Gungrave Overdose Review

Gungrave Overdose is a strange TPS game. Overall, it's mostly the same as the original game but it does give you more options in combat, my big issue with this and while I do like that the game adds more is that the game never really teaches the different options to you properly. You can also spend most of the game never using these options which makes me wonder why they are even there. You also don't even know what the different weapons and unlocks you get even do. It's not even clear how you unlock these different abilites either.

It's weird because the game has a rather basic combat system similar to the first game along with these new options.

Other big issues I have with the game is that the camera controls aren't that great and I feel a camera system similar to Max Payne 1 and 2 could've helped it in that the camera position isn't slanted heavily towards the left or right side. That and when you go flying, the camera can lead to disorientation. The game also tends make combat encounters artifically challenging by throwing in lots of enemies and damage sponge enemies at you, and since you got to remain very still in order for your shield to regen and it's easy to get overwhelmed meaning that it can lead to frustration waiting the shield to finally kick in after hopefully avoiding enemy attacks long enough while standing still.

I also wish the game had more weapon variety, I am not sure if you can unlock them but I really wished for some shotguns and sub machine guns, it would've added some more spice to the combat and shotguns would've made the tougher damage spongier enemies more bearable to deal with.

The game does checkpoint well enough at least, and I like it for that, Grave's animations are still very good to look at. What did honestly get me through the game was the story. For a shooter, I feel the story in this game is pretty engaging. The story throws a lot like cloning, aliens, reanimated corpses, crime families, ghosts and so much more, it's craziness as well as characters like Juji Kabane and the overall voice acting being so good that I was more attached to the story here than I usually am to these kinds of games. It was like watching a pretty solid anime series. I do think the game is worth looking into for the story, not sure if you can get past the awkward shooting gameplay even it is okay.