While Gungriffon Blaze probably won't win any awards for beauty, it's still a very pretty game. The landscapes are all rendered nicely, and I especially liked the look and feel of the Cape Canaveral mission. The way the sunlight glints off of the water in the Greece mission is very nice, too. The various mecha are finely detailed, with lots of moving parts and whatnot that really make the game look nice. There is some draw-in, but it's not too bad, and it never gets in the way of the game itself. And there's something fun about seeing the Space Shuttle, in all its glory, seconds before you blow it up.

A special note must be made of the music: while it's not the best videogame music I've ever heard, it's very rare that I hear tunes that fit a game as well as they do in Gungriffon Blaze. From the somber tones of the menus to the rocking music in the battles, it all fits the anime feel of the game perfectly.

As for sound effects, there's a lot of indistinguishable radio chatter, which certainly adds flavor if not playability to the game, and plenty of cool explosion sounds and thumps and bumps and grinds. There's nothing particularly spectacular here, but it's all good.

The game's fun too, while it lasts; and while it brings nothing new to the mech-fighting genre, it's an entertaining romp nonetheless. You control a third-generation HIGH-MACS, which is this world's mecha of choice. They're fast as hell, and come standard with both a basic gun and a missile launcher. As you complete levels, you pick up Option Boxes. These often contain things like new guns, objects to add to the (pointless but cool) database, and so on. You can select these optional parts for missions, but they're used up once you use them, so you've got to ration them carefully.

Each mission has a specific goal. For example, in the Cape Canaveral mission, you've got to destroy all enemies in three different locations and then blow up the Space Shuttle. In the Greece mission, you've got to keep the bad guys from approaching the hill. And so on. You've got to make sure that most of what you're doing is for the mission -- each one is timed, and if you don't complete it in the time allotted, you fail the mission. I had problems with the Cape Canaveral mission because I kept forgetting to go to one of the bases. The HUD keeps track of how many 'mission' enemies you still have to kill, which is handy.

As for the game itself, it's pretty standard mecha fare. You run, turn, and shoot things up. The analog control is absolutely spot-on, with wonderful responsiveness and ease of use. You switch weapons and fire with the shoulder buttons, which takes all of ten seconds to get used to. And you can jump, which is cool, but you have to wait for it to recharge if you jump a whole lot.

There's nothing that really stands out in this game and makes you go 'wow,' but the game as a whole is a whole lot of fun. The sum of the parts is definitely greater than the parts themselves.

Once you know how to read the HUD properly (read: check the manual), and after reading the mission briefings thoroughly before you go on your sortie, the missions are doable. That's not to say that they're all that easy -- the first few are trivial, but the last missions have you fighting for your life. None are impossible, however, and you can always run back to a previous mission and collect more option boxes if you really need the stuff.

As stated before, the controls are spot on, and even adjustable if you can't handle having to switch weapons and fire next to each other. The menus are clear and understandable, and the pilot creation method is interesting, if terminally Japanese (blood type? huh?). The game's translation is solid, even if it seemed to have a few errors here and there -- but this ain't an RPG, it's a shooter. You can rotate your AWGS' torso to fire in different directions, but it's often easier just to circle strafe instead of lining up properly and shooting in weird directions. Your results may vary, of course.

Gungriffon Blaze is a good little game. It's not the longest in the world, and it's not the deepest, but it's got some great gameplay, groovy levels, and a whole lot of explosions. And when you're looking for visceral entertainment, what more can you ask for, really? If you're at all a fan of the genre, you've got to at least check Gungriffon Blaze out.