Full Rundown on Gunvolt 2's New Game Systems

Heya, folks. So, a couple weeks ago, Inti Creates released yet another Gunvolt 2 press report to several Japanese video game news sites. This update covers pretty much everything you need to know about game's gameplay features and whatnot--and when I say pretty much "everything," I mean it. This post is absolutely gargantuan. It covers a ton of stuff, from the new skills in the game, to the "Online Ranking" mode. It's extremely extensive and highly informative. You can give it a read for yourself after the jump! As always, thanks to Zoram for the translation!

Gunvolt 2 Game System

1. New skills awaken and deepen the battles!

Gunvolt learns powerful “Skills” when battling. This game features new “Skills”. There are new ultimate sure-kill moves whose power overcomes that of the prequel’s most powerful “Skill”, the “Voltaic Chain”!

Glorious Strizer

An “Ultimate Special Skill” that transforms your Kudos into power. Maybe you can take out bosses in one blow if you have enough Kudos saved up…?

Shieldvolt

A “Support Skill” that reduces the damage you take by half or less for a while. The enemies’ attacks are more aggressive than in the prequel, so you can feel at ease if you use this skill.

Roaring Thunder Descent

A powerful attacking “Skill” in which GV drops a thunder bolt. It doesn’t consume SP and doesn’t increase the “Kudos”, so you can actively employ it. But it looks like you don’t learn it by leveling up…?

The Skills’ shortcuts have become easier to use!

Text: "Set a shortcut (to the X button)"

You can allocate 1 “Skill” to the X Button (button can be changed as well) or you can choose not to allocate any at all, too. You can change the shortcut of the “Skill” from the Pause Menu anytime.

You couldn’t do this in the prequel, but you can now change the “Skills” during missions. However, you must be careful: “Skills” that have been recently changed won't be usable for a while.

Acura has super-powerful “Skills” from the start!

Since Acura isn’t a 7th Wave (Sevens) Psychic, he can’t learn new “Skills” while levelling up. However, Acura has two very powerful “Skills" from the very start which he can use: “Strike Saw” and “Healing”. If you use either of these, they’ll become unusable for a while, but unlike Gunvolt, they don’t consume SP, so you can use them more frequently.

Strike Saw

A Special Skill carried out by the “Bits” and which covers the whole screen. It’s a storm of slashes that draw the “Claw” Kanji on the screen.

Healing

If you open the Pause Menu, the “Strike Saw” icon will become the “Healing” icon. If you touch it, you can recover all of your HP.

2. Battle with the Singing Fairy beside you! The new “Kudos” system!

When the “Kudos” (Combo Points) are above 1000, the Cybernetic Singing Fairy (Cyber Diva) will sing a song. This system is also present in this game. When the BGM changes to a song, each of the protagonists’ partners forms will change and make battle scenes more exciting.

As you beat enemies, you’ll accumulate Kudos. Accumulate over 1000 Kudos and Cyan, who follows you, will become bigger.

RoRo will also change into Diva Form and she will give Acura energy to power him up.

There are over 10 songs in the game! Maybe there’ll be extra songs as DLC…?

The 3 “Kudos Modes”

In this game there are three different “Kudos Modes” for you to choose from. There’s “Apathy” Mode, in which your “Kudos” will never decrease no matter how many times you get hit. This is suggested for people who dislike action and want to enjoy the Cybernetic Singing Fairy (Cyber Diva) songs.

Apathy

The score calculation rate is lower, but your “Kudos” will never drop to zero no matter how many times you get hit.

Timid

If you get hit 3 times, you lose all your “Kudos.” (Initial setting)

Reckless

The score calculation is higher, but if you get hit once, you lose all of your “Kudos”.

You can choose the “Kudos Mode” before starting a stage.

If you get hit in “Timid” mode, the gauge below the “Kudos” meter will deplete. You can get hit up to 2 times (after the first hit).

Aim to get a lot of “Kudos” and clear the stage as quickly as possible!

When you clear a mission, a rank will be given to you based on the accumulated “Kudos” and clear time. There are 5 types of ranks corresponding to each mission’s average score: “C”, “B”, “A”, “S”and “S+”. The higher the rank, the greater the rewards (materials and credits).

Get rewards by flipping the panels on the results screen!

The higher your rank and the more panels you can flip = the more materials you’ll get. You can develop powerful equipment by clearing the stages a few times.

You can also get rare materials by clearing Quests, which have become more comfortable to undertake!

