Azure Striker Gunvolt - The new generation Mega Man

 
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Hello everyone! Did you try already the combats with a classic aroma of Yatagarasu of which I talked about in the last entry? Come on! Just let nostalgia lead the way, and see who is the first one to “pull off a new Daigo”! And talking about nostalgia (I guess by now you all know how nostalgic I am), in this entry I´m going to talk about another game that follows on the steps of Yatagarasu on “reviving old classics”. A few entries back I showed you a few fan-made games based on the Mega Man franchise, but just in case all those adventures of the popular blue robot were not enough for you, in this new entry I´m going to talk about yet another game that tries to add an extra twist to the formula we saw in the games of Capcom´s most famous blue character, and I must add that it does it pretty well, at least for the most part, which in a way makes perfect sense, after all the game has been developed by a team made up of ex-Capcom that have previously been involved in several official episodes of the classic series of Osaka´s video games giant. The game I´m talking about is Azure Striker Gunvolt. Let´s see what the adventures of video games´ most electrifying character (with the permission of Blanka and Cole from Infamous) has to offer.

Azure Striker Gunvolt is action/platform game created by Japanese developer Inti Creates, which was originally published exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS in 2014 via the online shop of the platform, although soon the game will be also available for PC through Steam as the developing team just revealed recently. Perhaps the fact that the game is available just via download is the reason why many still don´t know about it, but that is precisely the reason this blog exists, plus, like you will soon see (if you decide to keep reading), the game is completely worthy of the legacy that precedes it. As I was saying before, is impossible to talk about Azure Striker Gunvolt without talking about the series starring the legendary Blue Bomber, and more specifically about the Mega Man X subseries, for not only they share a very similar visual style, but they also share many points of their gameplay, such as the possibility to choose the order in which we will face the stages, the combats against the bosses that wait for us at a room located at the end of each stage, the possibility to obtain a new weapon based on the power of the boss we defeated, or even other abilities such as dashing or wall-jumping. In fact, even the color of the clothes of the protagonist are blue, just like the robot of Capcom, and all this is probably due, not to the fact that the developers are just a bunch of “copycats”, but to the fact that, on top of the game counting with the collaboration of Keiji Inafune, father of Mage Man, Inti Creates was founded by several ex-Capcom members, and the company has already developed several entries of the Mega Man series in the past under request of Capcom, like the whole Mega Man Zero series starring Zero for the Game Boy Advanced, the two Mega Man ZX games for the Nintendo DS, or the charming Mega Man 9 and 10 for Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3, so I guess after such a long time working in the Mega Man franchise someone at Inti Creates said “What the hell. Why don´t we just create our very own Mega Man”, and thus Azure Striker Gunvolt was born. And just in case all this extensive curriculum was not enough, nowadays these (hyperactive) guys are helping the team of Keiji Inafune (you should always return the favours) with the development of Mighty No. 9, a game that was founded through the crowdfunding portal of Kickstarter after receiving a massive support from the fans (collected more than 4 million dollars) and that aims to become the spiritual successors of Mega Man, on top of being helping Koji Igarashi, who was one of the masterminds behind Konami´s timeless classic Castlevania Symphony of the Night, with the development of his new Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a game that also received massive support from the fans during its Kickstarter campaign (collected more than 5 million dollars) and that aims to go back to the roots of the “Metroidvania” classics and take them to a new level, but that´s not all, for they are also helping the industry veterans WayForward, creators among others of the remake of Capcom´s classic DuckTales, with their new and promising entry of their 2D platformer franchise Shantae, which also was a huge success during its Kickstarter funding campaign, proving not only that these guys are the “kings of the featuring” in Kickstarter, but also that when it comes to 2D action/platform games, these guys know what they are talking about, other ways the big names in the industry wouldn´t come to them asking for assistance.

