Gungrave GORE

Skip to around 3:30 for some gameplay footage. Apparently it is a sequel to Gungrave OD. The title really reminds me a bit a over-the-top version of Bullet Witch. Game does honestly look really fun in a derpy sense. Framerate already looks horrible though sadly. Anyone have any experience with this series?

I still have the first game on PS2. I don't ever remember playing more than a couple of stages, but from what I do remember it was a pretty basic arcade-style third person shooter. It had an emphasis on being stylish, which was probably intended to make up for a lack of substance. I might dig out my copy and give it a go sometime, i'd probably have more of an appreciation for it now.

Some gameplay (courtesy of YouTuber "Starcrossed Souls - Zoids") for anyone interested. He does go in to a bit of detail on how the game works:

Game looks pretty fun as a side game, not something to put 300 hours in in a row. Looks very arcade'y in a fun way.

My copy is in delivery, looking forward to this but I've some reservations: aesthetic, sound design and possibly mechanics seem a bit unfinished and misaligned.

Got my copy will be playing it soon.

So far I've got up to stage 12(out of 31) and it's rather underwhelming but I'm not surprised. Firstly I find the excess use of enemies like it's a musou tediously bloats the already unnecessary amount of stages. The balancing is suspect as you have to buy upgrades just to deal damage comparable to the originals despite absurd enemy numbers. I'd also prefer they didn't block unlockable moves behind dull stat upgrades, I'll never approve of this practice(Knack 2 being a major sinner). I haven't experimented with the moves since I haven't bought most of them.

Presentation is 2 generations out of date but it's the art direction that's truly lacking. Gone is the cell shading or distinct neo-noir gothic tinged aesthetic and Nightows's character designs(was replaced by Bayo's artist). Bland low-res Pseudo-Photorealistic textures that look like they're not done loading in half the time. Being set during daylight is not helping hide the shortcomings, so generic i swear it looks like an asset flip at times.

Sound design is weaker than I'd like, the gun sounds in particular cuts itself off noticeably. Music is similarly generic and doesn't fit the jazz/electronic mix of the prior games(composed by one of Yoko Kanno's The Seatbelts by the bye). Would prefer some remixes but none so far.

I've also run into a bug where the blood/gore doesn't display, this only occured after I beat the first 3 missions before stopping. Found no info on this, I deleted the game then played it again both with and without the 1.02 update with no difference.