Mighty Gunvolt Burst Eshop Exclusive & Azure Striker Gunvolt Striker Pack For Switch.

[Sonic Angel Knight]

We can all agree on 2 things, Azure Striker Gunvolt are good games, Mighty No.9 is "Questionable" right? Well their worlds collided before in the cross over game Might Gunvolt, and is happening again. Inti creates is now a official third party developer for Nintendo and announced that Mighty Gunvolt Burst will be coming to Nintendo Eshop for Nintendo Switch, June 15 2017 with the 3DS game 2 weeks after on June 29 2017 both for the small price of $9.99.

The game is a sequel to Mighty Gunvolt, a bonus game released along side Azure Striker Gunvolt back in 2014 for Nintendo 3DS. Mighty Gunvolt put you put against Septimal bosses from Azure Striker Gunvolt, this time around the tables have turned and are now put against Beck's robot siblings from Mighty No.9. The game will feature a Burst Combo system, a customization system, collectible pixel stickers of the games characters, HD rumble support used to find hidden secrets, and feature the two characters Beck and Gunvolt. (Eroko either not announced yet or excluded. I felt is important to note figuring how she was featured in the previous one.)

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OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Inti creates also announced that Azure Striker Gunvolt Striker Pack will be releasing on Nintendo switch Agust 31 2017 Price TBD. This game for anyone familiar with the 3DS will feature two games in one, the game will have Azure Striker Gunvolt and is sequel as well as all previously released DLC, High Definition/Resolution graphics, 60 FPS gameplay and rebalanced gameplay changes to ajust difficulty, HD rumble support, revamped screen layout, multilanguage support. (Multilanguage support is text only, voice available only in Japanese) new song sung by Lumen, and switch pro controller support.

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Official Website.​

 

[Shadow#1]

Nice

 

[Meteor7]

ASG was a terrible game, with its cluttered and obstructive UI, unskippable mid-mission commentary that would block the screen further, small field-of-view, frantic use of light effects which made bullets indistinguishable, and its "don't ever get hit" point system, all of which made the game rely heavily on memorization to the point where you could play it blindfolded, because you essentially were. It almost makes me ashamed to love their very similar, previous titles Megaman ZX and ZXA, on which they collaborated with Capcom. This Switch port is the chance this game needs to correct its mistakes, and with the larger screen real estate, that could very well happen, but the game is so fundamentally flawed that I doubt anything good is really going to come of this. I feel like they'd need to scrap 90% of what the game is and rework it before it becomes playable, and that's a completely unrealistic thing to expect.

Funny enough, their tiny 8-bit pack-in title, Mighty Gunvolt, was so much better in that it was merely forgettable, but enjoyable.

 

[Vieela]

I don't know if that's a nice idea or an extremely bad idea, mixed between two

 

[Deleted-379826]

ASG was a terrible game, with its cluttered and obstructive UI, unskippable mid-mission commentary that would block the screen further, small field-of-view, frantic use of light effects which made bullets indistinguishable, and its "don't ever get hit" point system, all of which made the game rely heavily on memorization to the point where you could play it blindfolded, because you essentially were. It almost makes me ashamed to love their very similar, previous titles Megaman ZX and ZXA, on which they collaborated with Capcom. This Switch port is the chance this game needs to correct its mistakes, and with the larger screen real estate, that could very well happen, but the game is so fundamentally flawed that I doubt anything good is really going to come of this. I feel like they'd need to scrap 90% of what the game is and rework it before it becomes playable, and that's a completely unrealistic thing to expect.

Funny enough, their tiny 8-bit pack-in title, Mighty Gunvolt, was so much better in that it was merely forgettable, but enjoyable.

What?! Azure Striker Gunvolt was awesome!

 

[Meteor7]

What?! Azure Striker Gunvolt was awesome!

I went back to it a few minutes before posting that, just to confirm my ancient criticisms were actually on-point, and yeah, I think the game is a trainwreck on fire. As one of many examples, there's this section on the Media Tower stage I played where a boost will throw you into spikes on the ceiling, but the HUD completely obstructs the spikes. I was thrown into the spikes, backed up, edged my way to the boost, and barely any spikes were visible at all behind the health bar. This alone didn't break the game for me, but this exact kind of sloppiness was present in every aspect of the game.

