Over the years, Inti Creates has solidified their place as one of my favorite 2D action platformer developers of all time. From the classic Mega Man Zero series, to the modern Gunvolt series, they have continued to refine and evolve their craft. You simply won't find their brand of high octane, arcadey, mastery-focused gameplay anywhere else.
I played iX1 on a whim a few years ago, and to my surprise, I loved it so much that it not only made me go back and play the other Gunvolt games, but it also ultimately led to me rethinking how I view rank, score, and other mastery-focused systems in other games, including the Zero games and their S-ranks. Copen's aerial based gameplay was just that great; bouncing off walls and enemies at breakneck speeds while maintaining my air combo to score as high as possible was so exhilarating.
So imagine my shock when iX2 was initially announced, and Copen's gameplay was revealed to be reworked. Gone are the days of dashing all around the level from the get-go, as he only has one air dash (outside of Overdrive). Now he has the Razor Wheel, complete with a 3-hit combo and other melee shenanigans. While I still had faith in Inti Creates' ability, I couldn't shake that feeling of apprehension. Yeah, it kinda reminded me of Mega Man Zero, and you could still access Copen's old gameplay with Overdrive, but the huge changes worried me. Fast forward to release; the moment of truth has arrived, so how is it?
It's a lot to digest, that's for sure.
First things first, Copen's new gameplay. As I said before, dashing around and cutting up enemies with the Razor Wheel in Copen's Breakshift really did remind me of Mega Man Zero, though not nearly as fluid as that or iX1/GV2's gameplay. The wheel doesn't do enough damage to kill most things in less than 2 slashes, so you almost have to stop and full combo every enemy, even the smaller ones. It's no biggie, since going from enemy to enemy as fast as you can to maintain your Quick Break combo for kudos is enjoyable enough, and you can even weave in Bullitshift and EX weapons.
However, that "weaving" is actually my biggest issue with the game. There isn't a cohesive marriage of the Breakshift and Bullitshift gameplay, at least not in scoreplay. You use Breakshift (and a little Bullitshift) to hit 1000 kudos as fast as you can to hit Overdrive, and from there you just rack up aerial combos like in iX1 since it's FAR more lucrative kudos-wise. It's still pretty fun, especially in Normal mode where emblems let you hit 1k kudos quickly anyway, but it just screams "missed potential". It was a really cool idea, and I REALLY hope they expand on it in the future.
What makes it even more disappointing is the fact that pretty much everything else about the game feels like a step-up from iX1. Thanks to consideration for the Breakshift system (I assume), iX2 actually has some of the best level design I've seen in a Gunvolt game thus far. Not only do they still facilitate that feeling of flow that we all know and love, but they individually have stronger identities, thanks to improved enemy variety and great level gimmicks. In addition, the presentation has noticeably improved as well. The soundtrack quality has gotten even better, with particularly strong normal level themes (an area where the series historically lacked), alongside some other great tunes like Ypsilon's boss theme. The visuals are also a lot more varied from level to level (especially compared to iX1, where levels would often visually blend together), further aiding that sense of identity I was talking about. This game's EX weapon selection blows previous games out of the water too. Unlike GV2 and iX1 where you'd be using Hailstorm Blade/Orbital Edge 99% of the time, you can find a useful niche for most of them. Rolling Ripper is the go-to aerial enemy killer, Cryo Flash for slowing down time, Whirling Chopper is great for animation-cancelling and gaining vertical height, and Optic Barrier is useful in quite a few boss fights. Speaking of boss fights, they're still as great as ever. Hell, at this point, it's hard to NOT take notice of how consistently good Inti is at designing bosses. There's not much to be said; patterns are fun to learn, and are hard enough to actually require learning. It almost feels like performing a well-choreographed dance, honestly, especially in the context of the scoring.
And then there's the difficulty.
The Gunvolt series' approach to difficulty has always been a point of contention. In stark contrast to the Mega Man Zero games, it opts to start you off with extreme power, and instead give you a plethora of tools to modulate the difficulty. At default, the previous games would make you immune to 99% of damage at the cost of an easily refillable resource, alongside a free auto-revive, a potentially large health pool, infinite lives, and so on and so forth. If you're an average player, and use all of these to the fullest, you're left with a comically easy game. Perfect for people that want to revel in the power fantasy and enjoy the charming, chuuni writing stress-free, but pretty boring for everyone else. However, as I've alluded to throughout the review, the games have consistently made it very clear that the REAL draw is embracing the arcade-style of old, and doing score runs. As in, running through levels as fast as possible, while racking up kudos by pulling off methodical combos; all without getting so much as a scratch. It's a difficult, but very rewarding road. All of the games' mechanics will truly come into play, your personal idol will sing J-Pop bangers for you, and you'll get a shiny S+ rank to show for it, but those are all secondary to the greatest reward of all: the fun.
But what about the people in the middle? What of the folks that don't want to bother with some silly ranking system or some self-imposed challenges and just want to run through the game once like a Mega Man game? Unfortunately, they're out of luck. Even if you disable all of the extra options that makes the games effortless, you're still left with a fairly easy game with seemingly milquetoast level design. This is where many fundamental misconceptions about the series arise, and it serves as a major stumbling block for many people.
