This review was originally supposed to be about the Mega Man 11 or the Mega Man collections. However, after playing the games for a while it was obvious that they were nothing like I remembered. They are filled with cheap deaths, unwelcoming level design and tons of other things that makes me not want to play them.

I still wanted to play a good side scroller which led me to Azure Striker Gunvolt. Azure Striker is a side scroller like Mega Man but is very forgiving in its playstyle while at the same time not being easy enough to kill the challenge that makes up the game. It was a pleasant surprise and worth playing.

Do note that the game was played on the Nintendo 2DS XL but all videos and screenshots are taken from Citra a 3DS emulator

Story:

The story takes place sometime in the future where “Adepts” (those with special abilities) have started to emerge. One of these adepts: Gunvolt works as a mercenary for a rebel group known as QUILL to fight against the overbearing corporate conglomerate, the Sumargi Group. The Sumargi group is carrying out experiments on adepts in an attempt to use their abilities to take over everything.

In the first mission, Gunvolt is chasing the Muse, something that can control adepts through song. While being interrogated by a Sumargi henchmen Gunvolt finds out that the muse is not a program but another child adept with spectacular power and a split personality named Lumen/Joule. He chases her only to find out that she is being used by Sumargi for her abilities and adopts her before leaving QUILL as they do not wholely agree with his choices. After leaving QUILL, Gunvolt still carries out contracts for them as a way to make a living. This makes it possible for the game to go for the Mega Man structure of multiple boss fights that make little to no sense while still giving the player something to do.

The story is delivered in the form of comic-book-like overlays. The story is cookie-cutter since you can guess what happens next from the previous paragraph (Joule gets kidnapped if you are bad at this sort of thing). It’s not worth talking about the story.

Sound:

The sound is good, it’s not anything to write home about but like the graphics, it does the job. The gun and Flashfield sounds are good. Gunvolt’s yells during a special attack sound powerful and the enemy weapons sound accurate. Even lasers sound like what you would expect. There are no oddities in the sound that make you go WTF?

There is only one point that I’m not sure is a positive or a negative and that is the fact that all voice acting is in Japanese with English subtitles. While it adds to authenticity the story is not powerful enough to make it worthwhile which gives me no clue what Gunvolt is screaming about when he activates his special abilities. I’ll just leave this point as neutral.

Graphics:

Are you expecting the graphics to impress you? No! Are they clean? Yes! Do they annoy you by being too flashy like Ruiner? No! The graphics while not looking great are not bad either, they are clean, they don’t overpower you nor will they make you blind. This is the kind of graphics that I like since they will look the same 10 years later while not being ruined by modern standards, they are cartoony so there is nothing to worry about.

The special effects look cartoony as well but at the same time feel powerful, this makes adds to the gameplay since you feel like a badass when the Flashfield drops multiple targets. The enemies too are easily distinguishable thanks to a unique colour for every enemy that shows up on screen. The only problem in the special effects is that Gunvolt turns invisible when using evasion which gives me no clue if Gunvolt is in the same place or has been thrown across the screen.

While I would like some better graphics I have no other complaints about the graphics. They do their job while being exceptionally clear. 

Gameplay:

At its core Azure Striker: Gunvolt is a side scroller reminiscent of the Mega Man X family of games. The controls are incredibly straight forward with only 6 buttons to control Gunvolt. You have left and right for direction, B to Jump, Y to shoot, L1 to dash and L2 to start up Gunvolt’s Flashfield. You can also assign up to 4 specials on the 3DS’ touch screen to use in a hurry. That’s it, nothing complex for now but we will dive into these controls more in the next paragraph.

The gameplay in Azure Striker is straight forward. To beat the level, you walk to the right and occasionally up. That initially sounds boring but Azure Striker does tons to add excitement. The first is the smooth movement. At first look, the movement looks like any other sidescroller but when you add the dash you can start moving fast, this along with the wall jumping makes the movement feel great. If you plan your movement right you can jump over enemies and walls, later in the game you can get double jumps and air-dashes that let you dodge enemies with ease allowing you to speed run levels if you plan your moves just right.

An interesting gameplay element is the energy system. There are two ways to use Gunvolt’s energy, you can either use it in the Flashfield to add electric damage to targets marked by guns (the more the marks on a target the more the damage, up to 3) or use it to evade damage from enemies. The Flashfield does a ton of damage to enemies, significantly more than the gun does. You can also spend energy to jump and dash around the level once you have the upgrades. Thankfully, you don’t need to depend on passive energy restoration, you can also recharge your energy by pressing down twice. You can do the recharge whenever you like which is nice since you can recharge while enemy weapons are coming for you allowing you to recharge as you are about to be hit. The only thing: if you overheat by spending all your energy you are fucked, at this point you can’t recharge and need to wait for your energy to recharge naturally making Gunvolt weak to incoming attacks.

