Gungrave

As a third-person shooter, Gungrave focuses on combat. The player advances through hallway-like stages, but has a free range of motion in these areas. The player confronts wave after wave of fighters en route to an end-level boss. Combat varies between gunplay with enemies at a distance and simple melee combat at close range, and the game rates the amount of flair the player uses to destroy everyone and everything in sight.[2]

Players control Beyond the Grave, who is equipped with a damage-absorbing energy shield that can absorb a large amount of damage in addition to his life bar. This shield appears as a blue bar alongside Beyond the Grave's life bar in the game's heads-up display. When the shield is fully depleted, the player is highly vulnerable and further damage reduces the character's health level rapidly. However, the shield will recharge fully if no damage is sustained for a brief period of time.[3]

By performing well during stages, the player can unlock special attacks such as machine guns or rockets launched from the coffin on Beyond the Grave's back. These can be used by charging the beat meter which is represented by a skull on the top left corner of the game's heads-up display. To build the beat meter, Beyond the Grave must perform combos sometimes numbering in hundreds of hits (destroying enemies or practically anything in the game environment). Strategy is required in setting up combos that are as long and devastating as possible, which helps to carry on the over-the-top action of the game.[4]

Stages and some important events within stages are separated by anime cutscenes featuring art by Nightow. This is where the game's story takes place. Characters are expanded on and the player is given a back-story that is not obvious through gameplay alone.

Yasuhiro Nightow created Beyond the Grave

Beyond the Grave was created by manga artist Yasuhiro Nightow. During a convention in America he was approached by game developer Red Entertainment, who asked if there was a certain type of game Ihe was interested in making.[5] In creating Grave, Nightow elaborated wanted him to be a silent person as he does not enjoy games where the main character talks too much. Nightow explained further influences in the making of the character and believed he was satisfied with the final result.[6] He created Grave from his backside due to how the game would be designed and never thought about how hard it would be to animate him. When the Gungrave anime was released, Nightow noted the issues he made and made a brief plot summary for the staff. Nightow also took a liking to Grave's younger persona, Brandon Heat, being excited in a convention when he met a cosplayer of him.[7] In Gungrave: Overdose the developers wanted to keep showing people Beyond the Grave, as "just how great" he is based on response from the original game.[8] The character is voiced in Japanese by Tomokazu Seki and Kirk Thornton in English.[9]<[10]

The game was inspired by multiple action films, most notably those by John Woo. The gameplay was developed in order to be unique rather than a typical action game.[11] Character designer Nightow was attending a convention in the United States and was approached by Red Entertainment during conception of the game which highly influenced their title.[12]

The game received "mixed" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[13]

Critical reception to Beyond the Grave has been mixed in his introduction. Game Revolution regarded him as a "true hero" due to the skills he possesses, something the players would like control while describing him as an "arthritic Frankenstein" due to experiments have affected his nearly dead body. Nevertheless, his narrative was found common due to his journey to defeat mafia members with supernatural powers.[28] GameSpot drew a similar statement, considering his looks as mix between "cowboy and a vampire" while still keeping a stylish look and liking his interactions with Mika.[29] IGN enjoyed his main design, comparing it with Nightow's Trigun manga but more gothic and laballed him as "cool" due to the intense firepower he displays.[30] In another review, IGN described Grave as "the one notably detailed character model on screen at any given time, since most of the cannon fodder are given comparatively short shrift in the modeling department" and lamented his lack of more diverse moves.[3] In a further analysis of the game while detailing the revenge story arcs as common in fiction, GameSpy found there is a common misinterpretation of Grave as an anti-hero but instead is portrayed as "the reformed gangster, whose loyalty and caring feelings toward those he loves gives him a type of nobility that allows him to somewhat transcend his bloodthirsty one-man war."[31] GamePro enjoyed the character, but describing him as a "low-rent Max Payne".[32]

Two years later, Gungrave: Overdose was released and adds new playable characters to the series and a new story.

In 2017, Korean developers Iggymob and Blueside, under the supervision of Red Entertainment, revived the Gungrave series and released Gungrave VR for the PlayStation VR in late 2017 in Japan and late 2018 in North America and Europe. Gungrave VR serves as a prologue to a new sequel titled, Gungrave G.O.R.E (Gunslinger of REsurrection), which was released on November 22, 2022 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.[33]

• Japanese, English, Official Japanese website
• Gungrave at MobyGames