So despite the fact I'm giving this a 4 I have some mixed feelings about this one. I actually finished the playthrough I'm using to review this a while ago but I wanted my thoughts to settle for a while before I reviewed it.
Storywise it works alright I guess until the last level which just sends the entire thing to hell in my opinion. like the ending plot twists just ruin it for me because of how stupid they are and all of them being dropped in literally the final stage (damn AU bullshit).
I'm not going to really complain about Copen's character change A. because I like absurdly down to earth and cynical Copen more then rageaholic Copen and B. because of meta reason of making him the protagonist making it make sense to change him as well as the story justifying his attitude adjustment to a degree with the reveals at the ending.
Now gameplay wise is where I'm truely conflicted. Because flying around and bouncing off enemies at lightning speed is a blast especially with speedruning and score attack runs of the levels. Like it's an absolue treat. But recently I made a walkthrough for a couple friends and the moment you slow down you quickly realize how awful the level design is.
Like the majority of them are just narrow hallways where you just bounce from enemy to enemy extremely easily and slowing down to explain everything really shows how little there is to them. The best stages are probably the Radio Tower and the Data Center from GV1 because they have more obstacles to avoid rather then just being there for you to just bounce off walls. With the Data Center having a section where you have to fly over a bottomless pit for a bit which really raised the stakes and the Radio tower having lots of spikes and other hazards on the walls that make you have to consider when to airdash. The rest are just boring and are only really interesting when Emblem hunting which can be fun but does have a couple stages that makes that really annoying due to a couple of weird placements.
So back to the good. They thankfully overhauled the upgrade system to not require random drops from the stages and only needing money to obtain
Alright back to the bad. The Special Weapon balance is absolutely atrocious with Orbital Edge and Anchor Nexus being the only ones you should ever use outside hitting boss weaknesses as they cost so little energy (or none in Anchor Nexus's case) that they make Darkness Trigger which is supposed to be the ride or die infinite energy super mode next to useless outside of some niche cases in boss fights. Like seriously Orbital Edge should cost like half a bar per use not like 1/12 becaue of how much damage it does and its range.
Also on to something neutral. Overdrive isn't handled the best on one hand thanks to Emblems it's not that hard to access. But on the other it doesn't do anything of value until you buy OD abilities which are extremely expensive.
Now don't get me wrong I really like this game. The core movement and gameplay are great. I'm giving it a 4 for that alone. But it just has some really glaring flaws that made me drop it from a 4.5.
Storywise it works alright I guess until the last level which just sends the entire thing to hell in my opinion. like the ending plot twists just ruin it for me because of how stupid they are and all of them being dropped in literally the final stage (damn AU bullshit).
I'm not going to really complain about Copen's character change A. because I like absurdly down to earth and cynical Copen more then rageaholic Copen and B. because of meta reason of making him the protagonist making it make sense to change him as well as the story justifying his attitude adjustment to a degree with the reveals at the ending.
Now gameplay wise is where I'm truely conflicted. Because flying around and bouncing off enemies at lightning speed is a blast especially with speedruning and score attack runs of the levels. Like it's an absolue treat. But recently I made a walkthrough for a couple friends and the moment you slow down you quickly realize how awful the level design is.
Like the majority of them are just narrow hallways where you just bounce from enemy to enemy extremely easily and slowing down to explain everything really shows how little there is to them. The best stages are probably the Radio Tower and the Data Center from GV1 because they have more obstacles to avoid rather then just being there for you to just bounce off walls. With the Data Center having a section where you have to fly over a bottomless pit for a bit which really raised the stakes and the Radio tower having lots of spikes and other hazards on the walls that make you have to consider when to airdash. The rest are just boring and are only really interesting when Emblem hunting which can be fun but does have a couple stages that makes that really annoying due to a couple of weird placements.
So back to the good. They thankfully overhauled the upgrade system to not require random drops from the stages and only needing money to obtain
Alright back to the bad. The Special Weapon balance is absolutely atrocious with Orbital Edge and Anchor Nexus being the only ones you should ever use outside hitting boss weaknesses as they cost so little energy (or none in Anchor Nexus's case) that they make Darkness Trigger which is supposed to be the ride or die infinite energy super mode next to useless outside of some niche cases in boss fights. Like seriously Orbital Edge should cost like half a bar per use not like 1/12 becaue of how much damage it does and its range.
Also on to something neutral. Overdrive isn't handled the best on one hand thanks to Emblems it's not that hard to access. But on the other it doesn't do anything of value until you buy OD abilities which are extremely expensive.
Now don't get me wrong I really like this game. The core movement and gameplay are great. I'm giving it a 4 for that alone. But it just has some really glaring flaws that made me drop it from a 4.5.