So it being a Mega Man-inspired game, i finished Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX a day after it's release. The game can very easily be described as "short but sweet". I mean, it is a Gunvolt game so it wasn't really long to begin with but for the first time in the series, this game only has one ending. The gameplay is very quick and satisfying. While the Gunvolt series takes more inspiration from the Mega Man Zero games, Luminous Avenger is more reminiscent of the Mega Man X games. The main character, Copen, acquires EX Weapons by defeating each boss and each boss is weak to a certain EX Weapon. In terms of difficulty, while the main challenge of the series comes from trying to get the highest rank, on a base difficulty, i'd say this game is the hardest in the series because, especially early on, Copen doesn't have a lot of health. You can Prevade through attacks (Prevasion is an ability in every game where if you have enough EP (as Gunvolt) or Bullits (as Copen), you can nullify attacks. You can refill these meters at any time so you can really just Prevade through everything though you can't move if you do) but given that dashing into enemies to lock onto them uses up Bullits and you only have three (can be increased to five) and Prevasion uses up two......yeah, you might find yourself taking a bit of damage. The final boss also kicked my ass a few times. There are difficulty settings as well:
Fearless basically makes it so you lose all your points if you take a hit
Cautious gives you three hits before taking away all your points
Casual(?, i forgot the actual name) basically makes it so no matter how many hits you take, you'll keep your points
as well as optional equipment you can buy to make the game harder for you, like All or Nothing, which removes checkpoints or another part where your HP is always 100. You can even disable Prevasion if you want.
On the music front, the OST is decent with the vocal songs being bangers, as is the case for the series. There are three catagories for songs. Overdrive Songs, an Anthem Song and a Darkness song (i'll talk about those two later). Overdrive songs are triggered when you get 1000 points (and because you can lose these points if you aren't careful, you can also lose the song).
The game also has a story and it's nothing to write home about. It's mainly there to move the game along but it and the characters are nice to have around. Talking to the characters increases the chance of Lola's Anthem triggering, which basically revives you and gives you unlimited EX energy. You can still die and you won't gain any points but it's nice. Lola also has a Darkness form, activated by the EX Weapon Darkness Trigger. This also gives you unlimited EX energy and increases the power of everything but if you aren't locked onto enemies, you'll slowly take damage. The only way to deactivate the mode is to use an SP skill (by which i mean the only one) or trigger an event. The ending does leave me intrigued, though. Speaking of the story, the game does not take place in the same universe as the first two Gunvolt games so you could start here but i still wouldn't recommend it. Which brings us to....
The few flaws this game has. For starters, this game is definitely geared more towards the veterans of the series. Not only is it the hardest game in the series but the game doesn't really teach you anything. There is a manual (which i didn't look at because i've played this series before) but even aside from that, i actually don't know what most of the EX Weapons do and i just have to make assumptions based on what i see visually because there are no descriptions apart from names. The only EX Weapon that has any sort of description is Darkness Trigger. And speaking of EX Weapons, this game has the Mega Man 2 problem where one of the weapons is objectively the best one. Unless you're fighting a boss where a different weapon is more ideal for more damage, if you aren't using Orbital Edge, you're playing the game wrong.
So where does the latest entry in the Gunvolt series compare to with the rest of the series? Well, it's a great game but i don't think it's as good as Azure Striker Gunvolt 2. That game had a better story (not that this series is played for story) but also the best gameplay. You can either play as Gunvolt or as Copen and while i personally prefer the former, the latter has a more balanced selection of EX Weapons. So my ranking would be: Gunvolt 2 > Luminous Avenger > Gunvolt 1. While i wouldn't recommend starting with this game, for series veterans, it's an absolutely worthy addition to the series and Inti Creates' library.
Fearless basically makes it so you lose all your points if you take a hit
Cautious gives you three hits before taking away all your points
Casual(?, i forgot the actual name) basically makes it so no matter how many hits you take, you'll keep your points
as well as optional equipment you can buy to make the game harder for you, like All or Nothing, which removes checkpoints or another part where your HP is always 100. You can even disable Prevasion if you want.
On the music front, the OST is decent with the vocal songs being bangers, as is the case for the series. There are three catagories for songs. Overdrive Songs, an Anthem Song and a Darkness song (i'll talk about those two later). Overdrive songs are triggered when you get 1000 points (and because you can lose these points if you aren't careful, you can also lose the song).
The game also has a story and it's nothing to write home about. It's mainly there to move the game along but it and the characters are nice to have around. Talking to the characters increases the chance of Lola's Anthem triggering, which basically revives you and gives you unlimited EX energy. You can still die and you won't gain any points but it's nice. Lola also has a Darkness form, activated by the EX Weapon Darkness Trigger. This also gives you unlimited EX energy and increases the power of everything but if you aren't locked onto enemies, you'll slowly take damage. The only way to deactivate the mode is to use an SP skill (by which i mean the only one) or trigger an event. The ending does leave me intrigued, though. Speaking of the story, the game does not take place in the same universe as the first two Gunvolt games so you could start here but i still wouldn't recommend it. Which brings us to....
The few flaws this game has. For starters, this game is definitely geared more towards the veterans of the series. Not only is it the hardest game in the series but the game doesn't really teach you anything. There is a manual (which i didn't look at because i've played this series before) but even aside from that, i actually don't know what most of the EX Weapons do and i just have to make assumptions based on what i see visually because there are no descriptions apart from names. The only EX Weapon that has any sort of description is Darkness Trigger. And speaking of EX Weapons, this game has the Mega Man 2 problem where one of the weapons is objectively the best one. Unless you're fighting a boss where a different weapon is more ideal for more damage, if you aren't using Orbital Edge, you're playing the game wrong.
So where does the latest entry in the Gunvolt series compare to with the rest of the series? Well, it's a great game but i don't think it's as good as Azure Striker Gunvolt 2. That game had a better story (not that this series is played for story) but also the best gameplay. You can either play as Gunvolt or as Copen and while i personally prefer the former, the latter has a more balanced selection of EX Weapons. So my ranking would be: Gunvolt 2 > Luminous Avenger > Gunvolt 1. While i wouldn't recommend starting with this game, for series veterans, it's an absolutely worthy addition to the series and Inti Creates' library.
badwill
3 years ago
awesome review! i love this series, i'm happy whenever i see it gets praised :)