I'm glad you could have fun with it, though; god knows I tried to. :\

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

ASG was a terrible game, with its cluttered and obstructive UI, unskippable mid-mission commentary that would block the screen further, small field-of-view, frantic use of light effects which made bullets indistinguishable, and its "don't ever get hit" point system, all of which made the game rely heavily on memorization to the point where you could play it blindfolded, because you essentially were. It almost makes me ashamed to love their very similar, previous titles Megaman ZX and ZXA, on which they collaborated with Capcom. This Switch port is the chance this game needs to correct its mistakes, and with the larger screen real estate, that could very well happen, but the game is so fundamentally flawed that I doubt anything good is really going to come of this. I feel like they'd need to scrap 90% of what the game is and rework it before it becomes playable, and that's a completely unrealistic thing to expect.

Funny enough, their tiny 8-bit pack-in title, Mighty Gunvolt, was so much better in that it was merely forgettable, but enjoyable.

Guess I'll go ahead and say that this is the first time I heard someone mentioned disliking the game. Yes I do agree the 3DS small screen was probably not the best fit for the game and all the "Over the top presentation" is a bit annoying and some other difficulty things as well. But I suppose from a experienced player of the game, I can address them and accept the criticism as respectful.

The first problem is obtaining items which is obtained at the end of missions by picking from 15 on screen panels that are complete random which makes it hard to synth items you want, including you also need to have money (Vig) to also synth items. Would be better to just buy items you need to make the synths you wanted.

Second is the kudos, in the first game the kudos is basically combo system that shows how many hits you made to enemies, but one hit would lose them all. This made it very frustrating to earn better ranks which you always wanna get, high rank means more chances to pick items up (besides finding medals) Kudos is important for higher scores. Since the second game they changed it to have three tier system with benefit and consequence. No kudo loss with lower score multiplier. 3 strike to lose all kudo after taking 3 hits with standard score system and the first game 1 strike system with higher multiplier gain. Earning items for synth is maybe the biggest problem, most of the rare items are earned from challenges or some special stage that is available after specific conditions (Or as part of update/dlc) Is a bit unfair, random item acquiring systems are the worst thing in video games where the influence is to collect many useful tools or just for 100% enthusiast.

The in game story or as they call it "story mode+" Where the screen is cluttered by text and portraits of the characters speaking (which can be turned off) was a bit much. But there is a option to turn it off.

With the nintendo switch port, the game aims to rebalance difficulty (I hope) for both games to make it more tolerable for all players, the first game will have the optional 3 tier kudos system like the second one. The bigger screen and higher resolution could also mean more to see and less screen clutter, again option to turn it off. Just for reference how much the HUD has been changed.

Spoiler

Once again, I do agree is not perfect, it has terrible flaws that I wish was corrected sooner, but personally it didn't stop me from playing since gameplay wasn't bad, it could be worst, but there is many things that can be corrected to be a bit more fair. Challenge that is optional not enforced.

General game rules seem to be heavily influenced by becoming better, but doing so doesn't mean it has to be about frustrating the player.

• This game should never have random item acquiring system or as people call it "Lootcrate" system especially when is based on getting a good rank + finding hidden medals.
• Kudos should be a bit more fair and not influence the player to become "perfect"
• 3DS was a bad system for the amount of presentation they put into it. Small screens are just a bit overwheming for so much on screen action.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

What?! Azure Striker Gunvolt was awesome!

The game is fun to play but the many flaws that could potentially be fixed is probably the issue. Random item acquiring is probably video games in general biggest problems. While there is useful items to get using the synth options, the way to obtain them is uninspiring and doesn't encourage people to try, since is completely random luck how you will get them. The game in my opinion mostly teaches the player discipline or like @Meteor7 said "Don't get hit" So is more of a game who tries to condition the player to be flawless or perfect and make as less mistakes as possible to gain a better reward. Most players will look and see how useful a item that lets you perform multiple jumps/air dashes, reduce energy used during flashfield or pervasion, higher damage or anything else, but then discover the only way to get it would be

1. Find medals hidden in the stage
2. Get high scores to get better ranks which require KUDOS as well as fast time completion (Was already explained you never wanna get hit)
3. Complete challenges.

There was similar games in the past for example like mega man zero series where you had a rank system that was based on kinda the same thing

• Mission success = How much of the objective goal you completed (Max points 20)
• Clear Time = Time used to finish the mission (Max points 20)
• Enemies defeated = Number of enemies defeated (Max points 15)
• Damage = Damage taken during mission (Max points 15
• Retry = How many lives lost during mission (Max points 15)
• Elf = Number of cyber elves found during mission. (Max points 15)

It too was also a notorious infamous ranking system I hated cause it was very strict to get S rank. To get S rank you need 96-100 points while anything lower than 45 gets F.