In the Quest System, some special conditions are added to the missions, and achieving them will result in an extra reward. In the prequel, you had to choose them [the quests] before playing the stages, but now they’ll be automatically activated so that you can play in a more comfortable manner. [Skybane note: Sort of like Steam achievements if you know how those work: whenever you accomplish any feat on the achievement list, the system automatically records your accomplishment. In GV1, the system would only recognize your "quest" feat if you undertook the quest manually before you started a stage.]

Text: “You completed a Quest. You can get the reward in the Quest Screen”.

You’ll be told once you clear a mission if you achieved any Quest(s).

Upper right: “Completion percentage: 22%”

Quest title: “Genius gone evil”

Description: “Complete the Building District in 7 minutes or less”

Reward: “3 Crap alloy”

Blue button: “Awaiting reporting”

Categories:

“All”

“Awaiting reporting”

“Uncomplete”

“Finished”

“You can check quest contents”

Quest names:

“Genius gone evil”

“The stranger in the darkness”

“Dragon Island’s solitude”

“N Attack”

“The Returner”

Confirm the achievement of quests in the list and get rewarded. In this game there’s a “sort” function, so things have become easier.

3. Develop power-up items and customize the two warriors to your liking!

The materials you get can be handed over to your pals in exchange for power-ups such as equipment or codes. The number of “development recipes” will increase every time you develop an item. 

Upper right:

“Number of equipment: 4/50”

“Money: 31910”

Equipment name - Amount - Cost:

“Practical lenses” - 0 - 1600 MG

Description:

EP recovery speed increases a bit

Materials: (Needed) (Current amount)

Reactivation lenses 1 (1)

Kuozaito 5 (2)

Type 98 Nanochip 8 (4)

Item list:

“Uriel Plug”

“Activity lenses”

“Reactivation lenses”

“Practical lenses”

“Control lenses”

You need a lot of materials to develop equipment.

Upper right:

“Number of equipment: 4/50”

“Money: 31910”

“Development request”

“Sell”

“List of items”

Description: “Order an item”

In Gunvolt’s case, Xiao will handle the development requests.

Upper right:

“Number of codes: 17/50”

“Money: 981029”

“Development request”

“Sell”

“List of items”

Description: “Order an item”

In Acura’s case, Nowa is in charge of development. She’ll welcome you every time

with an exclusive voice clip.

Equipment item development cycle:

Go to a mission and try to get a high score!

↓

Get material items from the results screen!

↓

Develop equipment item at the shop!

“Programming” to power-up Acura’s jacket

The functions of Acura’s strengthening jacket “Weisstiger” can be powered up by combining “Codes” with “Programming”. You can equip as many “Codes” as the max capacity of the jacket allows, but if you equip too many items and exceed the capacity, then maybe you’ll trigger unexpected errors…?

Upper right: “Codes: 09/50”

Description: “The damage you get will be decreased by 5%”

List:

“Mayfly R”

“Strong”

“Strong”

“Strong”

Upper right: “Codes: 09/50”

Description: “The damage you get will be decreased by 5%”

List:
Strong x4

If you combine too many “Codes” and exceed the capacity, an error will be triggered! You can fight this way, but you'll always experience some kind of negative effect, such as halved attack or double damage intake.

The capacity of “Code” installation can be increased either by levelling up or by finding “Expansion Memories” hidden in the stages.

The “OD Codes”, which hide great power within them.

Amongst the "Codes" that Acura combines with "Programming", there are some that only display their effects when the Cybernetic Singing Fairy (Cyber Diva) RoRo is singing: they’re the “OD (Over Drive) Codes”. The OD Codes have limited uses, but all of them are very powerful.

General-purpose “Codes”

Hover Ring Blitz

The “Hover Ring” automatically triggers after a dash (Initial equipment).

Mayfly

Consume “Blitz” to activate the “Mayfly” (Initial equipment)

EX Weapon Compression

The amount of Weapon energy consumed when using Blitz Weapons decreases.

Burittsu Increase 1

The max amount of “Blitz” will increase by 1

Air Hunter

Increases the power of shots that are fired in mid-air, but decreases the power of ground shots.

Mute

Even if your “Kudos” are above 1000, no song or “awakening” will be triggered. 

OD Codes

OD HP Recovery

HP will automatically recover.

OB Barrier OPT

The Auto Barrier will activate even if your Weapon energy decreases.

OD Pawn Killer

Your attack will increase when fighting enemies that aren’t Bosses.

