‘Azure Striker GUNVOLT’ Review: Ride the Lightning

Not nearly content to be making just one ‘retro platforming game with modern design that’s heavily-inspired by Mega Man’, developers Inti Creates and Comcept decided to go ahead and build three. The most-anticipated of the bunch (and guaranteed to be the most like the Blue Bomber), Mighty No. 9, is still a ways off, but Azure Striker GUNVOLT, calling the Nintendo eShop its current home, isn’t too shabby for a hold-you-over either.

The game’s protagonist, Gunvolt (or just ‘GV’ to his close friends and co-workers), shares some traits with Capcom’s prolific mascot; he controls similarly, traverses various themed levels filled with cut-and-paste robotic adversaries, and takes on plenty of fiendish end bosses. Though the two games end up remarkably different in summation, it’s still not hard to see the inspirations.

Gunvolt is an ‘Adept’, a superhero / science experiment of sorts that’s able to wield the power of lightning.

He works for the mercenary group QUILL on a freelance basis, taking on their contracts and sheltering ‘The Muse’, a dual-personality (named Lumen / Joule) that’s wanted by the Sumeragi Corportation— world-class bad guys— as a means to control the planet’s other adepts, and therefore, the planet itself. The story isn’t mind-blowing by any stretch, but features enough bits and twists to keep you moving forward. Said Sumeragi Corporation provides your assortment of baddies, which leads into combat and breaks with Mega Man‘s traditional form of fighting. This is one of Azure Striker GUNVOLT‘s defining mechanics.

While your pistol can defeat foes on its own, it will be a painful, time-consuming process. Rather, the game wants you to ‘tag’ targets with your gun, then destroy them with your ‘flashfield’, an electrified attack that shoots bolts of lightning at any marked enemies. This essentially allows you to ‘combo’ targets and clear rooms quickly, tagging them multiple times for even more damage and keeping the pace (and style) up. It’s effective and satisfying, adding a nice layer of depth on top of the core shooter mechanic that everyone’s accustomed to. You level up via combat, all RPG-like, adding to Gunvolt’s health and ‘supermove’¹ set. Crafting is also introduced here, allowing you to build accessories to equip to every part of your body. These can range from additional weapon effectiveness to double / triple jumps, or let you take more damage, say, for increased Kudos (ASG‘s in-game scoring).

The way you tackle stages has been slightly tweaked as well. You’re still allowed to visit most in any order you choose (required ‘story’ missions will sometimes interject), but this freedom to pick is intentional.  as you’ll likely have to revisit these stages many times, in order to acquire more components to craft parts, or to complete ‘challenges’— one-off tasks specific to each stage, that award you with even more rare components. It’s the typical ‘carrot on a stick’ type of reward system, handing out its goodies slowly. You don’t actually need any of these upgrades / boosts to complete the game, but they will certainly make your life easier.

That kind of grinding naturally gets repetitive, as do the slightly-mudane level layouts. It’s a good thing the boss fights in ASG are a highlight, showing off the developer’s stellar creative design and the game’s personality. Every Adept that the Sumeragi throws at you has his or her own style and way of attack, requiring patience and a strategic trade-off with your flashfield. These fights go through three stages of metamorphosis, adding a new pattern or higher-damage move to your rival’s repertoire each round. It can be challenging.

Azure Striker GUNVOLT is the slickest kind of 16-bit, impressing you with its fresh ideas, while simultaneously frustrating you with some old tricks.

The same can’t be said of the difficulty elsewhere. For all its polish, Azure Striker GUNVOLT is the slickest kind of 16-bit, impressing you with its fresh ideas, while simultaneously frustrating you with some old tricks. Outside of the boss battles, which will test your mettle, it’s really easy to win. Part of this is due to the flashfield. So long as you have electric energy to spare, Gunvolt won’t lose health when hit. Your combo meter will take a dive, but you’re otherwise unscathed, taking away some of the threat and immediacy in each and any battle. Worse (or easier) still, The Muse will occasionally resurrect you when you do die, turning you into a nigh-invisible God. Then there’s the reused enemies, miniboss tanks / mechs²… even its clever bosses aren’t sacred. Like Shovel Knight, another modern / retro platformer, ASG parades some of its more colorful Adepts out for a second fight near the end, forcing to you fight them back to back to back. Much like that aforementioned game, it doesn’t work here either, and feels forced.

Thankfully, these sour points are mitigated by the inventive side of the combat, the otherwise excellent character design, and its tiny 8-bit brother. Azure Striker GUNVOLT still gets a lot right, and it’s (almost) everything you could ask for from a modern platformer. At least until Mighty No. 9 comes out, fingers crossed.