Every mission has a objective, you need to clear to get 100% to earn 20 Points, you have to do it fast to get 20 clear time, defeat specific amount of enemies for 15, Don't take too much damage, don't lose any lives and find all cyber elf in the mission. Is too much pressure to get s rank they made elves that GIVE YOU A HIGH RANK just for the sake of it.

Mega man X 5 is another game with rank system, but is fairly small compared to mega man zero, Damage taken, time taken, and enemies defeated. The problem with the games is they never do tell you how much of anything you require for the high rank, you just have to figure it out, each stage has a preset clear time for best possible score, and the ranks are based on score. You never are told "Defeat 47 enemies, collect 6 cyber elves, don't lose more than 2 times, Don't take more than 12 damage, clear the mission under 4:10"

Though with me I usually do dislike ranking system in games simply cause they don't make it a bit more relax, nor do they tell you how to get high rank.

In azure striker gunvolt, is fun to play, i like running through enemies using prevasion feeling like a bad add speed runner with no care to safety. That how video games are to me, making me feel like I can do anything I can't do in reality. But I would also like to least try and get synth items which is only possible from player's determination. Unfortunate for them, i can beat the game without enhancements and i don't really need them to win, but would be nice to try.

I'm not saying ranking systems suck, games can have them just maybe do something like for higher difficulty, require better score or something for higher ranks, i don't feel it should be enforced, it should be optional.

 

[Meteor7]

-snip-

I definitely think that's overall a very fair analysis. I'm glad they adjusted the kudos system in future entries, but I also hope they place less emphasis on speedrunning levels for a high rank. Regarding the HUD changes you mentioned, though, it looks almost identical to the original, but with the skills now covering the upper-right corner.
NEW/OLD

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I definitely think that's overall a very fair analysis. I'm glad they adjusted the kudos system in future entries, but I also hope they place less emphasis on speedrunning levels for a high rank. Regarding the HUD changes you mentioned, though, it looks almost identical to the original, but with the skills now covering the upper-right corner.

Well the time is useful as a multiplier for your score. It should be possible to get high scores ignoring time. it can only go up to 1.5 multiple as max which also means 5 medals as well for picking inventory at mission clear. So you can get s rank with high kudos either by ending the stage with as much kudos as possible. Also some items you can obtain from synth can increase kudo gain. But the kudo itself is the never get hit system i suppose everyone dislike which explains why it was made a 3 tier select option in the second game. So this port will add that option to the first game to balance it. Though not sure if 3DS/ steam port will get update for it. But honestly I'm glad Is coming to the switch and i didn't buy the second game. Switch will be definitive way to play it until something better comes, i guess.

And yes, they had to put the skills somewhere on the screen, switch doesn't come with 2 screens like 3ds does lol. Is like that in the steam port. Though I do think the game just looks like the original but the higher resolution of the switch and tv monitions means they can reduce the size of somethings, and less screen clutter as well as maybe better transparencies

 

[Meteor7]

the higher resolution of the switch and tv monitions means they can reduce the size of somethings, and less screen clutter as well as maybe better transparencies

That's my point, they should have done that, but it looks like they didn't. Also, there are big, amateur level design screw-ups all over ASG1, for example;
Where does this boost lead?

To a wall of spikes. I hope you weren't too attached to those Kudos.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

That's my point, they should have done that, but it looks like they didn't. Also, there are big, amateur level design screw-ups all over ASG1, for example;
Where does this boost lead?

To a wall of spikes. I hope you weren't too attached to those Kudos.

Well I mean is just a setup for a trap. So that you go around it, of course if you didn't know, you do next time. There plenty of worst stage designs like Mega man X6, plenty of spikes in that game, least this game don't instant kill you for touching them, and now people would be glad to keep their kudos with the new option select for them.
(I know is bad but it could be worst.)

 

[duffmmann]

What?! Azure Striker Gunvolt was awesome!

I agree, I really enjoyed that game.

 

[Meteor7]

Well I mean is just a setup for a trap. So that you go around it, of course if you didn't know, you do next time. There plenty of worst stage designs like Mega man X6, plenty of spikes in that game, least this game don't instant kill you for touching them, and now people would be glad to keep their kudos with the new option select for them.
(I know is bad but it could be worst.)

Whoa, let's keep the bar a little bit higher than X6, okay?

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Whoa, let's keep the bar a little bit higher than X6, okay?

Just saying, yeah the booster is obviously a trap, but it could be worst Lol. Should I had compared it to Mario maker trolling or least say is better than X6 stage designs?

 

[Meteor7]

Just saying, yeah the booster is obviously a trap, but it could be worst Lol. Should I had compared it to Mario maker trolling or least say is better than X6 stage designs?

