I’ve been playing Punishing: Gray Raven since long before it came to steam and I absolutely love this game.
First off, the story is presented as visual novel and starts kinda quiet - world building and setting the scene - but once you hit about chapter 9 it really starts pulling you in. The lore is deep, it’s gritty, and it doesn’t shy away from dark twists. Some chapters get truly heavy, especially around the mid-late game where everything feels hopeless and epic at the same time. It’s not just “fight bad guys” - there are emotional beats, dramatic reveals, and things that actually stick with you as you play through the struggle of humanity against the seemingly undefeatable opponent. The narrative is one of the best I’ve seen in any action RPG that isn’t triple-A console level, and it keeps getting better as you push through. You can play through all of the available story chapters without engaging with gacha system, game gives you demo characters.
Now the music might honestly be the secret sauce. The soundtrack is more than background noise - it’s like a trance-fueled adrenaline boost for every fight. From pulsing electronic beats to drum & bass drops that kick in right when you’re slicing through hordes, to ambient tracks that set the mood in story scenes, the audio fits the cyberpunk end-of-the-world aesthetic perfectly. Some tracks hit with explosive trance-leaning electronic beats and soaring synth lines that make every fight feel like it’s scored for a rave-in-space while darker moments are underscored by haunting, atmospheric melodies. Vanguard sound and PGR are a perfect match.
Combat is fast, flashy, and stupidly fun - perfect dodges, signature moves, matrix-style slow motion bursts, all synced to pounding beats. They even implemented DMC 5 Vergil and Dante almost with all of their original moves in this game during the collab. Even without newest characters in your roster, you can still clear all of the events/weeklies and earn all the rewards, meta is for competitive players in the leaderboards. And trust me, seeing a perfect rotation of your team’s skills layered over an insane OST hit just hits differently.
Speaking of characters - the gacha here is surprisingly kind if you just play regularly. 100% chance of obtaining on the rate up character, all the characters and weapons except for 1 are in standard banners for characters and weapons, you can even select any weapon on the banner and pull for it or just buy it directly in the weapon shop. On the free-to-play front, this game treats players seriously well. If you just play consistently you’ll eventually get every new featured character because income of f2p player is around 15k always which is 1 copy of limited character. That’s pretty rare for this kind of game and makes progression much more chill and satisfying. There are even a few meta-useful characters that are completely free, without temporary time limits, so you don’t feel left behind even as a free-to-play player.
Aside from combat and story, there are cool little extras like decorating dorms and building up relationships with your characters, exploring the newest semi open world hub – Babylonia, taking part in guild activities etc.

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เกมส์สนุกๆ Sandbox สไตล์ กดรั่วๆ กดย้ำๆ กดมันส์

เนื้อเรื่อง : ตับ/10
เกมส์เพลย์ : 10/10
เพลง : 10/10
กาชา : 0/10 [ดวงแย่]