Azure Striker Gunvolt Retrospective - Escaping Mega Man's Shadow
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- Опубліковано 8 чер 2024
- If you're a Mega Man fan wanting a series that goes further, then I've got something for you. Azure Striker Gunvolt is one of the most invested I've been in a 2D action platformer in a while, and because of that I wanted to share it with people. This video covers: Azure Striker Gunvolt 1 & 2, Mighty Gunvolt, Mighty Gunvolt Burst, Luminous Avenger iX, the 9 audio dramas, the OVA, and a YT series... so a lot this time. Second part looking at iX2 and Gunvolt 3 is planned for the end of Oct.
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[ESSAY PLAYLIST]
• Lengthy Retrospectives
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▪ Twitter ▶ @NovaZone7
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00:00:00 Intro/History
00:08:55 Azure Striker Gunvolt 1
00:48:30 Azure Striker Gunvolt 2
01:29:12 Mighty Gunvolt
01:32:30 Mighty Gunvolt Burst
01:43:43 Luminous Avenger iX - Ігри
Thank you for this retrospective! As a hardcore Gunvolt fan, I really appreciate you taking the time to do real research on the series - especially since its scattered storytelling style makes deep-diving more necessary than usual, and fans who don't speak Japanese can't even access a bunch of important side content through official means. I also appreciate the attention paid here to the scoring system, where a lot of the focus of the series' gameplay lies.
There are just a few things I want to point out:
- Unfortunately, not even the games, drama CDs, and written side stories together are enough to get a complete picture of the Gunvolt series' story. Inti has a habit of hiding away character backstories and other important details in promotional websites, magazines, and even the booklets that come with the game OSTs. The OST booklets, for instance, are where we learn things like:
-- Copen got his Azure Striker abilities (e.g. Prevasion and Stellar Spark) in GV2 from analyzing Asimov's bloodstains left on the gun Asimov stole from him, which he retrieved from the base of Babel where Asimov dropped it after GV1's true ending.
-- GV met Xiao when he encountered Xiao being chased by mysterious Adepts and saved him, after which Xiao implored him to stop Eden's invasion.
-- The Butterfly Effect is the power source of the Falcon Quills in iX1, much like how Joule/Cyan's shards powered Eden's Grimoires in GV2. The BE also subtly brainwashes all the world's Adepts to reduce their interest and concern for Minos.
-- In the iX timeline, Sumeragi had to manually extract Joule's Septima from her corpse and re-implant it into Mytyl before using her for the Butterfly Effect, and (as mentioned in the video) the massive size of Mytyl's brain is due to "repeated life prolonging" procedures.
- Prior to the final act of GV1, Sumeragi was not using Lumen to *control the minds* of Adepts, instead merely using the psychic resonance of her songs like sonar to locate Adepts and capture them if desired. This is explained in the briefing and mid-stage dialogue for GV1's intro stage. At most, it seems, Sumeragi was able to attract Adepts to Lumen by making her songs sound really good to them, like with Viper/Daytona in Justice Rage. Only with new and improved equipment for controlling and amplifying Joule's power, installed on the space station from GV1's final act, did Sumeragi believe that outright mind control of Adepts would be possible.
- To reinforce what other commenters have said, careful reading of in-game text and side material makes clear that iX1's themes are more nuanced than "GV1-2 Copen was right about Adepts". Sure, Adepts are collectively in the process of wiping out non-Adepts, but it's very much an artificial effort imposed on Adept society by Asimov. Unlike with the antagonistic factions in prior Gunvolt games, not a single one of the iX Sumeragi Adepts you meet are here fighting you because they believe in the faction's cause (that is, eradicating Minos). Stella is being coerced with the threat of Dystnine being taken away. Isola plans to flee from Copen at first, and when he catches up to her, she grudgingly decides to fight him because it's "part of the job". Rebellio is being coerced with the promise of a reduced sentence for crimes which, as his website profile reveals, he was *also* coerced into by a terrorist group who held his family hostage. And so on, and so forth.
And, of course, all of Asimov's named Adept subordinates except Blade end up *giving their lives* for a cause they don't even believe in. That includes Mytyl - born a powerful Adept, stripped of her Septima and her health by non-Adepts, and restored to her original self by Sumeragi - just so they could then enslave and torture her for all eternity, because she was more useful to them like that than she was as a free person who could conceivably choose to *not* aid in the non-Adept genocide. Asimov claims to be the protector of all Adepts, but his authority seems to bring nothing but pointless conflict and death to them. This, in my opinion, is an *actual* central theme of iX1 - not "Adepts are all rotten", but "systems of oppression need to actively manipulate people into acting as oppressors, and in doing so they harm those people alongside the people they oppress". Even iX Copen seems to realize his younger self was wrong about Adepts - perhaps best demonstrated by his attitude toward the un-brainwashed Blade - and as such he wisely saves his anger for the one Adept behind it all. This clarity of focus contrasts him with iX Asimov, who has dragged the whole world into a proxy revenge quest against the non-Adepts who persecuted him generations ago.
