Being put in the back seat nearly 20 years, the Gungrave franchise had found new life with the series’ latest instalment with Gungrave GORE, which is a flashy third-person shooter that has players take control of a burly coffin-carrying badass hitman, with a simple goal to destroy everything in your path.

Despite its showy premise, the game fell short due to its dated gameplay and overall lack of polish. Thus comes Gungrave GORE Ultimate Enhanced edition where thankfully developers Studio IGGYMOB had managed to add in new features to make the game feel smoother.

Break Their Spirits

The Gungrave GORE Ultimate Enhanced edition comes with a handful of neat features, but the main meat comes in the form of two new main gameplay mechanics.

One of said new features is the Full Break System in which players can activate a “Full Break” by putting down 70 or more hits during combat without dropping your combo with a total of 5 stages. This in-turn will enhance the firing speed of your character’s bullets on top of increasing the damage output that you can dish out to enemies.

To us, this is a pretty good and subtle mechanic that the developers have added in this enhanced version, as it offers a sense of reward for players for not dropping their combo. This also helps ease the sense of sluggishness compared to the base game, considering that we found ourselves mowing down enemies at a quicker pace, overall improving the combat pacing.

In Gungrave GORE, you’re more often than not faced with hordes of enemies that you have to clear through, and in the original title it felt like a repetitive chore that we found ourselves growing tired quickly, so with the introduction of the Full Break System, it made the game feel less stagnant as a whole.

It also acted as a really neat feature that worked the best when facing off against the bosses in the game, considering most of time you’d want to focus your firepower towards the boss, which would mean dumping your load of bullets onto them and result in triggering multiple stages of “Full Break” and you’ll be able see that health bar be shredded.

Run-and-Gun

Another feature, one that we feel carries the most impact is the Run Shot feature, where players can finally run and shoot at the same time.

One of the main criticisms from the base game was not being able to run while shooting, which forces you to either stand in place or walk slowly. This resulted in the mobility of the character feeling almost non-existent since most of the time you’re shooting, and you would more often than not rely on melee skills instead.

But thankfully with the enhanced edition, the restriction to mobility has finally been lifted and it feels like a different game. This paired with the levels being tweaked to give it a bit more forward momentum, greatly improves the combat pacing. You’ll find yourself engaging in awkward platforming a lot less, and you’ll find yourself pushing forward and shooting hordes of enemies that stand in your way more, resulting in a more satisfying feeling.

I cannot stress how much this makes the game feel so much more enjoyable. In the original game, it is genuinely disappointing how the shooting gameplay felt so slow, and you’re mainly better off with melee combat. But you’re finally allowed to feel that extra needed mobility when using your guns, freeing up more options to deal with enemies.

Additional Features

Another new addition that comes with the Ultimate enhanced edition, being the GORE -Extra Mode-, which is essentially a secret hardcore mode that is unlocked after the player clears all difficulties, and players will have to restart the stage from the beginning if they die, instead of retrying from the checkpoints you’ve unlocked.

This adds a hint of extra difficulty and challenge that would satisfy players who are looking for a challenge or are a completionist, and it’s a neat little bonus to have which allows players to clock-in extra hours into the game.

Upon clearing the GORE -Extra Mode- it will unlock the Brandon Heat skin, which replaces the playable character’s moves, abilities and design. Brandon feels very different from Grave in terms of playstyle, which focuses more on mobility and ranged combat as opposed to Grave’s more melee-centric combat style, which honestly is up to personal preferences and how you want to go about with the game.

Meanwhile, the ultimate enhanced edition also comes with improved battle design which essentially tweaks the overall design of the game which gives players a more pleasant experience. Various NPC placements have been adjusted, like enemies that have extremely long-ranged attacks which was frustrating to deal with considering Grave has a more melee-focused playstyle.

Verdict

All in all, it feels like the developers of Gungrave GORE listened to the player’s feedback by adding in changes that makes the gameplay feel so much smoother. Case in point with the Run Shot feature, which is weird why it wasn’t in the base game to begin with. The new Full Break System also makes you feel like a force to be reckoned with, as you feel yourself clearing through hordes of enemies faster with the increase in firing rate once you hit a certain combo threshold.

Gungrave GORE Ultimate Enhanced Edition took a game that had several issues and made it into something more enjoyable, as it removed the obstacle that slowed down the pace, and at the same time improved upon the mobility of your playable character.

However, the Ultimate Enhanced edition is only for the Nintendo Switch, so the performance can sometimes feel somewhat choppy at times, especially when there’s a lot of things going on the screen, but it’s not to the point where it feels unplayable.

Whether you’re a fan of the series, or just want to play a third-person shooter that makes you feel like a dual pistol-wielding badass, it’s worth considering picking up this title.

Gungrave GORE Ultimate Enhanced Edition was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch.