Azure Striker: Gunvolt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wm8-DsVqHE

Another Inti-creates collaboration with Inafune, as well as director Yoshihisa Tsuda (Mega Man X2, Mega Man Zero, according to Siliconera) for the 3DS eShop.

If Mighty No. 9 is a new take on Mega Man, this looks like a new take on Mega Man Zero. It's also got fantastically ridiculous boss names like THE EXPLOSIVE RAGE: DAYTONAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I loved the art when I saw the trailer, the sprite is also very well done.

The moment gameplay footage was shown and it has the Zero/ZX graphics and feel, I am not gonna lie, I fangasmed and nostalgiasm'd.

I really am excited for this. It's been years since ZX Advent, and this looks like a spiritual successor to the Zero/ZX style MM games.

Hyped. Body is Ready. My Heart is Beating.

To be honest, I like melee-ing more in Zero and ZX, but this game has electrical HOVERING so I'm sold on just that.

New take on Classic/X - check, new take on Zero/ZX - check. BN/SF when? (inb4 haters)

I....ADORE Battle Network. It's highly addicting and amazing. Certainly on board for a successor to the BN/SF.

Edit: Gunvolt looks really easy to port to iOS.

DylDawg wrote:

I....ADORE Battle Network. It's highly addicting and amazing. Certainly on board for a successor to the BN/SF.

Keep filling the void you guys. Mega Man, as a property, is a couple concluding games short of concluded and done (Legends 3 and perhaps X9, I don't think Classic or ZX were ever expected to truly end) but the itch they scratch is eternal!

DylDawg wrote:

I....ADORE Battle Network. It's highly addicting and amazing. Certainly on board for a successor to the BN/SF.

Oh man I wish, I really do.

Slivendiferious wrote:

Edit: Gunvolt looks really easy to port to iOS.

As are all games within a certain technical range, though- the plus and minus of several successful digital platforms coexisting. On one hand you want to grab every niche in the market you can to get every mix of hardware owners, while on the other some of those platforms are simply higher priority than others. Why get a digital game on a console service when I can get it on Steam or (if I were inclined to play that way) a smartphone, should the game work with touch inputs or (should I be crazy enough to put down money for) a phone controller? The retail-level space is still the core purpose of gaming portables.

The original games and Battle Network really could never end because ultimately it was up to Wily not escaping capture. The Zero and ZX games were all self-contained, really. X8 and Legends 2 were really the only games that had sequel bait or cliffhanger endings.

Also there is a game that is similar to MMBN in a visual sense, although not mechanically.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1054244612/c-wars-roguelike-pixel-art-pc-game

Taiyz wrote:

The original games and Battle Network really could never end because ultimately it was up to Wily not escaping capture.

Which shocked the world when Battle Network had the self-respect to actually end

Spoiler:

.  Astonishingly mature and appropriate for a series thatwanted to have some degree of functioning reality to it, at least by Mega Man standards, which are abysmal at world building.

Ah, I stopped playing the games after 4. Was that in 6? Reason I ask is because the series did have other nefarious organizations (I think) so if the series ended with another group of bad guys rather than with the sequence you just mentioned, Battle Network only gets half a point in my book.

Star Force, as I understand it, is also fairly self-contained within each game.

Taiyz wrote:

Ah, I stopped playing the games after 4. Was that in 6? Reason I ask is because the series did have other nefarious organizations (I think) so if the series ended with another group of bad guys rather than with the sequence you just mentioned, Battle Network only gets half a point in my book.

Throwing out spoiler tags just in case.  More about the ending of 5 and how 6 relates to Wily than any real spoilers for either.

Spoiler:

Star Force is in the same continuity, and I believe there's a journal somewhere in Star Force 2 that talks about the successes the EXE cast had in their adult lives (as suggested by BN6), but beyond cameo bits like that it its own world. Played a bit of Star Force 1 and have yet to continue, I felt like a lot of people that the over-the-shoulder fighting killed the greater sense of strategy.

What about DUO?

Was that just a random anomaly?

I see no conceivable way Wily planned that.

Slivendiferious wrote:

What about DUO?

Was that just a random anomaly?

I see no conceivable way Wily planned that.

Yup, Duo was a random anomaly subservient to no one, just as he was in Mega Man 8.

I'm honestly curious how the scenario discussion went down for Network 4, given that at least some parts of the team expected 3 to cap it off (and rightly now, given how huge it was).  But then the games were such hot sellers that that was not in the cards.  Heck, going by Wikipedia (who in turn pulled from Media Create) 6 sold about 600,000 copies between the two versions in Japan alone; I'm grateful they had the integrity to end the series when they did coming off those numbers.  It almost makes me ask if there were internal factors involved.