As a final point, I want to offer a contrasting opinion to one expressed in the comment by Blazing inferno; I'm not sold on their interpretation that Adepts and Minos had a period of fully peaceful coexistence in iX's backstory that Asimov then ruined. The interpretation difference might hinge on a particular line from Copen in the final stage, which in the official English translation reads:
"So that's why... Sumeragi made it seem like they'd reconcile with Minos, only to suddenly turn on them. All of this hostility was engineered from the very beginning..."
But in the original Japanese, it's:
"なるほどな...表向きはマイナーズとの融和を掲げていたスメラギが、突然意趣変えするワケだ。敵対勢力にまるごと乗っ取られていたとはな..."
(fan translation) "I see… So that’s why Sumeragi, who publicly said they wanted to harmonize with the Minors, suddenly changed its intentions… They’d actually been taken over by a hostile faction…"
In the original script, Copen attributes the past change in Sumeragi's intentions directly to their takeover by Asimov - which likely happened not long after GV1's bad ending, when Sumeragi's previous leadership had been weakened by the failure of their Diva Project. This suggests that Sumeragi under Asimov began using their vast control over society to disadvantage non-Adepts while Adepts were still a minority, long before the full-on genocide began. (Asimov needed to wait until there was a sufficiently robust population of Adepts to maintain society without non-Adepts' help, after all. And in the meantime, he'd be foolish *not* to use Sumeragi's power to accelerate proportional Adept population growth and reduce the eventual resistance to his genocide in every way feasible.)
Regardless, though, Asimov clearly continued his campaign against non-Adepts *long* after they had ceased to be a threat to him or to Adepts in general. The memories of the genuine fear and pain that some non-Adepts inflicted on him seem to have mutated into an unquenchable sadistic thirst for revenge, judging by the words he speaks through the Lola tanks to the downtrodden descendants of his long-dead oppressors. "I WILL ENJOY WATCHING YOU SUFFER UNTIL THE VERY END", and all.
Dang, I hope there's a wiki that makes use of you
@@belot217 I'm glad you found my comment informative. I do contribute to the Gunvolt wiki sometimes, and I referenced it for a lot of what I wrote in the comment.
i hope he reads this comment and replies in his next video
my man, even i learned with this stuff i didnt knew
We've found it
*The gunvolt Bible*
Edit: also wanted to say that while I do agree with this I feel like ix is also showing the other side of the story. Showing how as promising gunvolt's future of coexistence copen does have a point with his ideals. Obviously purging all adepts isn't right but copen isn't completely wrong in thinking that adepts are a threat
It's so nice to finally hear someone talk about the Drama CDs
The shrine visit is my favorite
Morpho just yeets out
GV's love triangle doesn't bother me that much seeing as how Joule's feelings for him were always relatively one sided. He doesn't pick up on her hints that she likes him and the way he looks out for her has always felt more brotherly than romantic. In fact, in one of the GV2 conversations, GV outright says Joule is like a sister to him. So I didn't feel the same way you did about the "there's no real way they're convincing us that GV could choose someone else over Joule" thing because he never saw Joule that way. But I do wish there was more variety in the conversations than mainly focusing on Joule being jealous of Quinn. Some interactions like everyone becoming comic book nerds are really underrated because of this.
Gunvolt is an incredible series that definitely deserves more love
Gunvolt is a incredible character that deserves more love too. Poor dude can't get some rest in any timeline...
Agreed.
I honestly love Copen's character development. GV1 started as him being a religious fanatic but also a man of science (i don't know how that works but ok), GV2, is now conflicted to know that his sister is an adept and now in iX, a chill character that protects people and is chill with adepts too.
As a christian, I will point out that science and God do not contradict each other. It would take too long for me to explain the specifics but Copen basically hates adepts because of his father's influence but, copen has also acknowledged the hypocrisy of his hatred for adepts because he doesn't have the right to decide the destiny of adepts.
I can generally tell from the things he said in the game how he is thinking.
@@justiceiria869 and that's why I love Copen's character. He does what he thinks is right but when he sees his sister be exactly what he's been killing, he now doesn't know what to do and decides to throw away everything and "kill" himself.
Then we get iX which is one of my favorites. When confronted with adepts, he doesn't immediately hate call them, he just sees them as some enemy to be defeated and even spares Blade, compared to GV, he wouldn't listen to GV, in iX, he's now sparing an adept and telling her to use her power for good.
>i don't know how that works but ok
And you never will.
Since when was he chill with adepts in iX?
@@yourunclejohn984 when he spared Blade and told her to use that power to save people in iX. If this was GV1 Copen, he wouldn't care and kill Blade immediately.
Now that you've done this, you gotta go over Blaster Master Zero series. Such an amazing series made by Inti from start to finish.
I've got all my videos (tentatively) planned for the next few months, but BMZ will probably be the next Inti series I do. Maybe mid-next year.
I'm so glad I gave Gunvolt a chance. Keiji Inafune needed a good game to get back on his feet and Inti Creates deserved a franchise to display their 2D prowess for action games. I love these games.
Inafune barely had involvement with Gumvolt series, actually. But he had involvement in GV3, which is... disappointing.
@@ilucasz i mean, the gameplay part is fun! But the plot... Yeah...
@@georgelongcoal1117 Exactly!