As always, after talking a little bit about the “parents of the child”, we will start by explaining a little bit the background story of the game. The story of Azure Striker Gunvolt takes us to a future in which humans known as “Adepts” exists. These individuals possess supernatural skills that allow them to perform deeds that are impossible for the average mortal, such as levitate, or control the elemental powers of fire, wind, water and electricity, among other things. In this future there is a megacorporation known as the Sumeragi Group, thanks to whom the world leaves in peace, although the real goals of Sumeragi are much darker, experimenting with Adepts to use them as weapons, which will bring into play a group of rebels known as Quill, who are trying to stop the megacorporation, and among those rebels we can find the protagonist of the story that serves also to give the title to the game: Gunvolt, a powerful adept with the power to generate and control electric fields. During the game the story will be narrated via radio conversations between the characters as we play and with comic-style scenes between the missions, and although the story is definitely not the next big thing, it surely works nice enough in order to let us carry on with the adventure. As for the gameplay of the game itself, the fastest and easiest way to describe the gameplay style of Azure Striker Gunvolt is by saying “Mega Man X”, for as I mentioned before, both titles share a lot in common in visual and gameplay terms, with one exception: the shooting. While in Mega Man we just had to press the button to shoot and destroy any mechanical thing that tried to stop us, Azure Striker Gunvolt makes use of a much more sophisticated shooting system, for the main weapon of our character will barely scratch our enemies, instead of that, it´s main function will be to “tag” them so we can later destroy them with a powerful electric shock using Gunvolt´s special powers. The more enemies we tag and destroy at once, the larger the combo will be and so the better the score will be upon completing the stages, which will be mandatory if we want to obtain the synthesis materials I will talk about later one. Every time we get hit by an enemy attack, our “combo count” will reset back to cero, and we will lose all the bonus, similar to what can be seen also in many Shoo Em´ Up, which will encourage many players to play again the levels in order to achieve a better score. This feature, on top of being the game´s main gimmick, also adds to make of Azure Striker Gunvolt a more distinctive game, helping to set itself apart from the series starring Capcom´s Blue Bomber. Also, on top of the shooting, we will be able to use Gunvolt´s special ability to create and manipulate electric fields to solve some small puzzles that will involve activating certain switches or mobile platforms, as well as levitating in order to be able to overcome certain jumping sections. Even though the capacity of Gunvolt to create electric fields is infinite, a gauge will show us the electric energy he will have available at each moment, which will deplete every time we use Gunvolt´s special power, refilling automatically on the contrary when we don´t use it. If this gauge ever depletes completely, our special power will overheat and we won´t be able to use for a few seconds in which we will be completely exposed to our enemies attacks. In addition to this, Gunvolt is equipped with a pendant that allows him to automatically avoid ALL enemy attacks. Yup, you read that well. We will be able to avoid all enemy attacks automatically without having to do anything at all, provided always that we meet two conditions: the first one is that we have enough electric energy for it, since every attack we dodge will deplete our energy gauge, and the second one is that we are not using our electric energy to attack when receiving the attack of an enemy, which means finding the right balance between the offensive and defensive use of the electric energy will be the key. To tell you the truth, I think this “auto-dodging” system is not as well balanced is should, making the game really easy in some parts, which maybe was intentional in order not to frustrate the less skilled players, although those of you who are looking for a challenge will always have the option to remove the pendant so that it will be you who will actually have to dodge the attacks in the old-school way.

We will be able to equip Gunvolt with several items.

Combat aganist one the bosses.

As for the structure of the game, as I already mentioned before, just like in Mega Man, we will be able to select the order in which we will face the initial stages, facing a boss at the end of each one in spectacular combats that will surely be one of the highlights of the game. Once we complete the initial stages we will access the final stages, again like it happened in Capcom´s classic. Every time we defeat one of the bosses we will obtain a new weapon, which will allow us to tag and attack our enemies in different ways. In addition to this, Azure Striker Gunvolt also includes an option to create our own equipment by synthesizing the items we will obtain upon completing the stages, which will grant us new skills. During the stages we will have 3 skills points available, and each skill will consume a different amount of skill points, which, just like the electric energy, will recharge by themselves, although very slowly, which means we will be able to use normally a maximum of one or two skills per stage. The skills will range from allowing us to heal our hero´s health to inflicting more damage to the enemies. Although it is indeed a good idea, this feature doesn´t feel like is completely well implemented, since is perfectly possible to complete the whole game without using most of these extra skills, plus it will take us SO LONG to obtain the items we need to create the equipment that most probably we will finish the game while creating just one of two pieces of equipment, specially if we won´t want to replay the stages, which is definitely a pity since it could have made the gameplay that much richer, but oh well, I guess is still one more option, right? Another of the shortcomings of the game resides in its length, being perfectly possible to complete it in about 5 hours without taking the extras in count. Of course, this will always vary depending on our skills. But Azure Striker Gunvolt is designed so that we constantly try to outdo ourselves, or in other words: is not about killing a lot, but about killing "with style", encouraging us to play the stages again and again aiming for a better score, which at the same time will also allow us to obtain the items we will need to create the equipment I talked about before. On top of this, in order to try to expand the lasting appeal of the title, the development team added a series of extra optional tasks, like a series of challenges that will require us to master Gunvolt´s skills in order to be able to complete them, or finding some secrets jewels hidden through the stages, which will allow us to create a special item that we will have to equip in order to be able to see the “good ending” of the game, for the normal one is rather sad (or at least it will be for some), and by sad I don´t mean “bad”, just that, sad, but I don´t want to spoil it for you.

