between mobs the BEAT counter will reset so I found myself trying to find more ways to extend the counter between mobs as destructible items placed in the stages count as points towards the BEAT counter.

Style is the name of the game. Good gunplay and supplementary melee systems help you keep chaining kills and increasing your style rating. You have keep moving too as various enemy types pose different threats that just won't allow you to play either only defensively or only offensively. You haven't find the balance from your evasion techniques, offensive techniques and movement to keep the flow going.

This was a perfect game to just play and worry about nothing. No political messaging, no virtue signaling, no fluff, no padding. Just pure, enjoyable video game. About 3 hours in I realized that I could actually upgrade Grave and get additional skills and upgrade my states and abilities. I was enjoying the game so much and the gameplay loop was so engaging that I didn't realize there was more to add onto it.

During my playthrough I was already thinking of a second playthrough of the game. At that point, I realized that this is really a nice game.

I think, if there were to be a follow up I would like the devs to address the following:

1) I found no use for the charge shot at all. I checked how to use it and how it's meant to bust through shield but there's better things to do than use the charge shot. Either they should revamp the concept and give it better application in the next game or just remove it for something else. Many skills just permanently over shadowed it.

2) If there is a way to make the gunplay more skill based this game could turn into something akin to God Hand. And both these games in their own rites are cult classics.

I love this game. And I wish you to just try it once.