In response, Inti Creates appeared to have doubled down. The default mode, Normal, has two major changes; an unlimited source of healing at the push of a button (with the only caveat being that it banks your kudos), along with Gutless as the sole kudos mode. The healing option didn't matter to me honestly. I just treated it like Prevasion and Anthem in previous games and simply never used it, and it actually resulted in a fairly decent difficulty curve in casual play. The forced Gutless mode was far more concerning, but in practice it actually worked out better than I thought, especially since there's an upgrade that boosts your damage in exchange for losing all kudos on hit. But that's not all.
Now when I say Inti Creates doubled down, I mean they DOUBLED down. For the first time in the series since the later releases of GV1, iX2 also has a Hard mode, complete with a multitude of changes. It removes the healing mode, disables all upgrades, capps your max HP, makes you lose all kudos on-hit (like Fearless mode in previous games), greatly buffs boss patterns, removes the emblems, and, most interestingly, introduces a lives system. There is little room (or no room when scoring) for error in boss fights, and mistakes are far more punishing, as losing all your lives will boot you out of the level. They even pulled a ballsy move and locked the true ending behind its completion. As you can imagine, this mode lies on the complete opposite side of the difficulty spectrum, and it's brutal, and it's easily the hardest Gunvolt has ever been. The final boss alone took me 40+ tries and almost 3 hours.
But you know what? This may be a hot take, but it was a WONDERFUL addition. THIS is, more or less, how hard Gunvolt should be. The Breakshift system works a lot better here than in Normal mode too, and Inti-Creates intended vision for it became a bit clearer, although it also makes the messy union between it and Bulletshift more apparent. My only gripe with it is that they didn't alter the level design at all. That's fine for scoreplay, but in casual runs the levels are still far too easy. It'd be better for casual AND scoreplay if the level design was slightly remixed (in the same vein as the special missions in iX1) and some checkpoints were removed, especially considering the lives system and the fact that you have to beat Normal mode first to unlock it. But beyond that, I hope they expand on this mode and include it in future games.
If you look at iX2's individual parts, you'll find that although it expanded on and improved many aspects of the previous games, the most important one--the Breakshift system and the related changes to Copen's gameplay--fell a bit short. Though ambitious, it's nowhere near as cohesive as the focused endeavors of iX1 and GV2. With that being said, however, when I reflect on my experience holistically, I can't deny the fact that I had a ton of fun, which probably speaks to how strong and unique the series' core design philosophy is. I can't wait for GV3, and I hope it doesn't take 4 years to get ported.
I played iX1 on a whim a few years ago, and to my surprise, I loved it so much that it not only made me go back and play the other Gunvolt games, but it also ultimately led to me rethinking how I view rank, score, and other mastery-focused systems in other games, including the Zero games and their S-ranks. Copen's aerial based gameplay was just that great; bouncing off walls and enemies at breakneck speeds while maintaining my air combo to score as high as possible was so exhilarating.
So imagine my shock when iX2 was initially announced, and Copen's gameplay was revealed to be reworked. Gone are the days of dashing all around the level from the get-go, as he only has one air dash (outside of Overdrive). Now he has the Razor Wheel, complete with a 3-hit combo and other melee shenanigans. While I still had faith in Inti Creates' ability, I couldn't shake that feeling of apprehension. Yeah, it kinda reminded me of Mega Man Zero, and you could still access Copen's old gameplay with Overdrive, but the huge changes worried me. Fast forward to release; the moment of truth has arrived, so how is it?
It's a lot to digest, that's for sure.
First things first, Copen's new gameplay. As I said before, dashing around and cutting up enemies with the Razor Wheel in Copen's Breakshift really did remind me of Mega Man Zero, though not nearly as fluid as that or iX1/GV2's gameplay. The wheel doesn't do enough damage to kill most things in less than 2 slashes, so you almost have to stop and full combo every enemy, even the smaller ones. It's no biggie, since going from enemy to enemy as fast as you can to maintain your Quick Break combo for kudos is enjoyable enough, and you can even weave in Bullitshift and EX weapons.
However, that "weaving" is actually my biggest issue with the game. There isn't a cohesive marriage of the Breakshift and Bullitshift gameplay, at least not in scoreplay. You use Breakshift (and a little Bullitshift) to hit 1000 kudos as fast as you can to hit Overdrive, and from there you just rack up aerial combos like in iX1 since it's FAR more lucrative kudos-wise. It's still pretty fun, especially in Normal mode where emblems let you hit 1k kudos quickly anyway, but it just screams "missed potential". It was a really cool idea, and I REALLY hope they expand on it in the future.