MN9 proved Inafune alone wasn’t what made Mega Man what it is
It's amazing how you guys still think Inafune is behind this when dude is a scammer and no he wasn't behind the design of practically any mega man game, dude is a fraud. Congratulations dudes
Thanks everyone for watching/skipping down to the comments once you got sick of me! This video took a lot of time and I'm happy with what I got out. Sorry it took so long, between work and personal stuff, I didn't have much time to work on the video for as much as I would've liked.
Also, sorry about some sound hiccups. That was from a mix of not doing any VO since December and I had just gotten over a cold when I did VO for everything but the GV1 section. I tried to save it a bit but I know I sound weird in a few places.
I've already started writing a 2nd GV video. That one will cover LAiX2, GV3, corrections y'all gave, and some other greater topics about the series that are easier to talk about after looking at each game individually. It'll be about half the length of this one, and out by the end of this month.
Thanks for all the support everyone! I was worried with this one since usually my videos on obscure topics get super ignored, but y'all have been great.
I've implemented a few things y'all have said into part 2. As I've reiterated, I'm still new to the series so obviously I have some parts that didn't quite ingrain with me like for long time fans. I don't get chances to correct myself often, so I appreciate it.
I know some are concerned with me doing GV3 before ATEMS, which I get, but I set a rather rigid schedule before the ATEMS announcement, and it would be an actual nightmare to reschedule that. If ATEMS leaves an impact on me I'll do a short video in Jan or Feb coming back to GV3. I've got some stuff going on those 2 months that'll make long vids hard those 2 months so 1 short and 1 long might be a good plan. I already have my long video planned for that period, and it's the Casshern video I talked about forever ago!
Actually Daytona is a confirmed pedophile. Lumen may have influenced him to join Sumeragi. But his crush on Joule was already a preexisting thing. Since the CD Drama had a scene when one of Daytona's lackeys joked about him going after little girls again.
So i have a question, i am a fan of Gunvolt too as 3 years ago and how do you know about Azure Striker Gunvolt ?
@@karistartnotenough6358I was active in Mega Man circles online around 2014. Like I said, I played GV1 launch weekend, I just didn't have time to keep up with the series. It would've come out before my senior year of High School.
@@NovaZoneTV will you make a separate video of ATEMS if it makes a significant enough difference
This was awsome. I've never seen something like this for gunvolt and it's just amazing. I do have some gripes like how I don't really think copen is like that. He cares about his sister more than he hates adepts. He even says that he wants to leave to make sure she isn't affected by his actions. He even calls himself a demon. He's a big brother who just wants to help his baby sister and I feel like people give him way too much hate. Also I don't think Quinn was made to fully replace cyan just as an anchor for gunvolt. Again this whole thing is just marvelous. Finally seeing something like this for the gunvolt series is truly spectacular thank you so much for making this!
1:18:20 This caught me off guard so hard, it got me laughing. It works so well, and it's perfect.
I know. I was on the floor laughing.
A thing I'd like to point out about LAiX's version of Copen: They actually drop pretty much the entirety of his "Kill all adepts" motivation. He only kills the Falcons because they're standing in his way and neither party is willing to back down, and Demerzel because he has a very justifiable hatred for that individual in particular. He notably opts to spare Blade after their third confrontation, breaking her out of her guilt spiral and telling her to use the power she's been given to protect those she cares about, which is a far cry from how he was in the first two games.
Also, he never actually uses the term "Adept" at any point in LAiX, which is a neat detail.
Oh, and a bit of advice: I'd recommend holding off on making Part 2 of this retrospective until the end of the year at the very earliest. One of the updates to ASG3 is going to contain a fairly hefty amount of story and gameplay content, so it's probably sensible to wait until that's added to avoid making a retrospective that's outdated shortly after its release.
Sadly, I've had my schedule for the remainder of the year planned since a few days before ATEMS was announced, and it's very difficult for me to change it at this point.
If ATEMS changes my mind enough (and I'm already more positive than most towards GV3) I'll do a short video in Jan or Feb. I have some stuff going on that'll make long videos hard those months
@@NovaZoneTV Fair enough.
I love this series. Thanks for putting this all together.
You should probably wait on the Part 2 video until the Epilogue ATEMS comes out for GV3.
I also recommend this 🌹
Sadly, Epilogue ATEMS was announced shortly after I decided to take YT a little more seriously with a real schedule up through Dec and part of Feb. Moving something else in place of GV Part 2 would be a nightmare by the time this video went live.
If ATEMS changes my mind in anyway, I'll do a short video in January about it. I have some things going on Jan and Feb that makes long videos both months unrealistic, so a short one could go into January.
@@NovaZoneTV that's fair. Who knows if Epilogue ATEMS will save the dogshit ending of GV3
@@haydenz0 They actually just stealth changed the GV3 ending with the steam release (version 1.2.1), actually giving context to what's happening in the true ending.
Really weird way to go around it but it's still an improvement.
@@superkerel9 its a slight improvement that helps fit into the context of "gunvolt 3 is about gunvolt confronting his past and taking responsibility"
Very nice retrospective. I beat all the Gunvolt and IX games, and was always kinda really confused with the story. This definitely clarified so much. I also never knew about all the side stories, and am eager to give them a listen ^w^.
Inti has a weird habit of spreading bits of lore across promotional material instead of the base game, like websites, drama CDs, etc. In fact, you wouldn't even know how Copen managed to replicate Prevasion without reading a booklet from the OST.
