[First Impression] Punishing: Gray Raven, Honkai Impact 3's New Rival That You Must Wait For!

Seeing the huge success of Honkai Impact 3 as one of the most sensational action RPG games on mobile, it’s only a matter of time until a new competitor tries to follow in his footsteps. At least that’s what we thought at first, because in the years since Honkai was released we haven’t found a game that can provide meaningful competition. Our search finally found a bright spot after the developer Kuro Game introduced a similar game project entitled Punishing: Gray Raven.

Actually, this game has been officially released in China, but we decided to wait for the global version to get the desired gaming experience. The long-awaited moment has finally arrived and we have had the opportunity to participate in the first Closed Beta access which runs to date. To give a clearer picture of the content and quality on offer, below we have summarized the initial impressions after playing the game for the last few days.

About Punishing: Gray Raven

Developed by Kuro Game, Punishing: Gray Raven is a new action RPG game that brings many similarities to Honkai Impact 3. This similarity is not something we deliberately mention as clickbait, because in fact Punishing: Gray Raven carries a futuristic story theme and a clear gameplay structure. take inspiration from the miHoYo favorite game. So does this equation immediately make the game feel cheap or inferior? The answer is no, because if I’m honest, we actually enjoy the playing experience that is offered, but we’ll save this discussion for the next point.

Regarding the concept of the story, Punishing: Gray Raven takes place on a disaster-stricken earth from the Punishing Virus. This is a plague that corrupts the minds of all living things including machines that become aggressive and dangerous, they are dubbed as Corrupted. Anyone who is exposed to this virus will immediately control his mind and only has one goal, namely the annihilation of the consciousness of mankind. In order to reduce this dangerous outbreak, you as a player must carry out the task as the leader of a special Task Force group called Gray Raven.

This Task Force group has several main members such as the leader Lucia, and several other individuals who have their own special talents. The threat you have to face does not only come from Corrupted creatures, because it is known that there is a special group called the Ascendant who has access to the Ascent-Network. This special access allows them to get extraordinary powers from the effects of the Punishing Virus, but at the same time can keep their consciousness from turning into Corrupted.

The storyline in this game is presented in a visual novel format which sometimes gives you the option to choose dialogue. Although this dialogue option makes your role as a Commander feel more prominent than the avatar character who is silent behind the scenes, but it feels almost no consequence whatsoever even though the dialogue you choose can change the course of operation of each mission. Even so, at least in this game your existence as the leader of the Gray Raven group is recognized which automatically makes you feel more involved in the main story.

Super Addictive Action Gameplay

Turning to the gameplay, this is the part that surprised us the most, because Punishing: Gray Raven is more exciting than Honkai Impact 3. Whether it’s from the Hit Registration or the impact we feel every time we attack the enemy, it feels like this game has managed to provide a more satisfying sensation. The gameplay control is also pretty much the same as Honkai Impact 3, where you can move your character freely on a stage and can execute attacks and skills every time you fight an enemy, or you can also avoid existing attacks and place your character in a Matrix or slow mode. -motion momentarily. Yup, so far everything is really still the same.

The most striking difference we encountered in terms of gameplay is the Skill system. So instead of displaying Skill icons with standard cooldown times like in most similar RPG action games, Punishing: Gray Raven requires you to play more aggressively in order to get skills which are then displayed on the screen in the form of rows of icons. Each skill can be executed once or in more numbers at once when it is stacked. For example, Lucia’s Padma Skill to stab the enemy with a brutal attack can be multiplied by executing in one hit if three Padma skill icons appear on the screen. This also applies to all skills, so you can get a higher potential Damage, Buff and Healing effects.

We think the design of this Skill system also makes the gameplay sensation fresher and not monotonous, because you can only execute skills that appear as the battle progresses and don’t have to stick to the skill icons that have been presented from the start. This makes the battle action more diverse, but at the same time provides a variety of combo options and different skill combinations. Speaking of skill accumulation, there are also some of them that can provide special Power-Up effects, such as how Lucia can use the very strong two-sword mode and so on.

To ensure that the gameplay is not boring, you will be given the option to bring two additional party members that can be played in one mission. In addition to being able to switch characters in the middle of battle, there is a special light icon on the character’s portrait that you can press so they can provide Skill Assist. It’s just that because the course of each mission in this game is really short, we end up rarely using other characters unless we want to try their skills or when the characters we play run out of Skills to use.

Customization and Progress

Although the course of the mission in this game is quite short, but over time you will be faced with great dangers and the option to choose a higher difficulty level. At this moment you are of course obliged to strengthen the character’s ability by Level-Up stats and skills. There is also the option to strengthen weapons and promote characters to a higher rank which automatically increases their stats significantly. If it’s still not enough, each character also has a special slot that can be filled with a special Gear Set called Consciousness. You can get Consciousness, weapons and other Level-Up items by completing the main mission and Gacha. If you’re not satisfied with the character’s appearance, there are a variety of cool skins to choose from although we ended up not being able to access them due to Microtransactions being blocked.

Meanwhile, the progression system is divided into various missions, which are not only limited to the Story Campaign. The more missions you complete, the game will also give you access to more features and facilities that are ready to keep you busy. Of course because it’s still in Closed Beta, there are some key content locked down such as Interlude and Stronghold.

How about the Microtransaction?

The microtransactions in Punishing: Gray Raven open a window for you to get a variety of exclusive content such as playable characters and new weapons. The rate given is not very friendly indeed, but some of the 10x pull trials we did ended with quite satisfactory results (2 A-rank characters, 1 character and an S-Rank weapon). We didn’t get to see the specific rate given, but what is clear is that every 10x pull there is a guarantee to get A-rank content or above.

At least from what we saw, Punishing: Gray Raven is quite friendly with F2P players and every character regardless of rank B, A or S has a special role that makes it worth keeping you in the main party. As proof, we even ended up using Lucia’s A-rank character which was already quite OP in almost all of the Chapter 2 follow-up missions, even though in fact we had an S-rank character who ended up being rarely used.

Conclusion

Punishing: Gray Raven managed to meet our low expectations with surprising quality. This is a solid and addictive action RPG hack and slash game, especially from a gameplay sensation that is parallel to or even more satisfying than Honkai Impact 3. With an interesting story concept, memorable characters with cool fighting styles, as well as abundant potential innate content ready to make you happy. busy, the initial impression that was given really made us even more impatient waiting for the release of the final version.

You can follow the latest developments about the game through the official Facebook page HERE.

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