true mid, this game is SLOW, some people really like the melee and say it reminds them of megaman zero, but i dont really see it, the game clearly understood its lack of maneuverability and lays out on enemy at a time in boring straight line stages where youll walk up, press the attack button three time and the enemy will be staggered and die, no way to attack above, or beneath you so jumping around enemies is no fun and a weaker option then just walking up to them. only having one air dash before having to touch the ground feels miserable and slow and also means you can defeat multiple enemies while airborn or rack up combo score in any way which is what the series is known for, in my opinion this is by far the weakest of this style of gunvolt games, only the mighty gunvolt games are worse.

Honestly the best game in the series primarily because you can make it not piss easy from the get-go and it plays the most like mmz while making copen's busted gv2 and ix1 gameplay a 1000 kudos requirement (which isn't hard to get considering emblems), making gameplay both dynamic and rewarding you for doing well or finding secrets. Hard mode and subsequently the true ending being locked behind 100%ing normal mode is dumb but the changes it makes seem overkill and I found not spamming the heal skill in stages and turning off hp on level up and anthem challenging enough. Almost perfect boss design and all the boss weapons have some use or niche. Bonus points for the new character not being an underage girl but the story unfortunately was kinda whatever. Not at all bad or anything, just a bit lacking after ix1 had some genuinely raw moments. I hear gunvolt 3's story shits itself so at this point I think I've realised I should only really care about the gameplay in these games. Considering this is inti incorporating everything they've learned both during and after mmz I've got high hopes that gunvolt 3 will be the apeX of 2d platforming.

Beat it on a Windows PC via Steam; did Hard Mode, too. I'm pretty mixed on iX2. On one hand, it's probably the most interesting score system in the series. You can take as many hits as you want. But if you die or use the infinite heal skill, it resets. Get over 1000 points and you get an infinite dash. This is probably the most fun the game gets. However, what if you don't care about kudos and want to get through the game easily? Literally just spam the infinite heal and you'll experience the easiest platformer ever. There could've been a cooldown or something, but NO. Furthermore, the movement is generally unfun at the start. For example: The dash-tag from GV2 no longer works; now it's a shop upgrade. This completely threw off the flow of the gameplay and made it annoying to control. This sounds cool until HARD MODE. Hard Mode takes the shop away, and your kudos now disappear in one hit. Inti Creates made it easier in a patch, giving you infinite heals, but either way, Hard Mode SUCKS. And you need to do it for the "true" ending. Hard Mode isn't even that much harder; Gunvolt 1 nailed Hard Mode. It didn't limit the player's mobility. But because iX2 has movement upgrades in the shop, it's completely unfun to control. I can't recommend this game. While the platforming is solid, the bosses are amazing, and it looks great, but of the mentioned issues, I can't recommend iX2. Play iX1 instead if you want a better version of this game.