Azure Striker Gunvolt is out, free bonus game for a limited time!

When you buy Azure Striker Gunvolt before November 28th you get an 8-bit-style game called Mighty Gunvolt for free where you can play as Gunvolt, Mighty No. 9's Beck, or the fairy protagonist of Gal*Gun, that game where you shoot horny schoolgirls with a pheromone gun...For [reasons].

Anyway it's 15.99, go support Inti Creates who basically WERE Mega Man ever since Zero started apart from the Battle Network games and a couple X games.

Also this is gonna be the official not-Mega Man thread. Mighty No. 9 is currently doing a second Kickstarter-y thing for 200k (which is kinda bullshit because they made BANK (almost 4 million dollars,) but I'm in no mood to discuss controversy) to try and get voice-acting for the game, and they're gonna do an animated series aimed at kids that doesn't look as bad as Sonic Boom:

If it doesn't look as bad as Sonic Boom then it must look like a total masterpiece.

So far, it's great. Just gotta get used to the more stricter ranking/scoring system. This game's ranking system makes the MMZ game's Ranking system like a walk in the park.

Im probably just used to the Z-Saber, but I do miss my melee combat. Though I find the tagging and lightning mechanic different and quite entertaining.

Lastly, those Kudos points don't like me at all hahaha.

I read the MM Network's review and read about the tagging system, and my first thought it "Mega Man Zero with Sin & Punishment's offense-defense sensibility?" Sold. I wish more games had that.

Spiritual successor Taiyz, you don't want Capcom to be on your tail.

You know what, you're right. I took that out of the title. This game isn't a Mega Man Zero/ZX successor, no, no...Mega Man Zero, ZX and Mega Man 9 and 10 were just a lead-up to this.

THIS fucking game is truly excellent. Capcom should be shitting themselves right now, because Inti Creates just delivered their greatest work yet IMO. This is also the first eShop game, maybe even the first 3DS game that I believe is a must-have for the platform.

The tagging and flashing system is intuitive, familiar, but still unique and extremely tactical. Tagging various enemies with various levels of priority, damaging enemies within the Flashfield, and even using the field to destroy non-energy projectiles and to hover all make for a simple but complex mechanic. The various upgrades and abilities are super slick. The ranking system, while simple, is challenging because there's a lot of reasons to never get hit, but the game's difficulty is slightly forgiving because you don't lose health as long as you've got juice, which you can manually recharge to full (plus you can remove the Prevasion pendant if you want to make things harder, it also doesn't function in the Flashfield.)

Visually the game looks excellent, the various cut-ins, narrative and internal dialogue are all distinct, and the script is really well-done. The only cheese factor involves the goofy or punny names of everything, but you can't avoid that in a Japanese game. I actually feel that the choice to cover up Gunvolt's midriff was a good one, I think he'd look really out of place showing that off. I like that he seems more...Normal? than past Inti Creates protagonists and actually engages in conversation quite a bit. It's a goddamn shame that the American version didn't get a dub, I would've contributed to a Kickstarter for it.

My only complaint thus far is the fact that the help text doesn't explain the various pickups. I believe the coins are just different denominations of Vig, milk (?) is health and of course the medals let you flip extra cards for materials at the end of a mission. I assume any enemy death gives you EXP, but I'm not sure what regenerates SP, maybe the green orbs that pop out of enemies. I guess it's also kind of annoying that you can't view between-mission cutscenes again (like Gunvolt's intro of the Sumeragi Group before going to the apartment for the first time) even though mission playback features all of the in-mission cutscenes.

Nooo Taiyz I wasn't correcting you or anything, I was making a joke because of the Koei thing. '-'

I wasn't arguing or anything. I used your phrasing to segue into my own statement about how Capcom just got fukkin rekt bro.

So Mighty Gunvolt is charming. Its localization is tongue-in-cheek, using Engrish on purpose like LOVE IS IN A DANGER

It seems that Ekoro does stages in a different order, but they're otherwise unchanged. It also appears that only one character can be used in each save file.

Edit: I'm curious about the Overflash Pendant (increases Flashfield damage and EP cost.) Do the regular and + variants have the same EP cost, or does the + variant use more EP becaue it does more damage? Other than that, all the other + variants seem to be pure improvements. BTW you can equip two of the same contact lens, so you could have two Osmotic Eye+s.

