Gungrave G.O.R.E. plays like a PS2 game that's fighting for its place in the modern era

gamesradar.com:

Gungrave G.O.R.E. is arguably wasting the power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Some developers are leveraging these systems to bring about photorealism, others are attempting to eradicate load times, and what is Iggymob doing? It's building a rough and tumble action game that looks, sounds, and handles like it could have been released on the PlayStation 2. And I don't mean to make that comparison in the same way that some social media commentators might – where fingers are pointed at something like the sparse environments in Pokemon Legends: Arceus before some type of asinine comparison to the sixth-generation of home consoles is drawn. 

If publisher Prime Matter told me that Gungrave G.O.R.E. had been recently unearthed after being sat in a drawer gathering dust for 18 years, was given a little tune-up under the hood, and then put out into the world I'd believe 'em. Consequently, 18 years is how long it's been since the last full game in the series was released  – Gungrave Overdose in 2004. Arguably too niche to be considered a cult classic of the PS2 era, Overdose was praised for its absurd action and unique aesthetic, and criticized for its unwieldy lock-on and uneven presentation. The same can (and will) likely be said of Gungrave G.O.R.E. too. 

And just so we're super clear: I'm not being a snob towards a game attempting to so flagrantly leverage nostalgia for a different era of action game design. There's something so lovingly antiquated about Gungrave G.O.R.E.'s core ethos that it was hard not to crack a smile while playing the damn thing. I don't know whether it was the fact that the Cerberus pistols automatically lock onto enemies and blast out four bullets every time I squeezed the trigger, that there was a