Regarding the graphic aspect of the game, the graphics are up to what you could expect from the best 16-bit era titles, with colorful and detailed sprites, although the design of the stages can be at some points rather bland, which also goes for the normal enemies, with most being just your typical cannon fodder that, on top of not being that original, are not that varied neither. Anyway, Azure Striker Gunvolt is definitely a more than worthy disciple of Mega Man, taking many of its formulas and using the developing team´s large experience to give them their personal touch, having as a result an interesting and fun game despite its shortcomings, which on the other hand might be understandable if you think about the more than affordable price at which the title is available in the online shop of Nintendo 3DS and soon also in Steam for PC. In fact, the guys at Inti Creates are so happy with the sales and critics of the game that they recently announced that they are already working on its second installment with a release date yet to be confirmed. Actually, as if just one game was not enough, in order to thanks all the fans who bought the game on its release, Inti Creates presented all of them with the funny and charming Mighty Gunvolt (which I will describe in a moment), SOMETHING THAT THEY WILL ALSO DO DURING THE RELEASE OF THE GAME FOR STEAM AT THE END OF AUGUST 2015, and which is something to really appreciate in these times were you have to pay for just about everything. As for those that missed the chance to buy the game during its release (or just were not interested in Azure Striker Gunvolt), fear not, for they will also have the chance to buy the game separately in the Nintendo 3DS online shop and Steam for a really nice price.

As I was saying before, not happy with paying tribute to Mega Man X, Inti Creates guys released at the same time as Azure Striker Gunvolt a game called Mighty Gunvolt, which is actually a “demake” of its older brother Azure Striker Gunvolt, just that this time it imitates the gameplay and looks of the classic Mega Man games of the 8-bit era. The game counts with 3 protagonists:

The inclusion of Beck as a playable character is probably one the main highlights of this little title, since it will allow us to play as the main character of Keiji Inafune´s much anticipated new game for the very first time, which will help us to get a little idea of how the new creation of Inafume-sama will feel like. Gameplay-wise the game feels really simple when compared to Azure Striker Gunvolt, for as I said, the game is trying to play tribute to the classic Mega Man games, and I must add that Inti Creates guys really nailed it, from the retro sprites to the 8-bit tunes, all feels like being playing again with your old NES. The game is pretty short, having just 5 stages, but the unique gameplay style of the 3 playable characters will help to expend the lasting appeal of the game. All the stages are inspired on those of its big brother, with 8-bit versions of the enemies that also appear in Azure Striker Gunvolt, although we will be able to download a few extra stages via DLC. Now, while normally I don´t agree with this kind of sales strategies, given that the game is completely FREE for those who purchased Azure Striker Gunvolt during its release, and that it will also be available at a really good price after that, this time I won´t make any complains, after all I understand this is a business, plus it´s still better than what other companies are asking for just some maps or weapons for the online mode. I´m convinced that when you play it, you will think it was well worth every cent.

Anyway, here you have something else to “chew on” while we wait for the promising Mighty No. 9, which well be released pretty soon. Just one more proof that Mega Man is not as dead as some wants us to believe. Enjoy!


AZURE STRIKER GUNVOLT GAMEPLAY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKvjIFUDVIw

MIGHTY GUNVOLT GAMEPLAY:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmWQzVoJf7c