Gunvalkyrie is an odd little game. It doesn't really tell the player what kind of action game it's supposed to be; it's on the player to figure it out, and the game becomes less and less forgiving until that happens.
When I first fired up the game, I was presented with a big valley filled with bugs and giant mushrooms. I had a blaster for the bugs, complete with a Rez-style lock-on reticle, and the game told me I could use my jetpack to make my way to the top of the mushrooms by jumping, hovering, and dashing. I tank-controlled my way through the level like a bad PS1 platformer until I reached the item I was supposed to retrieve, then I turned around to make my way back to the insertion point. The way home was mainly downhill, so I decided to try and boost my way back using the jetpack, and I accidentally realized that repeatedly boosting with the right timing lets you glide around the level indefinitely. This is by design.
Gunvalkyrie does not want the player on the ground, and the ground becomes a more dangerous place over the course of the game. One level takes place above a poison swamp, and a later boss fight fills the arena floor with so many enemies resting means certain death. If you've mastered flight you become nearly untouchable, and the encounter becomes a game of boosting around and firebombing the floor-bound enemies into next week.
Halfway through the game you unlock an ability that lets you spend your fuel gauge (separate from your boost) to dash in the direction of the camera, letting you recover altitude and refill your boost bar. Conversely, boosting around builds up an aerial combo meter, and incrementing this meter replenishes your fuel. Between the two, the levels become wide open, and the game stops being much of a platformer at all. The catch of the game is that before the game "clicks", it feels like a daunting adventure motivating you with nothing but those SmileBit vibes, but once you do, the game breaks wide open and leaves you wanting a little bit more to practice your new tricks on.
I didn't really understand the story, even after reading all the in-game logs and the manual, and even if I could I think it would be a mess. You play as someone who deserted the extremist Irish Republic for the interplanetary British Empire, but the game's a little too confusing for me to figure out where they were going with that, if anywhere at all. The irony is that it's so convoluted that you can ignore the story completely, and the introduction of the final boss will be all the funnier for it.
I had a good time with Gunvalkyrie once I got over the controls. I played it on a modern Xbox, so I remapped the controls to move the stick-clicks to their respective shoulder buttons and inverted the right stick's y-axis, and movement became much more manageable. It's a neat little Xbox relic.
When I first fired up the game, I was presented with a big valley filled with bugs and giant mushrooms. I had a blaster for the bugs, complete with a Rez-style lock-on reticle, and the game told me I could use my jetpack to make my way to the top of the mushrooms by jumping, hovering, and dashing. I tank-controlled my way through the level like a bad PS1 platformer until I reached the item I was supposed to retrieve, then I turned around to make my way back to the insertion point. The way home was mainly downhill, so I decided to try and boost my way back using the jetpack, and I accidentally realized that repeatedly boosting with the right timing lets you glide around the level indefinitely. This is by design.
Gunvalkyrie does not want the player on the ground, and the ground becomes a more dangerous place over the course of the game. One level takes place above a poison swamp, and a later boss fight fills the arena floor with so many enemies resting means certain death. If you've mastered flight you become nearly untouchable, and the encounter becomes a game of boosting around and firebombing the floor-bound enemies into next week.
Halfway through the game you unlock an ability that lets you spend your fuel gauge (separate from your boost) to dash in the direction of the camera, letting you recover altitude and refill your boost bar. Conversely, boosting around builds up an aerial combo meter, and incrementing this meter replenishes your fuel. Between the two, the levels become wide open, and the game stops being much of a platformer at all. The catch of the game is that before the game "clicks", it feels like a daunting adventure motivating you with nothing but those SmileBit vibes, but once you do, the game breaks wide open and leaves you wanting a little bit more to practice your new tricks on.
I didn't really understand the story, even after reading all the in-game logs and the manual, and even if I could I think it would be a mess. You play as someone who deserted the extremist Irish Republic for the interplanetary British Empire, but the game's a little too confusing for me to figure out where they were going with that, if anywhere at all. The irony is that it's so convoluted that you can ignore the story completely, and the introduction of the final boss will be all the funnier for it.
I had a good time with Gunvalkyrie once I got over the controls. I played it on a modern Xbox, so I remapped the controls to move the stick-clicks to their respective shoulder buttons and inverted the right stick's y-axis, and movement became much more manageable. It's a neat little Xbox relic.