My first exposure to the series mirrors yours. Going through GV1 felt like something of a slog, but then something clicked partway through GV2 and I've been hooked ever since. Inti definitely has a history of making great strides with their sequels. Mega Man Zero 2 and Mighty Gunvolt Burst are other examples of when their franchises discovered themselves in their second outings.
I recall that the moment when I finally "got" this franchise was when I was playing as Copen and realized that walking is for chumps, as you can literally bullit dash infinitely and never touch the ground with your feet so long as you can make it to a solid surface (be it the floor, walls or ceiling) by ricochetting off of the environment to refill the bullit you used to initiate the dash while using the hover strategically to bridge the gap between surfaces and enemies. Sure, you can walk, but it's so much more fun when you buy into the score-attack gimmick and make a game out of movement itself. I also recall that the Luminous Avenger iX attract mode really opened my eyes to the true scope of Copen's intended gameplay flow way more than the mandatory tutorials of both GV2 and LAiX1.
Finally
The day has come
I know nothing about Azure Striker but i just wanted a new Nova Video
holy shit you know you have a good ending to a game if the plot twist is literally making my gut wrench without even playing it
i just wish i didnt sleep in ix now
I have judged your voice and videos to be a good backgound music before going to sleep. Subscribed.
My interpretation on Copens ending is more complicated than what you gave. He still views as Adepts as something to be purged yes. However he doesnt kill Mytyl he doesnt want to, if he did I think Copen would. I think its implied that Copen has conflicts that hes trying to not think about. Of course its not heroic at all I wont call mainline Copen that of right now anywhere near the sort. However it does imply hesitation where the guy wasnt at all before.
Woah, you did that kh retrospective.
Very pleased with the consistent quality of your videos. I like these longer retrospective videos.
I feel like your issues with GV2's love triangle are lessened due to Gunvolt very specifically not knowing that Quinn or Joule are into him romantically at any point in the games. He sees Joule as something of a little sister and Quinn as a trusted friend, the whole love triangle is kind of one-way as GV's oblivious to it all.
There are slight implications that he got with Quinn after Gunvolt 2, given a conversation in Gunvolt 3 where BB refers to Quinn as Gunvolt's "Girlfriend" and he doesn't go out of his way to deny it, though this would only be after Gunvolt has willingly let Joule out of his life, and even then this didn't last long given the whole Primal Dragon situation.
I was 18 minutes in when i realized this was a 2 hour long video essay XD . I love it though and ill comeback to watch. I'm not that fanatic about Megaman but I love the world of Megaman. So I was really interested in a "off-shoot" franchise would bring. From first impressions, I think Gunvolt really nailed that cool asthetics they were going for. Super cybernetic, neon, and all that. Left me wanting to learn more. Cool video even if I haven't watched all of it yet.
I'm 36 and when I was growing up, I never had the chance to play megaman games in sequence because I couldn't afford it. When Gunvolt 1 dropped, I just happened to have a 3DS at the time and wanted to "start my journey" in the platform genre with that since I was late to the MM games. Glad I did, still love the franchise to this day
oh, I love this
I've really been wanting specifically for a long video essay about Gunvolt
39:01 I chuckled a bit at that.
This video got me to finally revisit the snes MMX games and then give Gunvolt a try.
Such a fun time. My first time hitting 1k kudos and the music kicking in was really special, and that really is a reward in itself for going for high scores and keeping the score going
I probably enjoy these more than any of the X games, and I'm really looking forward to getting to the games made for modern consoles instead of 3DS
Loved the video. Been playing GV since the start on 3DS and still play the games on occasion now. These games really do deserve some more love and recognition.
Oh wow GV is just shafted in all the games endings.
Great video on one of my favorite game series. I do want to note that the Dengeki Profiles also are a thing and gave insight to the backstories of GV 2 and LAiX 1 characters which shine some lights to how they became bad guys. This includes Asroc's family being burned to the ground by a racist, Ghauri losing his dream career and eventually friends due to adept hatred, Gibril's twisted home life, Teseo joining out of boredom, Rebellio being on death row because he was forced to work for terrorists to keep his loved ones safe, etc, some of which may or may not be hinted in the games at all. Shame we stopped getting them after LAiX 1, the 2nd game and 3 so far lacked them. Heck the first game had more than even 2 and iX1, with details on their septima powers, weaponry, and glaive.
LAIX 2 did at least show what would've happened if Zonda succeeded
I mean it is vague since iX 2 itself leaves it ambiguous as to how the apocalypse occurred. Some theories even believe the apocalypse is related more to GV 3 events.
@@thomasalvarenga2839 I see it as a future where Zonda was successful because for one, it'd be in line w/ the first and because I'd like to think that if Zonda won, she'd accidentally kill off of everyone during her conquest for Adept liberty and then end herself out of guilt. One thing that points to this being a GV2 bad future are Mother and Creator as both of them are very clearly the GV2 versions of Copen and Lola as shown by certain attacks they use.
