I finished
Azure Striker Gunvolt (er... Armed Blue Gunvolt?) the other day. I ended up beating the game twice for the true ending, finding all of the crystals for the true ending, S/SS/A-ranking a lot of the missions, and doing two of the special missions. I played a lot of the game since its release, so I think I feel a little more qualified to write impressions for it now as opposed to a few days ago when I'd only gotten the normal ending and didn't do the special missions.
I think the game's going to be divisive when the west gets to play it. After hearing what 2ch had to say about it, and actually checking it myself, the reception seemed fairly positive a few days after release because they're talking about how to speedrun it and get higher scores. Point is: if you don't like time attacking or score attacking to get higher ranks in platformers or maybe some arcade games, Gunvolt is not going to be for you. I just think it's a little dumb to advertise it like a Mega Man game when it doesn't really work like one. It has
elements, but it certainly doesn't work like a Mega Man game. And that's probably what's going to hurt the game since that's what people are expecting.
The intro stage is not a proper introduction to the game. They throw you into a semi-tutorial stage and you somewhat get the feeling like you're supposed to play it like a MMX or Rockman & Bass intro stage. And that works, but it's slow and meandering and boring. I think it's an implicit way of getting the player to use dash more and just hit enemies a few times but run as they're using their Lightning Ring to get through the stage faster (ie: you seem rewarded more for being able to get things done faster as opposed to beating up all the enemies in one stage). But it doesn't work very well as a stage that introduces mechanics and tells the player how to use them correctly in order to facilitate how fast the game should play.
The boss stages are essentially gimmick stages. They're also set up in different halves like Mega Man 8 or the later MMX games where the second half of the stage is completely different from the first and there's loading times to separate the two. The stage's gimmick typically appears in the latter half of the stage, and these include: water rising so that you can't use your lightning ring and you can't stay underwater too long in general because you're electric, using the Lightning Ring to see because the stage itself is dark, and using springs to get across a stage while trying to find items like medals or the crystals. I think the gimmicks work fairly well because much of them are designed around Gunvolt's abilities (though I guess bear in mind that I thought the gimmicks in another game that evokes the days of yore, Shovel Knight, were badly implemented). Some of the gimmicks test your abilities to ration out the Lightning Ring, some of them test out whether or not you're good at wall jumping while evading enemies' 8-directional attacks while avoiding water and not using your Lightning Ring too much, some see if you're good at dashing, etc. So you're usually bound to using GV's full arsenal as opposed to straight-up platforming. There are platformers that do gimmicks right and some that do gimmicks wrong, and I feel like Gunvolt doesn't do them very wrong. There are some misses, but as far as I'm concerned, they work well in the confines of a time/score attacking scenario.
The weapons aren't utilized very well. You don't get different elemental abilities after you beat bosses a la Mega Man (hence GV's main arsenal is his voltage and guns). You get some different equipment, though, like different guns to equip sometimes. These guns have different directions. One shoots like a beam (and you can charge it), one shoots in all directions and shoot out another shot to assist in tagging enemies further away so you can tag enemies easier, one can have its shot ricochet up, etc. Some of these guns also have different amount of times you can tag, so some you can use to tag enemies just once, three times, or five times. They're all useful in different situations, especially if you're going for S/SS ranks. But if you're progressing through the game normally, I'm pretty sure you'd go for the beam and the spread shot instead and just use those. The weapons should have been utilized much better in-game for people who are casually going through the game.
Dash feels good, whether you're double-tapping to dash or you're pressing the button to dash. There were some cases when I was using the button to dash, but it felt okay to double-tap to dash. There are times when I didn't like to double-tap to dash in MMX, so this isn't bad.
The special missions that you can unlock can be a little difficult since they're remixes of the regular stages with a boss at the end (which isn't a boss from those stages that are remixed), and there are no checkpoints. Mess up on platforming or die, you have to start aaaaallll the way back at the beginning. The enemies are a little tougher and there are more of them/they're placed in different spots. They're interesting, I guess.
The quests are kinda meh, and I mostly ignored them. I might do them one day, but I didn't feel like they were necessary and they didn't seem like something I should focus on.
It also some issues like:
- The shop system is crap and the interface kinda sucks for it. It doesn't tell you what equipment you have and what you don't unless you're making an upgrade+ accessory.
- Item acquisition for shop build is stupid. The only way to get items to forge new equipment with is to finish stages and then select them randomly. If you get medals from the stage and rank higher, you can get more items. Since items are given to you randomly, it's hard to focus on what you want to upgrade and what you don't want to since you're not going to get the ingredients you want.