I have no idea how to get an S+ rank. I finished 1st Sumeragi without getting hit once while skipping all checkpoints to maximize my multiplier, and in under 4 minutes (below 4:30 you get a 1.5x bonus.) I guess the requirement is either 350k or 400k, I had like 330k.

Double Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRo1gjDRWzQ (Japanese mechanics video.)

Okay, I see what I'm doing wrong. Since you get the highest bonus for any kill, I should be focusing on setting up Doubles and Triples instead of getting Full Strikes (kill an enemy with a level 3 Flashfield) and tackling everything head-on. If you are fighting one-on-one though, you should always jump just before an triple-tagged enemy dies for an Air Strike. I also didn't think of using Astrasphere in that way on the first Mantis. (Tried again, got a bit closer with 347329 but I feel like the time score kind of balances out the bonuses of Doubles and Triples, or maybe the Kudos multiplier is very important and using an Offensive Skill on the first Mantis is a bad idea since it banks your current Kudos and wipes out the multiplier. I was still skipping checkpoints BTW.)

Playing the game normally, it's still easy to get A and S ranks though, which is good!

Some things I noticed. I like the azure feathers that the air hop and prevasion create, like what Joule pointed out in the first between-mission cutscene (still a shame that you cannot view that again.) Again, I actually prefer the removal of the midriff, because it looks more like Gunvolt has a gut poking out of his longcoat. Lastly, I get that they removed the Japanese voices because the English script was so modernized and adapted, but it still seems weird that they left in ARMED BLUE, LIGHTNING SPHERE when it's Azure Striker and Astrasphere in English.

Oh yeah, and the escape options have no penalty, if I paid attention correctly. I'm pretty sure you can get No Damage on a mission by retrying any time you get hit, time reverts to the timestamp of the checkpoint too. Inti Creates hasn't changed much from Mega Man 9 and 10, in that respect. Obivously this won't help your score because, as I was mentioned before, the Kudos multiplier might be super important and banking it early seems like a bad idea.

As a side note, Chargeguard seems to be the best of the first lot of skills. It's a parry move where the first half of the recharge animation has invincibility (probably more like two thirds, basically the portion of the animation where Geeves is actually charging.) Since Prevasion still counts as a hit, Kudos-wise, Chargeguard is the pro tactic thus far. Prevasion is really just a feature (much like Lumen's song) to help people finish the game.

DylDawg wrote:

So far, it's great. Just gotta get used to the more stricter ranking/scoring system. This game's ranking system makes the MMZ game's Ranking system like a walk in the park.

Im probably just used to the Z-Saber, but I do miss my melee combat. Though I find the tagging and lightning mechanic different and quite entertaining.

Well MMZ just cared about completion time and how much damage you took, right? (And if you used any elves.) Damage isn't a huge factor in GV unless you had a lot of unbanked Kudos and got hit before using an Offensive Skill or a checkpoint. S ranks in GV are totally doable even if you get hit once or twice, much like MMZ, but you need the max time bonus (1.5 as far as I'm aware.) The S+ rank is just a HUGE challenge.

Personally I think the Z-Saber was kind of a crutch in the Zero games. They had all these nifty weapons but never made you use 'em. I'd like to see future games in this series feature different Adepts to play as...AND IT HAD BETTER BE A SERIES, INTI CREATES

I had no idea this game was coming out so soon.

Okay so to get S+ you basically can't get hit, have to get the best time (1.5 multiplier was correct) and you can't use checkpoints or Offensive Skills apart from the final hit on the mission's boss.

1st Sumeragi is 400k. This is a HUGE difference from S rank, which is more like 250k. Apparently it's similarly crazy for all levels.

Obviously scoring high with doubles and air strikes is important, but the above seems necessary. You can also farm mini-bosses like the Mantis for Kudos, as long as they can reboot/resurrect.

Oh and the Mighty No. 9 beta is on Steam now for eligible backers. Haven't played it yet, but A and B are backwards because Japan.

Edit: Bah, I give up for now, there's an item later on that increases your Kudos by 10-20%. I was able to get to 384k, and I think I only missed two Air Strikes. I reckon you need to find some triple combinations for 1st Sumeragi if you want to do it without that item...Mind you I only focus on doubles for same-enemy combinations, so I hardly have a perfect run going.