With all eyes on Mighty No. 9 as the big upcoming spiritual successor to the Mega Man franchise set to release in April 2015, a new heir to the blue crown seemed like a distant prospect. Little did we know that this heir would come so much sooner, or that it would come as an electrically-charged psychic mercenary and not a shapeshifting humanoid robot. As a matter of fact, gamers didn’t know much of anything about Azure Striker Gunvolt until it was already up on the E-Shop. It’s not often that a game flies so far under the radar that it doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page. It’s even less often that a game as sneaky and underhyped as Azure Striker Gunvolt turns out to be such a fresh, compelling, and polished experience. Developed by Inti Creates, the Capcom splinter group responsible for the Megaman Zero and ZX series and co-developers of Mighty No. 9, it comes as no surprise that Azure Striker Gunvolt has the look and feel of a Mega Man title from an alternate dimension. However, what is surprising is just how much Inti Creates differentiates its original series from the timeworn Mega Man formula under the hood.
In broad strokes, yes, this is an action platformer with a very blue protagonist, you can complete the stages in almost any order, and defeating bosses expands your arsenal. The difference is in the details. Everything is either subtly or overtly tweaked, as if Inti Creates had deliberately set out to see how much they could change the classic formula while still scratching the seven-year itch that diehard Mega Man fans have been suffering with since 2007’s ZX Advent. The most immediate aspect that sets Gunvolt apart from its granddaddy and action platformers in general is the flashfield ability, which is a maintained electrical field that functions as your main attack, rather than the protagonist’s wimpy dart gun. Instead of dealing damage, Gunvolt’s pistol is used to “tag” enemies with electric bolts, and once an enemy is tagged, your flashfield sends out homing lightning arcs that tear foes apart and even short out light fixtures and signs in the background. You can stack up to three tags on one opponent, or you can tag multiple enemies for a screen-filling electrical storm. The interplay between firearms and Gunvolt’s elemental ability makes for a unique and endlessly satisfying core mechanic.
Another departure from the Mega Man games of yore is the quality of the writing. The story is fairly boilerplate, as it concerns a future where a superpowered minority called Adepts are at odds with the majority of the human race. Gunvolt is a member of a resistance movement attempting to overthrow the Sumeragi Group, a dystopian conglomerate attempting to track and subjugate Adepts. However, the dialogue is punchy and full of personality, which is something we rarely see in translated games and something I don’t think we’ve ever seen in a Mega Man game. The bosses have particularly distinct and memorable personalities. My favorite, Merak, is an apathetic Adept with the power to create wormholes who would rather watch videos of cats than fight you, and in battle he lounges on a robotic chair that does most of the fighting for him. Inti Creates even bothered to come up with an interesting explanation for the obligatory boss rush at the end of the game, when Gunvolt’s predecessors were content to simply throw the bosses at you again for the hell of it.
Each level has at least one unique gimmick, usually related to Gunvolt’s flashfield ability, and this helps to spice up some otherwise unremarkable level designs. They’re still one of the game’s weaker components, especially since Gunvolt has an ability called prevasion that negates damage as long as you have electrical energy in your meter. Prevasion makes normal enemies and hazards a non-issue, but the bosses are challenging enough to raise your pulse even with this somewhat overprotective gameplay mechanic. Make no mistake, this is a gamers’ game - the challenge lies not in completing stages, but in racking up awesome combos and completing additional objectives to earn crafting materials. Your points (which the game decides to call “kudos”) are reset if you get hit, so gamers looking for more of a challenge can try to complete missions as quickly as possible without being touched. Alternatively, you can unequip Gunvolt’s necklace, which grants the prevasion ability unless specified otherwise.
Speaking of which, ASG has a robust crafting system for an action platformer. You can equip two contact lenses, a ring, and a necklace, and these items can be synthed from raw materials obtained by beating levels and tackling extra objectives. Creating one item unlocks more, so what appears to be an unimpressive selection at first will quickly balloon out to include such game-changing items as a ring that allows unlimited jumps and air dashes, or a necklace that disables prevasion but multiplies your kudos. Crafting these high-end items added more replay value to the levels beyond the simple pleasure of improving my score. You also have a variety of ammo types for your gun, which are unlocked by beating bosses. The ammo types aren’t related to the boss you get them from, and they only offer different shot patterns and tag counts, so they’re a far cry from the game changing abilities you’d get from bosses in a Mega Man game. This is one of the only areas where ASG takes a step backward in its formula, as only two or three ammo types are even worth using.
The animations are crisp and beautifully detailed, and the sprite-based graphics are excellent overall. Screenshots just don’t do them justice. The characters all share an overdesigned anime look that’s become prevalent lately, with spikes and brightly-colored bits sticking out at random (except for Zonda’s spike, pictured above, which seems to be sticking out very...deliberately). The sci-fi setting is also standard-issue, but the attention to detail helps to elevate the background visuals above the competition. The music is catchy and fits the game’s visual style, but only Gunvolt’s Theme stuck in my brain for any significant length of time. Like the level design and plot, the music is good, but not masterful by any means.
Even so, any missteps or weak efforts are buried under the strength of the game as a whole. It is, in some ways, the heir to the blue crown, but more importantly, it’s the first few steps in a new direction. At the end of the day, Azure Striker Gunvolt feels like its own entity, clinging to a few tried-and-true gameplay mechanics as it learns to walk on its own. Perhaps the next installment will shed its classical influences completely and work out the kinks in its system. Regardless, whether Azure Striker Gunvolt is the foundation upon which a long and prosperous series might be built or whether it’s a well-made one-off, this is a game that should not be missed.