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1. These moves use a ‘card’ system that fills up over time via kills / points, allowing you to pull off super attacks (like a giant sword), or recover a bit of health in a pinch. ↩
2. So, so soooo many. ↩

‘MIGHTY GUNVOLT’ Review: Lightning in a Bottle

A far simpler experience, but excellent in its own right, MIGHTY GUNVOLT is essentially free DLC¹, if you’re so inclined. That admittedly might lead to some confusion, as the game is a standalone title. A smaller part of the larger adventure presented in Azure Striker GUNVOLT (this is technically a prequel², but you’ll hardly know it) MIGHTY GUNVOLT is a demake in visuals— 16-bit to 8-bit— and not nearly the same amount of content. Yet it’s no less competent.

The game stars the same protagonist from Azure Striker GUNVOLT, this time joined by Beck³ (from Mighty No. 9) and Ekoro (hailing from an obscure Japan-only title called Gal Gun). All three come with their own super move and style of navigation, and explore the same handful of stages, albeit in a different order depending on your choice of character. Those stages (with the exception of the ‘School’ level lifted from Gal Gun) are reused environments from ASG, filled with also-familiar enemies / bosses. It’s an extremely short adventure, lasting about a half-hour (or less), featuring a basic core with a very linear style and heavily-simplified gameplay.

If Azure Striker GUNVOLT felt like Mega Man built for modern times, then MIGHY GUNVOLT is Mega Man as you remember.

Shedding all of the seemingly-extraneous parts of ASG, like its RPG mechanics, storyline, and loot grinding, MIGHTY GUNVOLT is a pure side-scrolling platformer. If Azure Striker GUNVOLT felt like Mega Man built for modern times, then MIGHY GUNVOLT is Mega Man as you remember. Short of a few paragraphs of text at beginning and end, and some intentionally bad translation work (…I think), you’ll just be shooting your way through this one, kids.

Which is perfectly fine in this instance, as the game doesn’t aspire to be anything more than a throwback nod to the simpler times of platforming. Rather than reward you with gear / components or slick cutscenes, MIGHTY GUNVOLT tracks your high score just like the old days, with points gained by killing foes and picking up bonuses. It feels and controls as excellently as its sibling, and provides a sample-size serving of challenge, ultimately staying out of your way as you run and gun through each character’s ‘storyline’.

That breezy gameplay and lack of content may turn off some. It’s not meant to be a meaty adventure (hence the ‘free DLC’ bit), but even outside of the promotional push to sell the main game, MIGHTY GUNVOLT is well-worth its smallish price, especially if you have an unquenchable thirst for old-school design and aesthetics.

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1. Until November 28th, you get the game as a free download for buying Azure Striker GUNVOLT. ↩
2. That said, you should really play Azure Striker GUNVOLT first, to properly enjoy the 8-bit incarnation here. ↩
3. Your first taste of the character in playable form. ↩

‘Siesta Fiesta’ Review: Muy Fantastic

With most games playing themselves off as serious business, or throwing so much death and destruction on the screen that you feel numb to the plot and everything else halfway through, it’s nice to catch a break and tackle the lighthearted stuff sometimes. Mojo Bones‘ Siesta Fiesta¹ offers a serious challenge, without taking itself too serious. It also put a smile on my face, and I’m grateful for it.

The whole thing is so bright and adorable I damn near threw up on my figurative plate of nachos.

A glorified ‘brick breaker’ with a Spanish theme, the game sees you bouncing a sleepy ball of human (Siesta) continuously on his bed / paddle, bashing scores of bricks and pinball-ing him off just about every conceivable surface². Each stage (60+, spread across eight themed worlds) is lively, its backgrounds animated and filled with tiny, multi-colored creatures (called ‘Fiestas’) going about their business³. It’s charming stuff. The music too, is excellent, and those very same lovable creatures sing / hum along with the tracks. The whole thing is so bright and adorable I damn near threw up on my figurative plate of nachos. Many times.

Good thing I didn’t. It would have put a damper on how fun the game is. You see, there’s an inherent blandness to brick breakers, an idea that’s been done to death, but Siesta Fiesta wisely avoids the trap. Rather than keep things stationary and stale, the game plays like part-platformer, with the stages scrolling continuously— and you forced to keep up. This makes the ‘breaking’ more interesting, as you’ve then got to make decisions on how to go about scoring within an imposed time limit. Do you go for the big points, or focus on smaller bricks and bonuses that can add up to larger sums? At the end of the level, it’s all tallied up, and medals are awarded accordingly.