Wait if the dengeki profiles give light to the backstories where can I find them
@@gengargamer5657 thanks!
bit late to the party here, but it feels genuinely really good to have such an in-depth video on a series like this despite so much of it flying under the radar. appreciate this vid a lot and i'm looking forward to the iX2 and GV3 one, especially with how divisive they are (even if i personally love both despite knowing they have somewhat more major flaws)
Finally a retrospective that has respect for the series and it's supplementary material *Cough* The KHC *Cough*
That's rude, but I can't say it's entirely undeserved either (though I will say I would've preffered proper criticism over being trash talked on another persons really ambitious and well made video that has nothing to do with that other one)
Hey, I have not seen your video or know your sentiments (I know it exists obviously because I'll check my SEO) but sorry that comment happened. Obviously, it is not 100% in my control for what people comment, but I'll try to condone it more often in the future. I can promise I have never in the past mentioned other people's content in a negative light in one of my videos that would provoke that behavior.
I'll watch more closely for later comments though.
@@NovaZoneTV I appreciate the sentiment. In other news, your video is great. It's always refreshing to see opinions that differ from ones own 👍
This video, the retrospective about this franchise inti creates has brought is a solid piece, you consumed most of the content there was to piece the narrative or interactions together, and it’s really something to respect a lot, you seriously did a great job here.
And in Luminous Avenger iX I had understood that copen/Acura didn’t hate (like in GV1&2) séptima holders, that in this post-apocalyptic world there was no time to commit to hatred, and he event felt bad taking down some of these adepts.
This is a great video! Love the Gunvolt games, ASG2 and iX 1 were so damn amazing, about to go watch your part 2 now
Thank your for bringing up this game.
Played Gunvolt 2 on my old 3DS way too long and loved every second of it.
Probably my all time favourite in all of gaming
Great video overall,i really enjoyed it despite the fact that there were some points i disagreed with(which is pretty normal since we all have our own opinions after all),but there are some things I need to clarify regarding Copen's epilogue in GV2 and about the LaiX 1's story
Copen's epilogue in GV2 doesn't serve as an conclusion to his arc but rather as a sign of a new beginning. Copen's entire worldview was shattered by the realization that the thing he loved the most,his sister,was actually an adept all along. He sees himself as an monster and decided to leave and saying he will slay all adepts,but in his mind he wonders about Mytil and what to do with her and he wonders if what he is doing is actually really the right thing. This doubt symbolizing how he is capable of changing and becoming a better person. Sadly because of the nature of gv3 his main character arc will not be able to finish and he will stay at that cliffhanger forever.
Laix1 is personally my favorite GV game because of mostly the gameplay but also because of the Copen and Asimov's fight and also what it represents thematically for the 2 characters and how they are in the opposite sides of the spectrum from GV1.
In GV1 Asimov was a hero,a symbol of hope for the oppressed adepts,a warrior who fought for their rights,but beneath it was he was actually a heartless man lead by hatred thing that is firstly hinted at because of the fact the he wanted to kill Joule at the beginning of the game and was completely revealed at the ending when he killed GV and Joule for not sharing his ideals and decided to challenge them. As time went by Asimov started a new plan to slaughter the normal humans and he got consumed by his hatred and thus the hero known as Asimov died and the monster known as Demerzel was born. When the time was right and normal humans became the minority he started his hatred fueled plan and tried to wipe out the Minos population becoming a monster far bigger than the humans he hated and did started to not even care about his fellow adepts that he used to protect turning Mytil into a abomination and sending adepts like the falcons to their death against an enemy they are not able to defeat
Copen in GV1 was also fueled by hatred,but unlike Asimov he didn't hid it at all and was completely honest about it,he was a bloody avenger committed to annihilation. By the time of LaiX 1 proper his character arc is already finished,unlike Asimov who got consumed by his hatred Copen grew past it and became softer and calmer,Copen "the adept slayer" died and Copen "the luminous avenger" was born. From a symbol of aggression,violence and fear for adepts he became a symbol of hope for the now oppressed Minos a shinning warrior and their last hope. This changes is also clear in how he interacts with the adepts he has to fight,he doesn't show the same hatred of malice but rather coldly with indiference his old hatred being redirected to the one truly behind all of this madness and the monster who took everything from him.
And thus the final battle of LaiX 1 is more than just an cool twist,but a fight between a fallen hero and a redeemed monster.
Thank you for the comment. You and a few other commenters have made me see how much and why people love iX's story. It still didn't resonate with me as much as GV1&2, but I have written a little correction bit during the iX2 portion of my next video.
Watching this just in time for the release of GV3 on steam. 2 hours is quite a bit more than i expected for a series like this, but being only 13 minutes in I can tell this is gonna be an amazing retrospective
Aw, you didn't mention the other reasons for Copen and GV being the White Tiger and Blue Dragon respectivelly. Both are based on the four cardinal guardian beasts of Kyoto (that also exists on China). Gunvolt is Seiryuu, the Azure Dragon from the East, while Copen is Byakko, the White Tiger from the West, while Xiao (yes he makes part of it) is Genbu, the Black Turtle from the North and Zed from GV3 is based on Suzaku, the Vermilion Bird from the South. There's also a fifth beast, which is Kirin, the Golden Dragon from the Center and it's counterpart in the Gunvolt Series is, surprise: Kirin from GV3.
This was really cool. Thank you for giving me the last push to go into this series and also bringing some very needed attention to the Drama CDs and other stuff outside the games themselves.
