Gungnir Review

Posted By Robert G. about 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Gungnir Review

Lets face it, the Sony PSP is dead. It has kicked the bucket. It has cashed in its chips. If we buried it face down, its ass could be used as a bike rack. The Sony PSP has pretty much fallen off the map in the advent of its now “hipper” cousin, the PlayStation Vita, and it has disappeared with nothing more but a silent whimper.

But despite the death gurgles we hear from the system, it still lingers due to the few games trickling down for one last hurrah. One such game is Gungnir, the latest installment in Japanese developer’s Sting Department Heaven series, which includes PSP stalwarts Knights in the Nightmare and Yggdra Union, as well as the underrated Gameboy Advance classic, Riviera: The Promised Land. A strategy RPG at its core, Gungnir is a great swan song for the PlayStation Portable, chock full of tactical goodness despite a boiler plate presentation.

Gungnir stars Giulio, the plucky, teenage rebel of the Esperanza, a revolutionary faction lead by Giulio‘s half-brother Ragnus. Because of an incident fifteen years prior known as the Espada Massacre, Giulio and many like him, a racial group known as Leoncians, are treated as second-class citizens by the ruling empire. Of course, after rescuing a mysterious girl named Alyssa from slavery by the empire, Giulio and his allies are thrown right into the conflict, only to be saved by the magic of the heavens, and the mysterious power of the spear of Gungnir.

The overall plot is of the run of the mill variety, touching upon themes of racial discrimination, political illusions, and economic disparity. Gungnir is fairly mixed in this telling of this story though; while the hero characters follow several different ideals and beliefs, the villains are almost cartoonish in their hatred for “lesser” beings. But of course the empire is completely evil, while the heroes are a ragtag lot filled with different ideals that cause conflict within the group. It is a trope we see in many games, but it is one that really needs to be told right to stand out.

I wonder what side he is on…

And is kind of disappointing in this way too. Let’s compare it to Yggdra Union for a moment, which followed a straightforward story about a princess fighting to reclaim her kingdom from a conquering empire. Gungnir is a complete parallel of this, conquering the kingdom for the downtrodden, but much of what made Yggdra Union complex, the morally ambiguous motivations, a large cast of unique characters, impressive plot-twists, is absent from Gungnir, which is more straightforward in its narrative. Both of these games had typical storylines seen in fiction, but Gungnir fails to stand out because of it plays the themes by the book, which in of itself is not a bad thing, but it something noticeable when playing other games in the series.

Thankfully, some hallmarks of Sting’s previous games still come through. The heaven of Asgard makes a return appearance, as does Sting’s mascot, the purple witch Pamela. Of course, knowing nothing about the Department Heaven series will not be adetriment to your experience of Gungnir or its storyline, as the four games in the series are loosely connected by the existence of Asgard as their heaven. But one thing that can be praised is the sheer amount of options during the game’s battle mode.

Gungnir Review

By Robert G.

Gungnir is the victim of several pitfalls that prevent it from standing out against big-time releases, but it’s definitely the perfect game to pick up at the tail-end of a handheld's life.