“Not another virtual reality shooter,” we hear you sigh. Yes, another one, but this time with a relatively recognisable name tacked on: Gungrave. For those that don’t know Gungrave VR isn’t the first title in the series, as it debuted on the PlayStation 2 in 2002 and did well enough to get a follow-up title, Gungrave: Overdose in 2004. This new PlayStation VR title is a prologue for a sequel Gungrave: GORE, but will it resurrect the series from its 13 year slumber or send it back to the grave for good?
Gungrave VR is a third-person shooter, a first-person shooter, and a 2D side scroller all in one, although it’s obvious that the third-person mode was the developer's main focus. Set in a world overrun with SEED infected beings, you take on the role of Grave on a mission to rid the world of these drug enhanced creatures, and that’s about it for the story found within the game. There are a total of six levels to work your way through, each one sending a bunch of SEED your way to slay, thugs armed with guns, women with whips, suicidal explosive dogs, and mechanical turrets to name but a few. Although the shooting functions well it gets very repetitive and lacks any sort of satisfaction when offing your foes.
At the end of every level is a boss to defeat; with various strong abilities these bosses can be tough competition especially due to the animations. Grave takes a long time to recover, causing you to take another unfair hit every time you take damage. When Grave gets knocked to the floor the lengthy animation often means you’re unable to recover and the boss will continuously hit you until your inevitable demise.
The game doesn’t benefit from having VR support, if anything it feels more cumbersome trying to play in VR than it would be without it. There’s no move controller support instead you are forced to move your head to aim and use the DualShock 4 to shoot and move Grave around. Rotating the camera needs to be used constantly but is extremely frustrating, as you can only turn 30-degrees at a time. This causes you to turn your head even more, straining to get a good view which gets you in some really uncomfortably positions when trying to fight fast enemies and bosses.
The environments throughout the game are noticeably barren with no details or aesthetic pleasantries: big empty cities, empty alleyways, empty warehouses, et al. The game's visuals are also noticeably outdated, grainy, jagged, and rough, looking more like an unpolished PS2 title than a futuristic virtual reality game.
The additional standalone game, Gungrave U.N., we found to be better than the main campaign with a better focus and a theme that runs throughout. Although it was short lived with only an hour of extra content, the addition of 2D side-scroller sections was a welcome addition.
Conclusion
Gungrave VR has a poorly implemented control scheme, a lack of story content, it doesn’t take advantage of the technology available in the PSVR headset, and ultimately lacks enjoyment in its core gameplay. Unfortunately, Gungrave VR has failed to raise the series from the grave and we’d advise everyone to let this one lay to rest.
Comments 5
What's worse is that, despite being $40, you can complete the game in about an hour and a half (this includes both base and UN). Even casual VR games like Moss and Red Matter lasted more than an hour (both lasted at least between 3 to 4 hours). There's isn't much replay value here other than messing around in a tutorial level and playing with a different skin that barely changes anything in gameplay. It really bothers me on why couldn't they have brought the first two games to the PS4 a la Dot Hack G.U. instead of offering us a crappy VR game? I think the saddest thing is that I had more fun with terrible VR games like The Walker and Ace Banana than I did in this game. Is a shame because I was really looking forward for the revival. Now I just hope GORE would be atleast mediocre but better than the VR game.
This is like bringing bakck Soul Sacrifice with a mediocre mobile game. And worse yet, it will have generic china/japan/korea-developed mobile cliches. You know the ones, hero collecting, sexualized female characters (probably a loli, an idol and a blonde woman), repetitive gameplay, always online, etc.
Why VR? I think I might’ve missed the article where you guys mention that this was gonna be a VR game. Which is odd since I’ve been following you guys for about two years and I don’t remember missing a single article. I probably just glossed over it or something.
Anyhow, it’s a shame it had to be this way. They could’ve just did what the wonderful gentleman above me said and bring back the old games. I really wanna know what this franchise is about.
It sounds like it needed to be reworked for first person entirely, but then just wasn’t.
@SoulsBourne128 It's an arcade-y shooting game, replay for hi-score and mastery of the levels.
If VR wasn't required, I'd be down with this.
@fontainelefunk True but what's the point when the game doesn't reward you for anything? I mean sure, VR games like Space Pirate Trainer, Killing Floor Incursion and Blasters of the Universe are also like that but at least they don't cost between $30-$40. Hell, even The Walker, which is a barebones wave shooter, was more fun than this. At least that game rewards you with two new weapons on each difficulty.
I do agree that the game might be a bit of dumb fun if it didn't need VR. I feel like this game could have benefited more if it was just a full-fledged console game (or just remaster the first two games with an arcade-style mode). But as a VR game, it just feels lazy, unnecesary and overpriced, especially when the gameplay just kinda lacks any satisfaction when killing enemy. Especially when you do a melee attack, which while in the PS2 games there was actual impact, in this VR game it feels like a whack in the face than anything. Not to mention the super move that Grave does sometimes doesn't work even kill enemies even if they were close to him (very apparent on the side scrolling segment). I havr to admit that is not the worst PSVR game I have played but it is definitely one fo the worst VR games I have played this year (and perhaps, one of my biggest disappointments). Because if there's anything worse than a bad game, is an overpriced bad game made with zero effort.
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