- The dialogue during stages and boss fights are intrusive and unnecessary. This is apparently getting cut for the western release, so that's okay. It sucks and I turned it off as soon as I realized that it was problematic. When a lot of the dialogue is getting in the way of an enemy's animation, it's time to take it off. There are a lot of effects going on onscreen during bosses too, so it's not like you're going to pay attention to the dialogue anyway.
- The story's... ummm... not so good. But I kinda expected that after some of the character introductions.
- I beat the game at Lv. 38 because I went back through levels for ranks, so I think you can beat it under that level. But I imagine that it gets easier to rank up provided you're at a higher level since it wouldn't take as long to defeat enemies. That kinda renders some of the difficulty with respect to ranking high a little null. I wish it were balanced in such a way where if you are at a higher level, you're generally expected to get levels done faster and well and not futz around, so the requirements for ranking should be higher.
- Credits theme sucks because it loops over and over for as long as 25% of a Ubisoft game credit roll.
- When you're S/SS-ranking, you want to dodge checkpoints as much as possible to maintain 1000 kudos points so you can get a higher score. That said, for someone who's just playing the game to get through it, some of the checkpoints might feel a little misplaced, particularly in the fourth stage and maybe in the last four main-game stages.
- Kinda silly that you have to beat the game once to be able to beat the game again on the same save to get the true ending and the actual "clear" marked on your save.
- Wish GV were a little more versatile, but if this game gets a sequel this problem could be fixed. I'd appreciate if he could duck or slide. It seems like the levels were designed around the fact that GV can't duck (since there would be "stairs" or elevations" and then an enemy at the top so you consistently find yourself in a situation where you jump and shoot before proceeding, which slows you down and makes some of the stage design predictable).
- The enemy diversity in this game is just terrible. There are some stages where you can find some enemies that are exclusive to that stage, but quite often you'll find yourself fighting against the same gunners over and over again or the same flying machines repeatedly. It ends up making progression through stages a little one-note because you already know how to deal with these enemies in different situations.
- The last four main stages (especially one of them) are designed in an oddball fashion. One specifically is reminiscent of the intro stage where you're made to fight a boss multiple times. In this one stage you fight the same miniboss three times and then you do a stage boss refight. It wastes my time, especially since the minibosses are two stage fights and they prolong the stage for little reason.
I've been following someone on Twitch who's done more SS ranks than I have, and he seems pretty pro at the game now (plus he's levelled Gunvolt up to lv. 94 last I checked). The game is really really fast when you play it as it was designed, and in his case, it's interesting to see how he learned how to play it. He generally streams the Rockman series, and going by what he says onstream, he seems to like it. It'll be cool to see in the hands of someone who can speedrun it well.
Anyway, I really liked Azure Striker Gunvolt. I like platformers with time attacking and speedrunning, so this is mostly up my alley. The game looks good, its backgrounds look great (though sometimes you can argue that when effects are happening during some boss battles it can get a little busy), and the soundtrack's generally very good. I haven't seen soundtrack details put up in the soundtrack database yet, but I'd love to get one eventually if they ever release one. The game also sets itself up for a sequel, so if it ever does get a sequel, I hope they make a lot of improvements. I'd love to play another game like that.
As for
Mighty Gunvolt, that game's reception seems a bit mixed too. I beat it twice with two different characters (because two of them share levels and one of them is just different), and I mostly came away with "well, that game happened" thoughts (which means it was mostly unremarkable).
You have three characters to choose from: Ekoro (Galgun rep), Beck (Mighty No. 9), and Gunvolt (...gunvolt). They all have different movesets. Gunvolt has a double jump and an electric beam that fires in a line (and you can't move while using it). Beck has dash/slide and a charged up dash/slide (which can one-hit almost every common enemy). Ekoro has a charm attack and float jump (think princess peach). Out of all three, Ekoro is the most interesting one. She has different stages from Beck and Gunvolt (Beck and Gunvolt go through the same stages), and she can charm enemies into acting as backup for her. Her float is a little odd, but it works. Otherwise, Mighty Gunvolt feels like omake content. It doesn't seem like it stands up well as a full-fledged product and is just a cool extra. It seems okay for score attacking, but it doesn't jive very well with me, and I think it's because I feel like the game could look better. All of the stages are linear. You don't get to pick which one you want to play through.
The game's really short and it doesn't take too long to clear. I just mostly find it unremarkable, but it's extra content that's kind of for free, I guess.