It's a very interesting franchise to say the least, and having the story be presented not only in-game, but in other medias is not something seen very much on the market, or at least not as easily-digestible (I know some games have entire books as optional lore, but that's a bit excessive imo). Plus the games themselves are very fun to play and go fast.
I haven’t played ix 2 or gv3 yet but ix 1 is one of my favourite platformers ever. The improvements on the bullit system felt great and the risk vs reward from darkness trigger was fantastic
Not only is this video well researched, but this must've been such an undertaking in which the end result is worth it. A nice touch is that you talked about the Drama CDS which while they may be side material still do flesh out the Seven and the Sumeragi's characters somewhat. Tbh apart from the overly clingy Joule, I didn't really have much of an issue with GV2's story. Fantastic video.
Sorry to comment twice, but...I think you miss the mark on iX's messaging pretty badly.
The adepts in iX aren't evil at all. Rebellio, Stella, and Bakto are all fighting because Sumeragi's got some kind leverage over them, Dystnine fights to avenge Stella, and Isola only fights when cornered. Only Crimm and Demerzel himself are actual evil bastards. Additionally, adepts everywhere are being influenced by the Butterfly Effect to ignore minos and the genocide being committed against them. Even in the society built by adepts, for adepts, they still get used and abused by the totalitarian regime running the show and the megalomaniac behind it at all. That's the whole point of the narrative; adepts aren't evil, individuals are. Copen was not right.
And speaking of Copen, the talk about Mytyl's fate and the rage-filled final battle only deepening his hatred of adepts isn't right either. Copen's much, much more mellow about adepts in this game than GV1 or 2, nothing like the hate-filled serial killer present in those. The Copen of the mainline games would never have spared Blade. It's not exactly clear what's brought this change, but it's some pretty serious, albeit understated character growth on his part, and it should get the attention it deserves.
I'd like to point out that iX takes place in an alternate timeline where Azimov killed GV and Joule, so Gunvolt 2 never took place in iX's timeline.
EDIT: Er, I just realized that I misread your comment and you did NOT claim that iX follows GV2. Oops. I'll leave the comment up just in case, though.
Derp. :P
EDIT EDIT: DEEEEERRRRRP. Yeah it gets brought up in the video. Imma dum dum.
This video was awesome!
I usually tend to not watch gv related videos since they tend to either miss the point of the games or just be extremely opinionated. But i gotta say you summed up the games very very well!
(my only gripe is that lola wasnt talked about enough).
Youre one of the first people ive seen that didnt say the story of gv2 was a hot mess lol
Im very excited to see your opinions on ix2 and gv3 since the community is very split on them.
I for one thought ix2 was great gameplay wise but the story couldve been better, and gv3 was godly.
I cant wait for the gon baku baku baku baku adventure retrospective!
Thank you! I try my best to make sure my opinions are justified when I do long videos, and if I don't feel I can I make my biases clear.
Don't worry, I'm gonna have a section dedicated to music in part 2 so Lola will get some talk there.
Unironically, Gon has a really good track record for manga based video games.
Honestly this has been some great food for thought with this series. Generally I would see people skim by some things and only give a passing notice to one thing or another in terms of most things this series had to offer so it's pretty refreshing to hear a pretty nuianced stance on this series that isn't so throwaway or typical. I'll definitely be interested in hearing your take on the latter 2 game even if it's a fair ways off with all the content still to come for GV3. It will definitely be interesting to hear some discussion of where things will go after this and next year.
Subscribed.
Thank you so much for this video. I just recently discovered the GV series when I ran across LAiX in one of those massive sales and thought it looked bad ass from the trailer and I grabbed the digital version for like $5. Didn't know at the time it was part of an existing franchise. This is a great primer on the series.
D@mn, I never knew about the images in the Demerzel Phase 2 fight. That just makes that fight even more raw!
IT'S SO QUCIK! I played that boss so many times, and only once I reviewed footage for the script did I notice it!
@@NovaZoneTV It's such an awesome detail! Especially because of the image of Mytyl and her Butterfly Effect self!
I had nooooo idea this series went this hard.
Hey I just wanted to say good job on the video! I found this video randomly in my feed and you got yourself another subscriber! Keep up the good work! I might just go check out the series thanks to you
man do I really wanna get into those games now. Gonna grab them on steam when there's a sale unless picking another version is more recommended. Was a really good watch, thank you!
I heard GV1&2 have some resolution hiccups on Steam, but it could be exxaggerated. Look it up a little first.
Gridill's blood bullets are in my opinion the best weapon in GV2 because when you use it locked on you get a portion of HP back and the final hit causes each enemy to drop health fills.
Also I love how GV2 uses the microphone of the 3ds
I am surprised that for the PC version of gv2
THEY ACTUALLY ADDED THE KARAOKE THING BACK IN, it's disabled if the game doesn't detect a microphone but it's still super neat
Good stuff, its not often that we get these kinds of videos
Gunvolt was my first game of its genre that I played, and I really ended up liking it, the difficulty coming from maintaining score allowed me to take my time and learn the systems and feel of the game and I really fell in love with the fast gameplay that both GV and later Copen provided. I played the games (excluding Luminous Avengers and 3) at 14 and 17 so I was unabashedly into anime at the time to really get into the stories, but I hadnt really touched the games since then but this video reminded me of how much I really grew to love the series and I honestly wish I had opted to play through the first IX game on my own first, because that ending sequence was just wow, I knew about the AU setting already but there were so many other things to it.
