Gunvolt: Striker Pack Finished! + Thoughts

Phew, well, at least I finally tried out the game. I've always had some interest in it, so it was a good chance to try out a genre I usually don't play.
Like the description of the game goes, this Pack contains the first and second games. 2-in-1.

By the way, the Switch version can be bought here:
https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/azure-striker-gunvolt-striker-pack-switch/




Overall, I think it is a good game... but probably not for me.
Here is the thing. If you just play the game for the sake of clearing it, you'll be finished pretty quickly. At the most 20 hours? But this game is a whole 40~50 dollars. Which I definitely don't think it is worth.
However, the game has a lot of replay value, where you can grind to power-up your characters, and lots of quests and other methods of evaluation where you can test your skill. So if you are willing to devote your time into this game, then it is quite worth the money.

And to be honest, I'm not too sure if this is a genre of games I want to get into. Because frankly, I'm not that good at them. If it wasn't for the barrier feature on the characters, I definitely could not have beat the game.

That said, for the price I bought it, 50% off, I think it was worth buying. And hey, if I ever want to get deeper into it, I can always do so, and there is plenty in the game to do in that case.


So about the difficulty, but this is also similar to what I said at the top.
If you just want to clear the game, it is pretty easy. You have a barrier feature that protects you from damage under certain circumstances, and as long as you don't get too greedy, you should be fine in general.
But if you want to get deep into the game, it is really hard. Such as beating a stage without the barrier? Without damage? It gets drastically harder.
Even after beating the game, there were some attacks that I just don't know how to dodge. I assume just because it should be possible that you can dodge it. I just couldn't see how.

Also, when you die, there is a chance you get revived and powered-up.

Finally, for the first game, there is an Easy Mode that is EXTREMELY easy. (The second game doesn't have this mode though for some reason)


For Story...
It was okay. I mean, what do you expect from these types of games. I guess there is more story than Megaman. Not a bad story, not a good story. I think it is okay enough, just nothing to write home about.

And I guess the last noticeable thing about this game is the music. When you get enough points on a stage, a song plays, and the stage you are on determines what song. There are quite a number of songs too.
If you want to do Megaman vs. Gunvolt, then think... Gundam vs. Macross? Kinda get what I mean?

Even for players like me, there is a mode available that prevents you from ever losing points even if you receive damage, so any player can listen to the songs. (Frankly, if I don't use this mode, I wouldn't be able to listen to any of the songs, since I couldn't avoid attacks long enough to score enough points)



A few other problems I had were:

• In order to see the true ending of the first game, you have to beat the first boss without equipping the item that gives you the barrier. So... Yeah. I had to literally start over from the beginning in Easy Mode because I couldn't do that in Normal Difficulty just to be able to do this.
• As this was originally a DS game, the characters are kinda... pixelized? The game being dot-art is fine on the field, but I couldn't help notice this in the camp screens.
• Do not play this game if you like Happy Ends. It is bittersweet at best, like, always. I mean, dang, they have no mercy on the characters.