Those medals won’t ultimately do anything for you, other than show you how poorly you played⁴ or offer a pat on the back. Still, Siesta Fiesta continues to add new ideas throughout the game, injecting fire and ice ball variants, or swapping out the paddle completely; your bed can transform into a cannon or a fan, changing the entire way a level flows. There’s the time trial stages that play more like Breakout, having you destroy all the bricks before you can advance to the next wave, and boss battles that conclude each world. These too, are timed, and often task you with figuring out how to make an enemy vulnerable before going on a full-out attack.

It’s not all perfect; there’s a handful of situations where the ‘last brick syndrome’ shows up (those time trial stages can drag on), but most are easy enough to bypass once you’ve gotten a handle on the bed’s mechanics. The graphics, too, while lovely, can obscure the bed / ball at times. And even with all the new bricks and objects that show up, the constant ‘bounce, break, bounce’ will get repetitive.

… Siesta Fiesta does a good job of re-imagining the classic setup.

If you’re a fan of the genre, though, Siesta Fiesta does a good job of re-imagining the classic setup. Taken in digestible portions, you’ll likely get three hours out of it, even more if you insist on going for all the gold medals. Regardless of your level of devotion, the game offers plenty of content and friendly challenge. Your face might even crack a few smiles. Hard to put a price on that.

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1. For some reason, I kept wanting to write out the title as Siesta Fiestar. FIESTAR is the name of a kpop group that recently made a comeback. The hazards of the job, I guess, though I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm in watching the video …ah, one more time. ↩
2. No way this guy is waking up without a concussion / loss of memory, or at least a very bad headache. ↩
3. Riding motorcycles, swimming, hanging precariously off snow-capped peaks, …waving at you. Picking up the ball when you drop it. Busy little things, and affable. Very affable. ↩
4. Getting Gold medals (outside of the initial few levels) is quite hard. Even obtaining Silver can be a uphill fight. Brick-breaking aficionados will get ample challenge here. ↩

‘SKYPEACE’ Review: No Fault in These Stars

Though we’ve been taught to expect otherwise, good things can come in cheap packages. That nugget of frugal truth in mind, to say that SKYPEACE is cheap would be… ahem… cheapening, the potential fun you get out of it. Well, as much fun as you can get out of yet another endless runner. This time you’re soaring through the hazard-filled sky on hoverboards, so, given that all the action takes place above the clouds, that would instead make this an endless… flier? Sky-surfing? That scene in Back to the Future Part II? It all works.

You play as one half of the game’s brother and sister¹ combo, Surf and Pure. It’s nice to have the option to choose, but it’s pure-ly (haha, get it?) a gender swap, as one character’s gameplay is exactly the same as their sibling. It’s no matter. On the surface, the objective is basic, with you collecting coins and and scattered jewels on some simple— albeit nice-looking— backgrounds (the 3D effect works well here, without being a distraction). The point is to build and maintain a combo of coins without getting hit, netting you a high score and a higher grade at the end of the run. Enemies will naturally block your efforts to do so, although you have no means of fighting back, requiring some slick— and quick— maneuvering.

The game does a very good job of lining up enemies and hazards in a way so that you can avoid them artfully …

Rather than give you absolute freedom of movement, SKYPEACE places you in a smallish grid on the left side of the screen. Picture a game of Tic-Tac-Toe, with its straightforward and diagonal moves, and that’s the extent your own movement options. Despite that apparent limitation, it’s really all you need. The game does a very good job of lining up enemies and hazards in a way so that you can avoid them artfully, continuing unimpeded in your combo run while still tacking on enough hazards to challenge you.

Later levels (out of a total of 10, mostly day / night cycles on similar backgrounds) increase the number of enemies, making it harder to avoid resetting your combo and missing out on that elusive ‘S’ rank. There is a shield powerup that makes life easier, as well as vortexes that boost your speed (at the expense of earlier warnings to upcoming threats). Your sibling will also drop in once per stage to give you temporary invulnerability, zipping you through all hazards and nabbing every coin for the duration.

… there’s some surprising depth and challenge here …

Despite the bright visuals and excellent arcade-y gameplay, it’s over far too quickly, even if the budget price foretold as much. You’ll likely revisit the previous stages anyway, aiming for a better score², or to complete one of the game’s numerous fake achievements (in the form of cutesy titles). That should help extend the life of the game somewhat. SKYPEACE still isn’t terribly long or steeped in content, but there’s some surprising depth and challenge here for completionists, more than worthy of the dollar asking price.