OD Checkmate

Your attack will increase when fighting Bosses.

OD Catastrophe

The power of an SP Skill will increase according to how “Kudos” you have, but your HP will fall to 1 after you use the skill.

There are over 90 types of “Codes”! Customize yourself and soar through the battlefields!

Gunvolt’s new equipment: “Plugs”

Gunvolt receives new equipment: the “Plugs”. The “Plugs” are the bundles of hair that wrap around his braid. By changing these “Plugs”, you can increase the number of enemies the Lightning Rods (Darts) can lock onto [Skybane Note: In other words, you can increase your gun's maximum number of tags]. In the prequel, these were parameters determined by the Lighting Rods, but in this game, you can control these limitations through the “Plugs”, making Gunvolt more customizable.

Your initial equipment can only lock onto 3 enemies at the max.

If you equip the “Uriel Plug”, you can lock onto 4 enemies.

What was impossible in the prequel is possible now: you can use the “Technos” Lightning Rod to lock onto 4 enemies, amongst other things.

List of “Plugs”

Raphael Plug

Initial equipment that allows you to lock onto 3 enemies at the same

Uriel Plug

4 Locks. The power of the lightning fired at targets will slightly decrease.

Raguel Plug

5 Locks. The power of the lightning fired at targets will decrease a bit.

Gabriel Plug

2 Locks. The power of the lightning fired at targets will slightly increase.

Aside from the "Plugs", there's a lot of new equipment [in Gunvolt 2]. There are over 95 different types of equipment, which is more than the prequel!

4. EXP gained in battles powers up the equipment!

If you battle with the same equipment or “Code”, the equipment will develop into a higher-grade version. In GV’s case, the equipment's functions will increase, and in Acura’s case, the capacity required by the “Codes” will decrease.

Equipment:

"No equipment"

"Feather-built Ring +"

"Sky-dash Ring"

EXP will build up as you continue to use the same piece of equipment. 

"Sky-dash Ring has become Sky-dash Ring +. The equipment’s effect has increased."

The equipment changes on the stage results screen.

List:

“Hover Ring R”

“Mayfly R”

“Strong R”

“Strong”

Text: “Choose a Code to combine”

In Acura’s case, effects don’t change, but the “Codes” will be optimized and their required capacity will decrease.

5. The real-time dialogue has become easier to read

The game's story is told during missions by conversations between the characters in real-time. Now you can make things more comfortable by adjusting the thickness of the dialogue boxes, or by turning off the character portraits. Of course, the text will still be voiced like in the prequel, which will make the story more exciting.

"Voice: On"

"Window thickness: 4/5"

"Portraits: On"

"Return to the previous screen / Revert to initial settings"

The real-time dialogue settings can always be changed through the conf. screen.

RoRo: “Go! Hit them! Acura – kun!”

You can turn off the portraits

There are 5 levels of window thickness:

RoRo (all screens): "All the stuff here looks really OLD… Are you sure they’re here?"

6. Compete with players all over the nation through “Online Ranking”!

There’s a “Score Attack Mode” separate from the main game in which you can try to get the best score or time in a stage. Your records will be listed in an “Online Ranking” board, so you can compete with players from all over the nation.

In the “Score Attack Mode”, you can do things like play GV’s stages as Acura, which you CAN’T do in the main game.

Online Ranking

"Score Ranking / Time Ranking"

"Y Button: Display ranking above yours"

"A Button: Update the Online Ranking"

"B Button: Return to Mission Selection"

In “Online Ranking”, each stage’s best score and best time are listed separately. Up to 1,000 scores / times can be shown on screen.

Special rules of the “Score Attack Mode”

1) Your initial level is 1.

2) “Mayfly” won't work.

3) “Song of Diva” won't work.

4) You can only use the Skills and equipment given to you.

5) Kudos Mode will be set to “Reckless”.

6) There are no retries. Retry Markers only add your “Kudos” to the total score.

7) There'll be no real-time dialogue or event scenes.

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And that's it! Quite a ton of stuff to chew on, huh? I think the thing I'm happiest to learn about is the game's new kudos system. I think it's pretty cool that the player will have three different kudos modes to choose from, and that the higher difficulty modes will reward you with more kudos. That strikes me as a really clever idea to level the playing ground. I'm also intrigued to know that there will be a way to increase your gun's maximum number of tags. I daresay that'll be an extremely handy feature for S+ runs!
Anyway, as always, I hope you enjoyed this post!