So as a huge Megaman fan I was excited to get my hands on Megaman creator’s newest creation, Azure Striker Gunvolt. Obviously it’s a game that is heavily influenced by Megaman elements but the question is, does it stand apart from Megaman? Click the more button to find out.
So this is a good news, bad news kind of review. First I’ll start with the good things about the game. The gameplay was absolutely phenomenal. Unlike Megaman, Gunvolt has to use his gun to tag his enemies and then use a Flash Field to generate an electric field to attack the tagged enemies with bolts of lightning. This was hard to get used to because it requires one more button than a traditional Megaman game. I found it tricky to get the hang of because I’m used to using one button to jump and another to attack where in this case you add the tag button to go with it. With that being said I thought it was a unique take to gameplay which I really enjoyed. The Flash Field itself was a fun and useful attack to use. Not only can it attack but the Field can be used as a Shield and it slows Gunvolt down when he’s in mid air which is useful for near death jumps. For those wanting the game though it is important to note that it does have a usage limit so if it’s used up it overheats and needs a moment to recharge. The biggest thing I liked about the gameplay was how it seemed to add almost a puzzle aspect to the game which is new for the side scrolling Megaman games. Timing was everything in some maps and sometimes you have to figure out how to manipulate the items around you to move past obstacles. Overall the gameplay was really good and actually better than traditional Megaman sidescrollers.
Now for the cons. The story was just poorly done. Normally I’m picky about a story so I don’t go into too much detail about it but in this case it’s just too bad to ignore. The characters were all entertaining; however, every element in the story was told way too quickly and so really the story felt like it was nothing more than a last minute addition to the game. While I was playing the game I saw a lot of attempts to add story elements to the game but what actually happened was a brief explanation of a topic and then it was never mentioned again. With that being said I loved how the game described the interactions between the characters by not only having dialogue but text to explain how the dialogue is used.
So overall as we all know I look for two things in a game: story and gameplay. This game in particular had incredible gameplay, but the story was just a travesty. In this case the gameplay was so good and the characters were interesting enough to lessen the blow of a horrible story.
Final Verdict:
8 out of 10