Really great video, also in the 3DS version of GV1 you can press X to toggle on and off the dialogue and its boxes, and for GV2 you can tap the toggle on the bottom screen (There may be other ways to toggle it, I only checked very briefly)
Maverick Hunter was created by Retro Studio, you know. The guys that created the Metroid Prime series. And also the X armor is designed by Adi Granov, you know. The guy that designed the Iron Man suit. So maaaaybe the game gonna be good but Capcom had to cancelled it because it's a new Megaman game
For me, it's an issue of a concept that doesn't fit the Megaman brand, especially when MM9&10 were working to rebuild it (if they were successful or not is another topic).
It worked for Metroid because even on NES it was dark. Sure, MMX had dark themes to it, but it still had colorful characters and sceneries. The game could've even played okay, but conceptually I can't see it matching up next to any previous Mega Man incarnation. Like how dmc (2013) has good combat, but is very dissonant from Devil May Cry's identity.
The year it was in development also would've just been another piece to the bucket of "edgy reimaginings of Japanese series". Lords of Shadow, dmc, bomberman act zero, if there was a time for it, 2009-2013 would not have been it. I can definitely see why it was never meant to be shown off.
it couldve been fun but x being a hardened operator that does sick glory kill executions is way too big of a departure from what he's supposed to be like
"Things you should never think about before you even have a finished product."
Meanwhile; *Pokemon.*
if I had a quarter for every time Inti Creates made a spinoff series where you play as the red rival character of a game franchise, I would have 50 cents, which isn't much but it's weird that it happened twice
p.s. GIVE RAY HER OWN GAME INAFUNE YOU HACK
75 cents.
- Zero
- Copen
- Zangetsu
Hey I cant watch beyond half of it because I havent gotten around playing GB2 yet but all of my support for making this video! Gunbolt deserves way more attention by the demoralized ex megaman fans its so good!!
Well damn. You've convinced me. Now I need to buy the GunVolt games.
So, I'm going to be honest here, I tried to play Gunvolt 1 and just really wasn't getting into it; I felt like I was missing something even though I felt like I was playing the game exactly how I felt the game wanted me to play. I'm now 50 minutes into the video and I think you've convinced me to give it another shot. I wanted to try and avoid spoilers, but I came into this thinking I wasn't going to play the rest of the game(s) and I'll come back to watch the rest of the video later. The only thing I'm still iffy about is having the story split across multiple mediums as I would prefer to just play the games to get the full picture.
Its volting time
i remember being a little shitstain kid, who downloaded this demo like 5 times to play it on my way to school for pretty much my whole sophomore year
Oh wow, out of curiosity, how long did it take you to make this video? Written and Edited 2 hours plus? That sounds like it must have taken a lloooottt
I don't track my exact hours, especially because writing was usually during breaks at work, but my first Gunvolt clip is dated June 13th. I had a lot going on in my life all summer though. So there were some weeks where I went full throttle, and others where I maybe wrote 1 sentence.
It’s of kind funny how the original gunvolt and boss desgins look like a fighting game cast for something like blazblue or guilty gear which inti creates should do make their own fighting game
I checked out GV1 while the eShop had a free 3DS demo, and I adored the three levels you could play. (I remember the intro stage and fighting Daytona, but I forget who the other boss was. I think it was Merak...) Now seeing how the rest of the franchise has been playing out in the background, GOD have I been missing out. The story of GV2 sounds fascinating (despite the head-tilting design changes they did to Zanda, just keep her as a scorpion. Ever heard of the fable "The Scorpion and the Frog?") and Copen's boardline obsessive prejudice against Adepts is definitely where you would think a Mega Man anti-hero would generally be thinking. Especially considering his backstory, Christ on a bike, get this boy a therapist.
LAiX also just looks fantastic. Not only do all the visual FX looks stunning and flashy, but the villain designs are just (mwah) remarkable. Love me some Astrology designs. Libra, Cancer, Virgo, give me the full set of 12 and I am ANYBODY'S. Might just check out the Striker Pack, and maybe LAiX if I enjoy Copen's gameplay style in GV2.
i finished gunvolt 1 in 3ds , chef kiss this game , im busy playing others games but i hope to return and buy the collection so i can get the full experience
Gunvolt is basically
Cyberpunk Platformer
Excellent video.
That it. This video was excellent. :D
Less than 10 minuets in and you've used a Final Fantasy sound effect, a clone trooper helmet, and the Lola skill issue GIF everyone in the Cafe loves. That's how you know you're in for a good video!
(Now pretend I got this comment out yesterday like I said I was going to, I'm sry. -Plz put the gun away.-)
Really gotta compliment your editing in general, with the rest of the video. Put together very well in every respect. I did have a couple notes I wanted to make here. They're both kinda minor things, but I figured it didn't hurt to bring them up.
-Inafune told the GV1 team to chop grounded dashes costing EP for one thing, that was kinda big. (What would the timeline where that wasn't the case have looked like, I wonder? Score attack routing would've been... interesting, for one certain thing.)
