Gunvolt News Round-Up 7/9/2016 *UPDATED*

Wow, there's certainly been quite a lot Gunvolt news over the past couple days! So much so that it's been a bit difficult for me to keep up with it all (especially in light of SGDQ, which has had me pretty hooked this week). This post will endeavor to make up for lost time and cover all the relevant tidbits of Gunvolt info that have surfaced over the last few days.

First up, the official Japanese Gunvolt site recently updated their list of Japanese pre-order bonuses for the Azure Striker Gunvolt Sriker Pack. As you might recall, the artwork from these items that was shown previously was in more of a draft stage. Now, however, Inti has provided us with samples of the complete versions. These bonuses differ depending on which site you buy the dual pack from, but they all contain extremely high-quality art from Gunvolt series artist Yoshitaka Hatakeyama. You can check out the full list of bonuses here. I've reproduced samples of all the exclusive artwork from the items below. No word yet on whether these articles will be coming westwards, but here's hoping that they do!

Moving on, Yacht Club Games has released a public press kit for the Azure Striker Gunvolt Striker Pack, which, as was announced previously, they will be publishing for folks in the West. The press kit contains all a manner of images and details about this dual pack, and also contains a new trailer put together by Yacht Club Games in anticipation for its release. You can check out the contents of this press kit here. For the aforementioned trailer, see below!

Next up, a pre-order page for the Azure Striker Gunvolt Striker Pack surfaced yesterday on Amazon.com. If you go to the page in question, though, you might notice that there are a couple things "off" about it. Aside from the fact that it doesn't feature any art or screens from the Striker Pack, the distributor is listed as "Nighthawk Interactive." Inti Creates and Yacht Club Games have gone on record to say that the game's being distributed by a different studio called U&I Entertainment. This has caused a number of fans to question the authenticity of this page. While it is, indeed, hard to say for certain at the moment if it's "real," I do think it's worth noting that it's not rare at all for Amazon to mess up details on an official pre-order page. The October 4 release date also might strike some as odd (since Inti recently announced that the game was releasing on September 30 in the US), but to be fair, Yacht Club Games has stated in this post that the Striker Pack's release date "may shift slightly according to retailer and classic physical publishing shenanigans!" 

So yeah, I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility that this page is authentic. Still, if you'd prefer to play things safe and wait on official word from Inti regarding the pre-orders, you are, of course, free to do so.
UPDATE: Seems that the page is in order now. The distributor's been changed from "Nighthawk Interactive" to "U&I Entertainment," and in addition, the official box-art for the pack has been added.

In some more unexpected news, Yacht Club games also announced yesterday that Shovel Knight will be making a cameo appearance in Azure Striker Gunvolt 2. By scanning the Shovel Knight amiibo, you'll be given the chance to actually fight him in the game with either GV or Copen. For a better idea of what to expect in this fight, check out the teaser trailer below! Suffice to say that it's quite intense!

Moving on, prominent model kit builder MADHANDS released images of a super cool Gunvolt garage kit that will be showing up at Wonder Fest in Japan this Summer. You can check out a couple images of the assembled figure below! Thanks to Vhyper for the tip!

And I think that's about it for now! Hope you all found this post informative!