There is an upgrade system where you can use parts and money collected to upgrade Gunvolt. In theory the upgrades seem nice but they are poorly executed. The upgrades let you double jump, dash in the air, take less damage from enemies and so on. While that sounds great, the parts obtained are from a lucky draw and only the jumping is an upgrade worth having, the weapon upgrades are worse than the default weapon, most of the armour upgrades disable the evasion ability and the weapon upgrades are just bad. I can’t find value for most of the upgrades. They are completely skippable.

To keep things interesting Gunvolt doesn’t let you evade and use the Flashfield at the same time. If you are dodging you are losing energy, if you are using the Flashfield you are losing energy but if you are using the Flashfield and get hit then you will lose health. This means that you need to release the Flashfield at just the right moment. This compounds by forcing a choice between dealing damage or avoiding damage. It is a great gameplay mechanic which adds value to gameplay. 

Adding to Gunvolt’s arsenal are special abilities that can be triggered by pressing on them on the touch screen. They vary between hitting nearly everything on screen, being a heavy focused attack, healing Gunvolt or restoring energy. All of the specials take up bars that are recharged by damaging/killing enemies. This and levelling up Gunvolt are the only jobs the standard enemies have. The enemies are completely worthless since they can either be dodged or taken out easily. They can be a threat when packed up in numbers but this is not common so speedrunning past them becomes a challenge you impose on yourself. The enemies are varied in their attack methods but very few of them make you think, some of them need you to start the Flashfield while others can be evaded in mass. At the end of the day, very few enemies are worth your time. 

The boss battles on the other hand are amazing. Each boss is unique and has a different style of attack. As they lose health, they find new means to challenge Gunvolt. If you are stupid enough to think all of them are the same you are in for one hell of a bad time but if you are ready to play tactically then you have nothing to worry about. You need to focus and strategies about how to take these assholes out… I can probably copy-paste this into a Mega Man review one day. You need to time your attacks while at the same time remembering to dodge and recharge. The only complaint I have about the boss fights is that some of them have cheap kill syndrome meaning that they can instantly kill you like you were playing Mega Man instead of Azure Striker. There is a way around the cheap kills which is using special attacks to take out a boss before they have the chance to be the cheap assholes that they are.

The level design is interesting, while a couple of them are bland most of them add a unique gameplay element. There are levels with jump pads, water that kills the Flashfield instantly, continuous laser strikes or bees that can’t be dodged forcing the Flashfield to come into play. Straight out of Mega Man there is a boss rush level as well which is great fun to play against. There is also a level with a minimal puzzle element where you have to turn on lights to disable laser barriers, in some cases you have to turn on two lights at once by marking them and then using the Flashfield to turn them both on at once.

One last thing about the levels before we go. After a level is completed, challenges for that level are unlocked. These challenges vary from beating the level in a fixed amount of time, getting a particular level completion rank, getting a particular score/upgrade points or something unique to the level. Completing these challenges grants you parts that you can use for your upgrades. These challenges need to be activated which is annoying since only 3 can be activated at a time forcing you to pick 3 that you can do in a single run and then do the level again with the others. These challenges should be pre-activated so that you can try as many as you like while coming back only to target the harder ones.

Overall the gameplay is great thanks to the multi-targeting while being tactically fun by having a constant decision structure between the Flashfield and evasion systems. The challenges add to replayability to an extent but that is more of a self-imposed challenge rather than adding value due to the lacklustre upgrades.

Conclusion:

Azure Striker Gunvolt is a really solid game and worthy successor to the Mega Man franchise since Mega Man has not evolved to meet the current time. Azure Striker does everything Mega Man should be doing while doing it extremely well. Some flaws keep it from being the perfect replacement but I’m yet to play the sequel which I’ve been told is better; so maybe, just maybe we have the replacement to the Mega Man franchise and if we do all I can is “F you Capcom, learn something”.

Pros	Cons
Clean Graphics	Evade makes Gunvolt vanish
Decent Sound	Voice is strictly Japanese
Decent level design	2 Levels are bland
Great gameplay mechanics	Poor upgrade system
Fun boss fights	Occasional cheap shots
An upgrade system	Based on a lucky draw

Recommended Purchase Price: $15 or ₹750

Final Score: 7/10