Azure Striker Gunvolt Steam Review

Heya folks! The Steam version of Gunvolt has officially released and, as a result, my team at Get Me Off The Moon just published a review of the game in its entirety. I collaborated with one of my teammates, Yoshinator, to write this review, and I daresay he did a really good job! Almost all of the views that he expresses in the write-up resonate with my own opinions towards the game. You can check it out here. For the sake of convenience, I've also reproduced it below.
Enjoy, folks! Hopefully this will help people who are on the fence about buying the Steam version!

Heya all! The Steam version of Azure Striker Gunvolt has officially released and, as a result, we have review of the game for you, courtesy of our streamer Yoshinator (aka Joshua)! Without further ado, you can check it out below!
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     Right away I want to address that this version of Azure Striker Gunvolt is a port of the 3DS game and not an HD remake of sorts. I went into it expecting it to be an HD remaster like Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition, but this is basically just a blown up version of the 3DS game with the two screens and all. You can mess with the screens by hitting F5, you can get them to be right on top of each other, side-by-side, or just remove the bottom screen completely until you are back in the hub. It's kind of a silly way of dealing with it as a regular controller, and the keyboard has more than enough buttons to compensate for losing the lower screen.

     When you start the game, you are treated to an options menu of stuff you can configure. While a sound option is missing, you can set up your controller, change the resolution and most importantly, you can change the language. When you first start, the game is just set to English. If you want the true Gunvolt experience, you should always have it selected to English on Japanese Voiceover Mode. Even if you don't speak Japanese, everything is faithfully translated from the original Japanese script. (Skybane note: Josh is spot-on here.Everything has been re-translated from the ground-up, in a very faithful manner to the original JP version [with the exception of the characters' names...]. There are quite a number of punctuation errors and typos in the new script [ex. Viper saying "flith instead of "filth" and Zeno saying "pendent" instead of "pendant"], but in terms of the actual content, it's a very literal translation, which is just amazing! Also, GV has a bare midriff in this mode, like the JP version) I will warn those who are unfamiliar that the characters will talk through the levels, and since this game is just a blown-up port, the text boxes and character art can take up almost half the screen. This can be resolved by pressing Y (default controller option). The character dialogue and VO will stop until you press it again, allowing you to concentrate on certain boss fights.

     The Joule Conversations have also been restored. (Skybane note: Although it's hard to say if all of them have been re-implemented. Personally, I didn't see any of the conversations from the JP version's 1.2 update. Most of the conversations are intact, though, so this is awesome!) In the original 3DS version, Joule conversations have, like, four different variations, while in the Japanese version, there are over 100. You can go back to Joule after finishing one conversation and you're bound to get a brand new scene. Why not even half of these are in the original game just blows my mind. This option is almost pointless character-wise in the original translation. You lose a lot of funny and perspective dialogue. Playing with this language option is the definitive way to play. It fleshes out the characters, actually breathing life into them, instead of them just telling you "good job" at certain points in the English version.

     The two really big and glaring issues with this port are using your special skills, and the Speedrun Mode. The special skills in the original game were accessed by pressing one of four panels on the touch screen in the 3DS version. It could be a bit of a pain to quickly move your thumbs over and select one (Skybane note: I second this), but it was manageable. In this version, however, your special moves are always activated via F1 through F4. You could have it in dual screen mode so you could just click one of them by always having your mouse hover over it, but they really should have figured out a way while using the controller. Compared to the 3DS, the Wii U Pro Controller (the controller I played the port with) has 4 more additional buttons: ZL, ZR and clicking down the left stick and right stick. ZL and ZR are used for switching weapons on the fly, a feature I find almost completely pointless since the Naga is the best bolt type and I never found myself switching to anything else. (Skybane note: Josh may not have found it useful, but it's something that still really comes in handy for rank runs and speedruns). Here's one idea: holding ZL while pressing Y will let you use skill 1. Or even hold ZL and ZR at the same time and press another button to access a special. As things stand with the current build, the easiest way for me to use a skill is to get into position, pause the game, and, while the game is paused, mash the special assigned key. This is an insane problem in such a fast-paced game. Imagine that you're playing a game like Street Fighter and, in order to input a special move like hadouken, you had to tap the console while doing the command. It seems like such a huge oversight and it kept me from using specials almost the whole way through. It's also problematic that F1 is so close to the esc key.

     Speedrun Mode is a weird mode. You would think something as easy as a speedrun mode would be a no-brainer to implement. Just slap a timer on the screen, allow for the cutscenes to auto-skip and you're done. Well, Inti Creates thought it would be fun if you were severely limited. Your prevasion chain is "broken" (Skybane note: Meaning that you can no longer rush into enemies without knockback) and the necklace gear slot is locked.

You can't talk to Joule to get an increased chance at activating Anthems (Skybane note: While you'd think speedrunners wouldn't use an option like that, they do. Lumen's Anthem is incredibly useful in Merak's stage, particularly during the flood segment. Anthem allows GV to perform infinite jumps, which helps speedrunners save a ton of time during the long upward ascent before the boss fight). Also, the shop has even less stuff in it. A common thing to do in speedruns is to get free damage buffers and keep all your health with the prevasion chain. I'm no speedrunner, but I can't think of any reason why a speedrunner would actually enjoy this mode. If they called it "hard mode", that would make sense. Your gear options are limited and there's a chance you might not even get Anthem revives. It does say on their blurb that "Future updates which will add new features and settings are already planned, so stay tuned for information about that in the near future." So they could bring back the pendant and make it... not dumb, but we'll have to see. If anything, you can still speedrun the game the way you're used to on normal mode, and just completely ignore Speedrun mode.

(Skybane note: For what it's worth, the description for this mode on the Gunvolt Steam page explains that "pre-determined settings [are] put in place by the Gunvolt team to maximize efficiency for this challenging new mode." While I can understand how it might be helpful to have all players on equal footing for speedruns of this game, it's hard to see how the team thought that locking the player in to the "broken necklace" was a good idea.)

     Overall, the port is very good. Plays a solid 30fps like the original, controls are just as tight and responsive as they need to be, and the English Japanese VO option is the best way to fully enjoy the story and the characters. The requirements aren't too demanding, so a lot of computers should be able to handle Gunvolt. While using the specials can be a real pain, I can't take any points away from Speedrun Mode as it is completely optional. If you're a Gunvolt fan, I would highly recommend picking this up. If you have the original 3DS version and want to know more about the characters, do yourself a favor, and get the true Azure Striker Gunvolt experience.
Skybane note: It's also just been announced by Inti at their PAX Prime panel earlier today that an update for the 3DS version of Gunvolt is on the way, which will include the Steam version's JP Voiceover Mode! As this is, in my and Josh's opinions, the best part of the Steam version, we highly encourage you to check that out, too, when it releases!

And that's it! Thanks for reading, folks, and, as always, Legends Never Die!