Also 4 somehow sold 1.35 million worldwide.  I cannot rightly call it the best seller because because its the only game Wiki provided an international figure for, but the irony.

That's actually a pretty dope ending. Man, Battle Network was a great series. It just went on too long with not enough gameplay shake-ups for my taste. It's like a modern-day Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest 1-6.

I still find it bizarre that somebody at Capcom cared enough about Duo to put him in Battle Network. Zero.exe was kind of a cool idea (it's probably for the best that we never got a Mega Man X.exe) but it's nice that he was just a one-off.

http://daheatman.tumblr.com/post/79005541688/i-got-to-try-azure-striker-gunvolt-yesterday

Former Mega Man Network admin Heat Man gets to play Gunvolt.  Says its similar and different from Zero, naturally.

Taiyz wrote:

I still find it bizarre that somebody at Capcom cared enough about Duo to put him in Battle Network. Zero.exe was kind of a cool idea (it's probably for the best that we never got a Mega Man X.exe) but it's nice that he was just a one-off.

Yeah, no way for X to work.  Zero was fun to have for the sake of it, I like how they had to really change him up since his existing style was probably too close to Battle Network's to be simply trimmed.  Duo, I don't know, he struck me as a good opportunity to really spin a Classic character given that Battle Network had a great breadth of variety in its designs, his moral nature was just one of the first gears into the supernatural bend the series went down in its second half.  Nor is it fortunate, that Duo came from a mixed-reception Mega Man game in one series into an even more polarizing one in another!

Funny, though, how we had X characters as far back as Network Transmission but it took us 3 games with them for this bomb to be dropped. (BN6 Last Boss Chamber, pre-jack in)

[url=https://servimg.com/view/18761222/17][img]https://i.servimg.com/u/f57/18/76/12/22/mega-m11.png[/img][/url]:

In defense, it probably has more weight behind it here than nearly every instance in X.

Taiyz wrote:

It just went on too long with not enough gameplay shake-ups for my taste. It's like a modern-day Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest 1-6.

I beg to differ on this point as I am a firm believer that Battle Network progressed so much while still polishing its core gameplay, ending at a high note with BN6 having the best gameplay (<-- this is wholly my opinion because everyone else think of it as piss easy).

In BN2, it introduces a new type of gameplay in the form of Style Change conveniently named because it changes depending on your gameplay style. BN3 takes this further with 2 more styles and introduced another mechanics which is Navi Customizer - a program to program your program to better customize your playstyle.

BN4, infamous as it was, is a huge improvement over the last three games in the way it handles Battle Chips and boss fights. Gone are the stationary boss battles, replaced with actual dynamic boss battles that you had to predict and react constantly by countering their attacks to achieve Full Synchro, a state of mind that somehow or another doubles your Battle Chips damaging ability. The Battle Chips library is revamped to allow more freedom in folder building and strategies as most battle chips has hidden effect that synergizes with the others. No more Program Advance spamming, it's now the era of folder fluidity and field control.

BN4 also introduced Soul Unison replacing Style Change in which you can change your battle form mid fight to adapt yourself to the ever changing strategy of the bosses (and PvP). Such a sublime improvement over the hideous one trick pony that is Style Change. Soul Unison also gives out a lot of synergy with Battle Chips; case in point - Thunder Soul adding paralyzing effect on Null elemental Battle Chips or Aqua Soul doubling the damage of Aqua Chips. More thoughts are being put into folder building, curbstomping the mentality of "lol imma put all these powerful one-shot chips with completely different codes and pwn u all."

BN5 did jackshit. But Liberation Battle was pretty awesome.

Lo and behold, the advent of BN6 had completely revolutionize about everything the series has ever been. Even with just the addition of White Capsule Battle Chip, the metagame took a complete overhaul from being a pew-pew-shooting and occasional blast to the face, into a stream of combos of unlimited possibilities. And that's only one Battle Chip in the ever grand library of BN6 Battle Chip, not to mention that with plenty of super-piercing Battle Chips completely negating the forced invincibility of certain chips and thus multiplying the synergy of each Battle Chips by 9001.

BN6 also introduced another elemental wheel apart from the Fire<Aqua<Elec<Wood and introduced more interesting mechanics such as Break chips dealing double damage on Frozen enemies, Elec chips dealing double damage on Bubbled enemies, and the greatest of all, Cursor chips negating the effect of trap chips. What marvelous invention.