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1. I’m assuming. They look alike, so… good enough to make it fact? ↩
2. It was easy enough to get an ‘A’ on all the courses, but an ‘S’ grade? (sigh) Not once did I even come close. ↩

‘Shovel Knight’ Review: Get Busy Digging, or Get Busy Dying

The paraphrased title from this Shovel Knight review comes from a story by Stephen King¹, but that juxtaposed theme of rising above harsh circumstances / redemption from the quote fits so well into the overall arc of Yacht Club Games‘ valentine to 8-bit platformers, that I can’t imagine a different subtitle to lead in with.

His spirit broken and beaten after a ferocious fight to seal off an evil tower, Shovel Knight is haunted by the loss of his partner, Shield Knight, during that battle. In fact, after clearing certain stages, there’s a dream sequence where he’s fighting off enemies, trying to save her. Clearly some ghosts reside in that armor of his, and though we don’t get much in terms of their relationship at the outset, it’s clear that she meant a great deal to him. Now some time later, the evil they fought to end has returned, and he’s forced to pick up his shovel once more.

As a well-dressed knight, shovel in hand, you look like a fancy undertaker …

The weapon itself is multipurpose, if a little odd for our chivalrous (the game would say ‘shovelrous’) hero. As a well-dressed knight, shovel in hand, you look like a fancy undertaker, the Duke of Digging, if you will, the Dean of Dirt, the Director of Dust. Possible nicknames aside, the blade works as a elegant weapon, as a… um… awesome shovel, to dig up treasure and clear blocks, and as a means of traversal, bouncing on enemies and other platforms² to reach higher rooms and the secret caches of treasure that litter each stage you visit.

Your adventure is a sizable one, set on purging the land of the evil enchantress and her ‘Order of No Quarter’ that have set up shop at various points in the kingdom. Battles with these rogue knights³ will take you through many different environments, including antiquated towns, clockwork dungeons, flooded submarines, floating airships, and the ominous Tower of Fate (featuring the best-looking pixel rainstorm I’ve ever seen). Almost every stage is unique onto itself, and features new enemies and new tricks to navigating that level’s series of traps and jumps. Boss fights too, are distinct and challenging, and may require two or three (…or more) attempts to figure out their patterns and attack them accordingly.

To that end, each stage in Shovel Knight is a lengthy quest (a half-hour long for some), testing your platforming skills as much as combat. Thankfully, the checkpoint system is novel and much-needed, allowing you some respite from the trickier moments and knockbacks. As an alternative for truly badass knights, you can smash those checkpoint gates for extra cash. And cash is king in Shovel Knight. Treasure is more than just currency in the game, as you drop varying amounts of it upon death; the price of a ‘continue’. You do get one chance to collect it in your next life, as a way to correct your past mistakes and gauge your progress (or lack thereof) in the level.

It’s in your best interest to keep yourself as wealthy as possible. That treasure economy also works as a means to upgrade your knight, such as permanent boosts to your health and magic, adding special attacks to your shovel blade, donning more powerful armor, and buying relics (think Castlevania‘s subweapons, draining magic instead of hearts) to aid you in your quest.

And you’ll need the help, as the game will throw some difficulty spikes your way. You know that part in some retro platformers, where the developer decides that parading out all the bosses you’ve fought so far and making you face them in sequence sounds like a good idea?⁴ Yeah, Shovel Knight thinks so too. And if you should die while facing one of them, you’ve got to fight them all over again? Yeah, that part too. Minus that aggravating sequence, and some tough platforming bits in the final three or so stages, the game is a solid experience from beginning to close— 7+ hours of adventuring, optional boss fights and treasure stages, lovingly rendered in that retro style, and with an awesome soundtrack to boot.

… one of the most memorable, most engaging retro platformers to grace a modern console.

In the end, Shovel Knight hits (almost) all of the right notes, and ties up its tale nicely, so the hero can find his redemption, so that maybe he can finally sleep without the nightmares. Even if the story is not your thing, there are plenty of homages to past classics, and more than a handful of other tiny details (the puns!) that you’ll notice and appreciate as you play. It all comes together expertly and as an experience that stands on its own, as Yacht Club Games has crafted one of the most memorable, most engaging retro platformers to grace a modern console.

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1. ‘Get busy living, or get busy dying.’ From the Different Seasons collection, more specifically, the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. Most people will recognize it from the excellent movie adaptation starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. The scene being referenced. ↩
2. Clearly influenced by the classic (and recently remastered) Duck Tales platformer. Scrooge and that Pogo stick-cane of his. ↩
3. Think Mega Man here, with the sort-of villain / sort-of ally Black Knight, and themed stages, with boss names like Propeller Knight, Tinker Knight, etc. ↩
4. It sucked in the 80s and 90s, and it still sucks today. I can’t be the only one that thinks like this. ↩