What makes it even more disappointing is the fact that pretty much everything else about the game feels like a step-up from iX1. Thanks to consideration for the Breakshift system (I assume), iX2 actually has some of the best level design I've seen in a Gunvolt game thus far. Not only do they still facilitate that feeling of flow that we all know and love, but they individually have stronger identities, thanks to improved enemy variety and great level gimmicks. In addition, the presentation has noticeably improved as well. The soundtrack quality has gotten even better, with particularly strong normal level themes (an area where the series historically lacked), alongside some other great tunes like Ypsilon's boss theme. The visuals are also a lot more varied from level to level (especially compared to iX1, where levels would often visually blend together), further aiding that sense of identity I was talking about. This game's EX weapon selection blows previous games out of the water too. Unlike GV2 and iX1 where you'd be using Hailstorm Blade/Orbital Edge 99% of the time, you can find a useful niche for most of them. Rolling Ripper is the go-to aerial enemy killer, Cryo Flash for slowing down time, Whirling Chopper is great for animation-cancelling and gaining vertical height, and Optic Barrier is useful in quite a few boss fights. Speaking of boss fights, they're still as great as ever. Hell, at this point, it's hard to NOT take notice of how consistently good Inti is at designing bosses. There's not much to be said; patterns are fun to learn, and are hard enough to actually require learning. It almost feels like performing a well-choreographed dance, honestly, especially in the context of the scoring.
And then there's the difficulty.
The Gunvolt series' approach to difficulty has always been a point of contention. In stark contrast to the Mega Man Zero games, it opts to start you off with extreme power, and instead give you a plethora of tools to modulate the difficulty. At default, the previous games would make you immune to 99% of damage at the cost of an easily refillable resource, alongside a free auto-revive, a potentially large health pool, infinite lives, and so on and so forth. If you're an average player, and use all of these to the fullest, you're left with a comically easy game. Perfect for people that want to revel in the power fantasy and enjoy the charming, chuuni writing stress-free, but pretty boring for everyone else. However, as I've alluded to throughout the review, the games have consistently made it very clear that the REAL draw is embracing the arcade-style of old, and doing score runs. As in, running through levels as fast as possible, while racking up kudos by pulling off methodical combos; all without getting so much as a scratch. It's a difficult, but very rewarding road. All of the games' mechanics will truly come into play, your personal idol will sing J-Pop bangers for you, and you'll get a shiny S+ rank to show for it, but those are all secondary to the greatest reward of all: the fun.
But what about the people in the middle? What of the folks that don't want to bother with some silly ranking system or some self-imposed challenges and just want to run through the game once like a Mega Man game? Unfortunately, they're out of luck. Even if you disable all of the extra options that makes the games effortless, you're still left with a fairly easy game with seemingly milquetoast level design. This is where many fundamental misconceptions about the series arise, and it serves as a major stumbling block for many people.
In response, Inti Creates appeared to have doubled down. The default mode, Normal, has two major changes; an unlimited source of healing at the push of a button (with the only caveat being that it banks your kudos), along with Gutless as the sole kudos mode. The healing option didn't matter to me honestly. I just treated it like Prevasion and Anthem in previous games and simply never used it, and it actually resulted in a fairly decent difficulty curve in casual play. The forced Gutless mode was far more concerning, but in practice it actually worked out better than I thought, especially since there's an upgrade that boosts your damage in exchange for losing all kudos on hit. But that's not all.
Now when I say Inti Creates doubled down, I mean they DOUBLED down. For the first time in the series since the later releases of GV1, iX2 also has a Hard mode, complete with a multitude of changes. It removes the healing mode, disables all upgrades, capps your max HP, makes you lose all kudos on-hit (like Fearless mode in previous games), greatly buffs boss patterns, removes the emblems, and, most interestingly, introduces a lives system. There is little room (or no room when scoring) for error in boss fights, and mistakes are far more punishing, as losing all your lives will boot you out of the level. They even pulled a ballsy move and locked the true ending behind its completion. As you can imagine, this mode lies on the complete opposite side of the difficulty spectrum, and it's brutal, and it's easily the hardest Gunvolt has ever been. The final boss alone took me 40+ tries and almost 3 hours.
But you know what? This may be a hot take, but it was a WONDERFUL addition. THIS is, more or less, how hard Gunvolt should be. The Breakshift system works a lot better here than in Normal mode too, and Inti-Creates intended vision for it became a bit clearer, although it also makes the messy union between it and Bulletshift more apparent. My only gripe with it is that they didn't alter the level design at all. That's fine for scoreplay, but in casual runs the levels are still far too easy. It'd be better for casual AND scoreplay if the level design was slightly remixed (in the same vein as the special missions in iX1) and some checkpoints were removed, especially considering the lives system and the fact that you have to beat Normal mode first to unlock it. But beyond that, I hope they expand on this mode and include it in future games.
If you look at iX2's individual parts, you'll find that although it expanded on and improved many aspects of the previous games, the most important one--the Breakshift system and the related changes to Copen's gameplay--fell a bit short. Though ambitious, it's nowhere near as cohesive as the focused endeavors of iX1 and GV2. With that being said, however, when I reflect on my experience holistically, I can't deny the fact that I had a ton of fun, which probably speaks to how strong and unique the series' core design philosophy is. I can't wait for GV3, and I hope it doesn't take 4 years to get ported.