Replacing the Soul Unison is Cross System - a better, sexier, and more effective mode of transformation that removes the need for sacrificing certain chips to transform and instead of having limited time like Soul Unison, it lasts forever until hit by its weakness. This opens up a whole new possibility such as removing the need to have dedicated folder and chips for transformation thus allowing better customization, and also aids in revamping the metagame with the mechanics of Cross Cancelling - a method to remove paralysis by changing into a/another Cross, thus eliminating the possibility of being chain-paralyzed by cheap spammer.

Beast Out actually sucked, but it looked cool enough and Beast Cross being mega awesome looking. Seriously, how is this not awesome?

If you look back at BN1 without rose-tinted glasses, you can see what a pile of crap it was with virtually nonexistent folder building strategy of stuffing your folder with Fighter/Knight/Hero Swords and calling it a day.


Hence why there are a lot of people out there wishing for a continuation and even resorted to developing their own fangame - early on, there was the infamous fangame conveniently named EXE7 by The Undersquare (but is unfortunately discarded due to various reason); and currently, there's another game by the title of Chrono X, which had pretty much succeeded in emulating the gameplay as well as having a demo version up to the second boss fight.


tl;dr: bn is awesome, wtf u talking about lol

BlazingFiddlesticks wrote:

Played a bit of Star Force 1 and have yet to continue, I felt like a lot of people that the over-the-shoulder fighting killed the greater sense of strategy.

I think it's less the problem of over-the-shoulder fighting and more of the limited area to move onto. You have less field control in Star Force, which is why it felt like a downgrade from BN system. SF does, however, make shielding mandatory and have lock-on attacks, but it doesn't really hold candle to what made BN good.

I am however, very pleased with its Battle Card library, with more hidden mechanics that you need to either experiment yourself or having to pay attention to various hints by the citizens.

It's another way Battle Network mirrors Pokemon; every game is at least somewhat distinct (I'd call 5 more of a sidestep than a stasis), if you take the time to notice- and most naturally do not have the interest.  That's for the most dedicated.

I can only ask if you were a member of the multiplayer community back in the day, King Cat, because they seem to be the ones who've come to those conclusions so concisely.  Not that I can disagree, so long as we don't give 6 the crown of the series too quickly.  3, if not 2, have something to offer and hit 6's low points quite hard.  Honestly I need to go through the series again some time, only one I played through remotely recently was 1, and that's because 1's cake once you have the instincts.

Liberation Missions, though, you tell me in the abstract that you wanted to turn Battle Network into a strategy game and I'd cock my head like dog.  Did not turn out that way in the final product.  

On Star Force, my conclusion is that I cannot look at any part of its fighting- and I did enjoy some high-level boss and multiplayer matches from some of the EXEtubers back in the day, it is a fun game to watch- without seeing everything it does as ways to mitigate its fundamentally flawed premise.  Of course you can shield when you lose most of your capacity to dodge, of course you have lock-on attacks when your visibility is poor and enemies can teleport from panel to panel at least as fast you can.

It's the Mario 64 effect; it wanted 3D battles for the sake of 3D battles with no thought to the precision that would be lost in translation, and unlike 3D Mario it never got it back because the issues it created were beyond the ease of player control.

Don't mind me, that's just what I think and is in no way a general consensus. I just find it sad that BN's game mechanics is mostly overlooked on, but that is also part of the charm if I may say so. The game is pretty easy and accessible to a lot of people, but still has enough depth for those who want more from it.

And yeah, I was a part of the multiplayer community for quite some time, a minor one though. And I acknowledge that people regard 2 and 3 highly while 6 not so much; I went through numerous heated arguments about it before and cba to start another. I just love 6 and am glad that the series ended with it.

Well, what little agreement I hear on the matter has some arrangement of 2, 3, and 6 as the top half (a bit hard to argue) so I do not mean to be demonizing it.

ANyone suddenly got a Megaman-urge from just watching Gunvolt?

I'm replaying ZX and Zero, while listening to BN and SF songs. (Dat Main Starforce theme, so good)

http://www.siliconera.com/2014/04/16/gunvolt-gets-braid-back-u-s-version-azure-striker-gunvolt/ well that's something, at least.

I want to see his belly too.

Trade-off is all right.  It's not a big deal; not as big as their wondering who is going to be buying their game, at least.  We could be wrong; I hope we're wrong.

DylDawg wrote:

Anyone suddenly got a Megaman-urge from just watching Gunvolt?

I'm replaying ZX and Zero, while listening to BN and SF songs. (Dat Main Starforce theme, so good)

*Twiddles thumbs*



So many conflicting markets in that picture (and I happen to be one of the many blessed who were gifted Dota 2 and will never open it).

But dudes; music mods.  So cool and ridiculously easy to do. I did a near-complete re-score of X8 from other video game music some time earlier last year.