Blood Will Tell begins entirely in black and white, because Hyakkimaru has no eyes of his own, only placeholders designed by his adopted father and teacher. Having been deceived by demons, his birth father made a deal that allowed his organs to be harvested by the 48 demon Fiends.

After defeating a poison spewing demon by a riverbank, Hyakkimaru will fall to his knees with a sudden pain – having reclaimed his left eye, the television then begins emitting color.

The game is based on Osamu Tezuka’s manga series Dororo, and plays off the narrative cleverly at first. As with so many games there’s a sense that this could have been a great experience if only everything in between wasn’t so monotonous. Demons shuffle around like extras from Onechanbara, waiting to be put out of their misery - which makes the experience miserable for me. It seems the game was entirely about adapting the work to a style of gameplay that might easily fit it, rather than creating the two on an equal footing. In the end it’s more about cramming a good story into a videogame motif, banking that the narrative is strong enough to keep me playing, with a few additional fighting features thrown in for good measure.

My collection is filled with these types of games, titles banking off of a unique selling feature or two and then littered with familiarity everyplace else. Sometimes they offer a few interesting ideas I might never see in a larger release, but they rarely live on as truly memorable games.

Despite what I have and haven’t enjoyed, I’m going to suggest that the only one that really ever got it right was Red Company’s 2002 Gungrave – a game that knew the type of niche is was stepping into, and reveled in it.

Each stage begins with the words “Kick their ass!!” And this attitude extends throughout the entire game. Grave is a dead assassin, brought back to life to defend a young girl and reap vengeance on the syndicate that betrayed him – which involves filling many, many thugs with lead. From the moment the stylish introduction begins, it’s clear that Gungrave is unique. But it’s also refreshing in the way that it represents a game in the purest sense of the word, fulfilling the boundaries and obligations of the genre it’s placed within. It doesn’t redefine this genre, but rather brings a long missing commitment and acceptance to the effort.

Character and story designs came from Trigun creator Yasuhiro Nightow, along with an impressive brain-trust with regards to mechanical designs and sound. As a testament to how much design and story are involved, it’s important to note that this arcade styled mash-fest spawned a twenty-six episode anime series of pure story-arc.

It’s possible you might not believe me at first – Grave’s character moves about as gracefully as a school bus in a tarpit. His saving grace is dodging, which causes him to leap sideways, and dramatic backflips that allow him to fly backwards while firing at enemies. Armed with two large pistols, and carrying a coffin strapped to his back that acts as a sledge hammer, chain-gun, and rocket launcher, a picture begins to form. The objective is to fill the screen with as many bullets as possible until every last person is dead. The goal of this game is to truly and simply kick their asses.

Naturally this all leads to monstrous boss fights against the key members of the syndicate - arena styled duels against over the top villains, requiring quite a bit of dodge and attack tactics to survive.

For all the effort of the story and design, these elements achieve a unique balance, complimenting the gameplay without overshadowing it. The game doesn’t seek an ideal that descends into button mashing, but rather seeks to be the king of mashers.

The enduring charm of the game emerges when Grave is standing still and the player starts legitimately mashing buttons. Mashing the square button makes Grave fire his twin pistols, and continuing to do so causes him to begin twirling them like a movie cowboy, working into a frenzied and bloody dance – a bullet ballet that completely engulfs the enemy. The tactile joy and eye candy rewards of Gungrave is how typical controls result in an overly stylized response. That chain of gunshots builds a Beat combo as Grave hits enemies and objects, raising both the player’s score and the demolition energy that allows Grave to perform a special attack. The substance? Well that’s found simply in the playing of it all, where it likely should be.

Button mashing is a lost art, and has even become convoluted as a concept as we now tend to take games with complex controls that respond to button mashing and just infer it to all be the same.

Gungrave is a button masher in the real sense of the word - you mash buttons to kill things, and the stages, enemies, and progression all encourage this soul pursuit. The result is a game that’s highly focused and subsequently one that’s bloody glorious to play through again and again.