By Peter W. Smorynski
[Review: Gaming!]
Title: GUNGRAVE
Platform: Playstation 2
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Red Entertainment
ESRB Rating: M
Year: 2002
Editor’s Note: This previously unpublished review was originally written for an AGO! special Halloween feature in 2008
An undead gunman walks the streets of a corrupt city. Carrying his own coffin on his back, this superhuman figure is driven by the desire to protect those he left behind and seek out those who betrayed him. He is known as “Death: Beyond the Grave.” With the enormous twin guns called “Cerberus” at his side, a hail of raging bullets and thick smoke will soon pour upon the vile Syndicate and their otherworldly agents…
Gungrave is a stylish, arcade-esque 3D 3rd-person shooter. Featuring character designs by Yasuhiro Nightow of Trigun fame and mechanical work by Kousuke Fujishima, known for Sakura Wars, this game is overflowing with the aura of an interactive anime. Beyond the composition of the visuals and fluid, hyper-exaggerated character animations, this is conveyed even further through the gorgeous use of cel-shading on the 3D models. Unlike other games that have used cel-shading, Gungrave is unique in that it utilizes this coloring method not to present a bright, cheerful, cartoony tapestry, but a tale of justice and revenge that is at once both gritty and flashy. “Beyond the Grave,” or Grave, is the main character, and though effectively a zombie, he by contrast wears the sleek graveyard-themed threads of a science-fiction cowboy as he faces off against shady members of the murderous Syndicate and their pale-faced, horrifying mutant minions. In other words, the twisted world of Gungrave requires a monster to defeat an army of monsters.
Make no mistake, this game is about action and making that action look as cool as possible. The flamboyant gunplay in Gungrave is eye-catching and one-of-a-kind. Forget Devil May Cry or Max Payne, this game is in a league of its own. With a small arsenal tucked in his coffin and gunplay that moves like a bullet ballet, the action—undoubtedly inspired by movies like Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado—is absolutely dazzling.
The gameplay itself is rudimentary: mash the fire button faster and faster to pull off crazy combos on the never-ending swarm of thugs, mob bosses, machines, and monsters barreling toward you from all angles. Should the enemy throngs get too close, you can perform a 360-degree melee attack by swinging the coffin off of your back on chains. The more enemies you take out in rapid succession, the more your undead character’s corpse will stay animated and intact. And this is not just the case for enemies, because cars, furniture, trash cans, boxes, barrels, neon signs, and more in the highly destructible environments can fill up your power gauges as well.
Only explosives and blunt blows can slow Grave down, but without refilling your character’s life-shield meter, a steady stream of bullets will eventually turn even this stalwart undead gunman into Swiss cheese. If you consistently fill in your life-shield meter, you will gain a “Demolition Shot.” This element provides more artistic style and a dash of strategy, as these mind-blowing super moves must be used in the fiercest of moments to clear a path forward. The more stages you clear and art points you rack up for defeating enemies in creative ways, the more types of Demolition Shots you can earn: from firing a rocket to delivering a 360-degree machine-gun barrage. Blue energy flying from defeated enemies drifts into the chomping jaws of a mechanical skull icon on the upper left-hand corner, informing you how much life you have and how much more energy is needed to produce a Demolition Shot.
Over the course of six stages, the 3D environments vary quite a bit, including trips to a neon-lit dance club, a dark, dank sewer, and a glitzy airship shindig. This dichotomy is played out in the soundtrack, as eerie industrial music, manic techno beats, snappy jazz tunes, honking blues riffs, maudlin oriental strings, and haunting ambient dissonance are heard level to level, ensuring that this genre-bending game strikes a unique balance between horror and hip action. The 3D environments themselves are largely linear hallways leading to larger, more open venues, but the game never quite feels boxy or on rails, as the stages have spatial depth and wrap around themselves into indoor and outdoor combat arenas. Further, the detailed art direction gives each area a lifelike gravity to the exaggerated reality being depicted, and you can maneuver Grave freely in any direction.
Grave himself feels sluggish at first…but you have to remember he’s essentially Frankenstein’s monster with guns. By holding L3 you can jog and shoot, and by holding the Circle button, you can make Grave sprint (though he cannot attack while doing so). Spinning to face enemies is easy with the L1 button, and once Grave gets into his wild firing routine, you can use the right stick to have Grave pivot and shoot all around him. With the weight of that coffin, Grave cannot jump very high, but he can dive forward, backward, and side to side to strafe enemies with bullets—even while falling down stairs! Once you start blending these movements with regular attacks and Demolition Shots, the lumbering form of Grave starts to feel much sprier. The game does experience mild cases of slowdown from time to time, but given the fact that you can choose to manually slow the visuals down by holding the R2 button, and that the action is so fast to begin with, it doesn’t mar the game’s pace all that much. Emphasizing the game’s action is the ability to strike victory poses with the Select button or execute a special finishing-move cinema scene on certain bosses. It’s worth mentioning that despite all the intense action, the actual presentation of the violence is handled tastefully, with little to nothing in the way of blatant gore.
The story of this game and the characters within it have surprising depth for a simple revenge yarn. Themes of loyalty, love, and tragedy play out in cinema scenes and optional English-subtitled conversations between levels with the mysterious young girl Mika and the enigmatic, chain-smoking Dr. T. It’s genuinely entertaining to see the mysteries of the story play out, and it is one incentive to keep going, even as the constant action may cause some fatigue. Equally exciting is the directorial skill and excellent choreography delivered in the brief but very clever cel-shaded CG cut-scenes.
As noted, the simplicity of the game may get tiring upon frequent or repeated playthroughs. The game is admittedly short, too, so don’t expect a sprawling epic. But for what it does—stylish, intriguing action—it does it well and it does it in spades.
Pete says: If you are a fan of action anime and/or arcade-style shooters, this game is for you. It’s short and uncomplicated, but memorably sweet. Gungrave for the PS2 has an atmosphere like no other. It’s not only fun to play, but fun to watch. One reviewer once described it as “a Halloween shooter,” and while that label doesn’t tell the full story by any means, this game’s over-the-top thrills and chills go perfectly with any Halloween night.
FINAL SCORE: [!] [!] [!] [!] – –
Pete’s Subscript: After the release of Gungrave, an anime spinoff was produced. This version is markedly different in the execution of its story. The anime focuses on detailing the pasts of Grave, Mika, Dr. T, and the Syndicate, and does so rather well in the tradition of The Godfather. However, the “revenge arc” presented in the video game is told with far less atmosphere and dynamic action in the anime version, and the setting and ending diverge a great deal. To get the full experience of what the Gungrave world has to offer in terms of story, visuals, and action, the anime should be viewed in conjunction with the game.
Because the video game ends differently than the anime, a sequel was made continuing the continuity of the game’s ending. The result is 2007’s Gungrave Overdose. which improves in many ways upon the formula of its predecessor. But that is for another review, another time.
2018 Update: The Gungrave video game series has returned in recent times with Gungrave VR for Playstation VR, due in North America October 16, and a more traditional follow-up is also in development for Playstation 4, titled Gungrave G.O.R.E.
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