I may be spoiled by how far game design has come, but any time a game has unavoidable or un-telegraphed punishment in it, it slips firmly into my "bad game" category. We've come so far and learned so much in terms of game design that, even as a gamer and not a designer, if somebody put that on my desk and said "what do you think?" I would seriously question why I hired them. I feel like there's no room for dumb mistakes like that in modern gaming, which isn't to say it was ever a good idea to have it in the past, but that's why I just don't have any patience for it today.

And I don't mean to harp on that one issue, as I wouldn't call it the worst part of ASG.

 

[crfstewarje]

I may be spoiled by how far game design has come, but any time a game has unavoidable or un-telegraphed punishment in it, it slips firmly into my "bad game" category. We've come so far and learned so much in terms of game design that, even as a gamer and not a designer, if somebody put that on my desk and said "what do you think?" I would seriously question why I hired them. I feel like there's no room for dumb mistakes like that in modern gaming, which isn't to say it was ever a good idea to have it in the past, but that's why I just don't have any patience for it today.

And I don't mean to harp on that one issue, as I wouldn't call it the worst part of ASG.

One example (The Light Tower image that you pointed out) does not = a bad game. From a subjective standpoint, games will never be perfect, because not everyone will agree on the same thing. Example; I don't agree that ZX Advent is better than Gunvolt. Sure ZX Advent had some decent level design (in some cases), but it was marred down by horrible voice casting, a forgettable story, and useless forms. I mean, sure, the game gives you a decent amount of forms to use, but too bad most of them are useless outside of some combat and gaining collectibles. They should have expanded upon that much more than they did. However, I feel like Gunvolt had a more engaging story, a better soundtrack, and there was more going on in levels. Also, I'm curious to know your thoughts on Mighty Gunvolt Burst.

 

[Meteor7]

One example (The Light Tower image that you pointed out) does not = a bad game. From a subjective standpoint, games will never be perfect, because not everyone will agree on the same thing. Example; I don't agree that ZX Advent is better than Gunvolt. Sure ZX Advent had some decent level design (in some cases), but it was marred down by horrible voice casting, a forgettable story, and useless forms. I mean, sure, the game gives you a decent amount of forms to use, but too bad most of them are useless outside of some combat and gaining collectibles. They should have expanded upon that much more than they did. However, I feel like Gunvolt had a more engaging story, a better soundtrack, and there was more going on in levels. Also, I'm curious to know your thoughts on Mighty Gunvolt Burst.

I haven't played MGB yet, but I think I'll pick it up eventually. As for the issues with ZXA, I agree wholeheartedly, but those particular issues don't affect my enjoyment of the game nearly as much as ASG's issues do. I'm very much a "gameplay over set-dressing" kind of guy, so things like voice acting and story don't bother very much when they're handled poorly, but I can still appreciate it when they're handled well. It's rare, but a story and soundtrack that really resonates with me can even make me overlook otherwise unpleasant gameplay, though ASG is not one of those instances.

The biggest issue I had with ZXA was exactly what you mentioned, though, that being how very situational or otherwise useless most of the forms were. I think they needed to condense most of those abilities into maybe 6 or so forms in order to cut down on the wasted space as well as save time mucking around in the transformation menu. With that, they could then design combined platforming puzzles that required the mixed abilities of those new forms instead of the little micro-challenges we got which required one specific ability to pass (ie. Chronoforce's protection from overhead spikes or Buckfire's ability to cut through multiple ice blocks with his standard attack). I would have also liked it if the different forms each had their own utilities suited for different boss battles to encourage variety, as I spent most of my time fighting bosses using Model A and ZX's charge shots.

 

[kuwanger]

Ever since MMX6 it seems the overuse of spikes or other instant-death hazards are a big thing for MM-like games, mixed with either a HUD that hides them, too small of a screen/too large of sprites so off-screen ones are a constant threat, and bad enemy placement that makes it trivial to run into spikes/pits and die; funny how it's a problem that seems to have gotten worse, not better. The whole idea of a ranking system isn't bad so long as there's more of a reward for a good ranking rather than a punishment for a bad ranking--*cough*MMZ and EX Skills*/cough*. Same thing with offering a plot device--again *cough*MMZ and Elfs*/cough*--and making sure to not effectively punishing you for using them rather than rewarding you for not using them. The last bit is making stages readily replayable so you can improve your rank while making sure you don't have micro stages that don't feel worth playing (like most mobile games) nor drawn out stages that eat up so much time that you'll be unwilling to devote the time to improve your ranking.

Anyways, that's my mostly useless 2 cents. In the end, I want to play games that are fun. Fun games with rankings are a bonus. Rankings aren't an end in themselves.