Azure Striker GUNVOLT
Gunvolt, which I’ll call Gunvolt and only Gunvolt, try to tell me otherwise and who knows what I’ll do, is a side-scrolling, fast-paced shooter with RPG elements created by the lovely chaps down (down and over the ocean) at Inti Creates, a developer who I don’t know personally but I know they made the Mega Man Zero Series and Mega Man 9 & 10 (I think) and maybe some other stuff.
This Striker Pack (Crap, I’m already deviating from that thing I said in the first paragraph) was released for The Nintendo 3DS at some point in time in a place somewhere on this earth most likely far, far away from my suburban town in Massachusetts. I bought it with the money I didn’t have. It was marked down 7 bucks on Amazon and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life it’s never to turn down a deal staring me right in the face no matter how ”in the negative” my dad thinks my bank account is.
To be honest, I really should be saving my money to pay off some important credit card bills. Those are not going to take care of themselves, but instead will take care of me if someone doesn’t take care of them. You know what I’m saying? So, I’m hoping that if cross my fingers and act like a nice guy my parents will take care of all of my monetary problems and then some.
When I first looked at Gunvolt I thought Yacht Club Games made it because their big beautiful logo, that I can’t even picture right now, was on the cover. Clearly I missed that important message in high-school, “You really shouldn’t judge a cover by its logos.” Right after beaming Gunvolt up for the first time, which, depending on who you are and what you do for a living (in my case unemployed), you realize that Gunvolt was 110% not American made. Nope this is not a Dodge Ram. Wait, are those things even American made these days? Gunvolt is far too stylistic to be American. And that’s not necessarily the best thing either, and no I’m not saying American developers don’t know how create a game with style, they just don’t personally have any style. And I’m not saying that you need style, personally or in your designs, to be any good. Sometimes I hate too much style as it gets in the way of things I know and love. Which is why I’m not with the love of my life anymore and stuck playing Gunvolt with a bag of tortilla chips to feed my growing gut.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND EARLY RECOMMENDATIONS
If Mega Man X (Zero, whatever) is your thing than you may have found a something to spread on your bread other than butter with Gunvolt hot sauce. It is flashy, loud and delivers so much power and energy to your eyeballs that it certainly must know your social security number.
I get Gunvolt. Not entirely, but I get it. Not the gameplay yet, because that’s actually so intense that I can’t take it in more than 2 hour doses without inducing a minor seizure. While we’re on the topic of “things I don’t get” I certainly don’t get the story because I’ve been skipping through the dialogue. I promise to remedy this in my second playthrough. BUT YOU CAN’T MAKE ME PLAY IT TWICE NOW CAN YOU? Look. If you would just calm down for a second then maybe I could explain that I actually do get WHY Inti Creates scratched their creative itch by making a game like this.
First off, it makes logical sense since GUNVOLT might as well be a spiritual successor like addition onto the Mega Man series. You could almost change around some things (some/lots, same thing) to make GUNVOLT the start of a new Mega Man series called: THE MEGA MAN NEW SERIES! (Look. I can’t name things for the life of me. That’s why I don’t plan on having any kids.)
Secondly, you know those developers wanted to develop their own IP. Why do I know this despite having already said early that I don’t know these people? Who the hell wants to be bound to a franchise your entire life? For a developer that’s like saying put me in chains. They wanted the freedom to create something new. I get that because I believe it to be true regardless if it isn’t. How wonderful it is to tell yourself whatever you want. Like right now I’m telling myself that this isn’t even a game review. And right now I’m telling myself that it is.
So where was I?
There is a rock-solid foundation, the core gameplay mechanics, that is very similar across all of Inti Creates Mega Man games and what makes them so deliciously good. But Gunvolt has the most flare on top of that foundation. The developers were like a bunch of kids who got their parents black AMEX card for a few hours and dropped into a Wal-Mart. If you don’t get that metaphor I understand because I don’t either. What I meant was the developers were able to design whatever their hearts desired with GUNVOLT because it was there’s and only there’s and the story was new and the were all living such wonderfully exciting, and independent, lives.
PRESENTATION
THERE IS SO MUCH STYLE. The reason that jumps out at me is because I’m a person who’s desperate for style. I’ve either had no style or been an incredible poser my entire life. I’m not sure what’s worse. Regardless, I’ve gotten good at spotting style from a distance.
The characters, anime characters, manga characters, whatever you want to call them, are way too cool and need to take it down a peg or two if you ask me because they’re making me feel bad about myself. If I had to guess what these NPCs, bosses and the main protagonist do outside for a living I’d easily guess professionally run their own viral video channel and dabble with Snapchat. Yes, I discerned all this from the opening menu screen.
The menus and the sound and the EFFECTS are what’s important here, they are what make up the presentation and I want to talk about it and will probably dedicate a part of this narrative to “Presentation.” Wait, you’re telling me I already did that and I’m writing under that category right now? How embarrassing. “Hunny!” I said to my made up wife. “Get my slippers, I have to get down to business and start writing things that make sense.”
I want to live in GUNVOLT’s menu select screens. Just like I did with Mega Man 3’s menu select screens when I was seven years old. Time to go to school Mark! Sorry, mom, I would rather just keeping moving the cursor around different characters because it all feels and sounds so good.
If I have to sum up the presentation I’d say it fits the style and the theme of the game perfectly. It’s high-quality and does a damn good job at getting you hyped up to begin GUNVOLT.
GAMEPLAY (and where I trail off and stop talking about Gunvolt)
Welcome to the meat of this in-depth look. And by meat I mean possibly soy because I myself am a vegetarian every now and then and need to make sure I don’t ostracize myself from people who grab their proteins from alternative meat solutions. I mean, I haven’t even written anything yet but I know it’s the meat, soy and gravy section of this in-depth look.
As you start to follow me, read more of my stuff and certainly pay me big bucks when I open my Patreon account, you will know that I am another gameplay centric gamers who can’t play a game if the gameplay doesn’t hook me. One of the ironies of my life is that while I enjoy writing, I don’t like to read. This was an incredible realization I had about myself just two seconds ago and I can barely contain myself. Words are literally just dropping by the numbers onto the Google Doc!
I always thought that since I didn’t like to read I would never be able to become a writer. It was a huge disappointment in my life which led me to focus my attention on other things like cooking, working as a barista and starting to work on my awful stand up routine. Now, no one told me this except myself, that just because reading doesn’t light a fire under my ass doesn’t mean that writing wouldn’t be my solution moving forward. So here I am. And here you are. We are both here.
Gunvolt, the dude who you play as whether you like it or not, is a hero of epic side-scrolling proportions. Out of the gate you got a blaster with rapid fire and a charge shot. More importantly though, you have this ridiculously overpowered skill that absolutely annihilates everything (with exceptions to the bosses) in its path. I love this ability more than free money. Not even free money can make me feel like a God who exists for the sole purpose of total destruction.
Electricity, hence Gunvolt (yes, even I figured that one out), is not just the most important weapon of Gunvolt himself, the gameplay matches it perfectly with it’s fast action and almost never ending forward motion. You plow through levels, destroy environments and disintegrate enemies. The better you do at this the more points you get. The more points you get the faster you level up and the better score you get.
Finished here because I lost my save file. I'll be looking at Gunvolt 2 next.
-The Struggling Game
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