-Nitpicky, perhaps, but you can actually recharge you EP through double tapping down when at 0 percent. There's a very precise point where you're at zero but not overheated, that's when.
Greatly looking forward to part 2
I did not have fun during boss battles but i liked the stages. After playing GV1, i felt old, and tired, and like i didnt belong
Correction for Luminous Avenger iX. Copen would be a cyborg since he converted his own body into a machine. The only way he would be an android is if he created a pure robot body and transferred his consciousness into the robot body rather than have his organic body converted into a robotic one.
Awesome video!!! Looking forward on your next one going over the next two games. I really appreciate how in depth you went into talking about the story and the side material. Many just write off the story as not being on the level of huge game series like the x and zero series, but this is a relatively young series, plus, while it admittedly isn't as huge or deep as bigger games, it doesn't need to be, and does exactly what it wants and needs with what it has. Yeah, people do have a point when complaining about having important info stuffed into non-mainline content, but the side material is mostly just short stories designed to expand on certain characters and plot points, and aren't really necessarily to enjoy the games, and are just there for those that want to go the extra mile like me, so there really isn't a point in getting too bent over it. But there are a few things I had some problems with. First, you kinda written off copen as a rage fueled racist monster, and while he is basically that for the forst game and most of the second game, in his playthrough, he relents on trying to kill gunvolt and when he leaves his sister and nori to go alone, while he outwardly expresses that nothing has changed, inwardly he starts to question if he's really on the right path, as the road he's currently walking will eventually lead him to pointing his gun at mytyl if he keeps going, making him question himself. In LAIX, he's much different from before. Here, he no longer expresses any hate towards adepts (he barely even brings up the term at all!) Viewing them with a cold indifference, and only expressing hate at sumeragi and demerzel for being responsible for the butterfly effect, and the current state of the world. He's much calmer now, asks each of the falcons to step aside so that they don't have to fight, and even spares blade and encourages her to use her power to defend those she cares about. The copen we see here no longer is filled with fear and hate for adepts, and is only seeking to find the butterfly effect so that he can grant mytyl peace, hunt down those that did this to her, and put an end to the pointless struggle that sumeragi is purposely forcing through the butterfly effect that's poisoning the world that he and those close to him are living in. As for the adepts themselves, while I admit they don't have as much going for them as previous enemies, there's more to them than you said in the video. Rebellio was an ordinary person till an anti-sumeragi organization kidnapped his family and forced him to fight against sumeragi in order to protect his family. After said organization gets destroyed, he's put on death row, but is offered a spot as a falcon to avoid the death penalty and see his family again. Stella was a business woman forced to be a falcon in order to protect dystine, the second robot to develop a septima, (lola/roro was the first) and who would've been confiscated by sumeragi and torn apart for research if she didn't step in to defend him. This is why dystine was so loyal to her, and why he was so enraged at her death. None of the adepts really seem to have anything against copen or even the minos, (mostly being indifferent to the conflict like copen is to adepts here) but are being forced to fight, by sumeragi, showing how far sumeragi is willing to go in this crusade of theirs. The dialouge subtly suggests that the current minos genocide only started recently, and that humanity and adepts were getting along swimmingly even after the vast majority of society became adepts until sumeragi suddenly turned against the minos, with them using the butterfly effect to subtly brainwash the public and prevent any resistance from adepts by making them simply not care enough for the minos to try and stop the clearly unethical slaughter happening. Meaning that this WHOLE SITUATION is only happening because Demerzel/asimov can't let go of the past, and is committing worldwide genocide for an ideal that was rendered pointless and obsolete by the people of the world moving past the old conflicts, using evolution as a justification when he really is just too stubborn and too unhinged to be able to see peace when it was RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. (Granted, this scenario is only IMPLIED, not outright stated anywhere, and has to be pieced together, but I feel that it goes in line with how conflicts will eventually be resolved, but there will always be people unable or unwilling to let go of their worldviews and try to force these kinds of things back into existence.)
Hey, thanks for enjoying and leaving the comment. I love receiving long, respectful comments like this.
I did read all of it and mostly agree. Enough where I'll put a mention of it into Part 2, since I actually enjoy being corrected, and don't get too many chances to correct myself when I'm wrong in videos. Part of that stuff from iX I did know, I just didn't really think it that important. My overall sentiment that iX has a weaker story than GV1&2 still stands, but I probably should've been less harsh. Because like you said, a lot of that information isn't told well in GV media. I think giving Rebellio or Stella an audio drama would've helped alleviate that.
Copen in GV2 I get what you mean. It's very obvious that he's conflicted about it, but since he goes forth with his previous ideals, it makes him still come off as a prejudiced human stuck within the status quo he feels the need to abide by. A story I like, but I can't agree with his ideals.
@@NovaZoneTV I'll admit, ix does have a weaker story compared to the mainline games, I just wanted to make it clear that there was more to it than what you made it sound like.
I really like the Flash Field, it looks great.
Wow! I'm not the only one who called those gem things the Chaos emeralds!
27:22 Ohhhh so that's what unlocked the true ending.
I literally had no idea lmao.
1:26 Jumpscare? Early Dimpsnic was amazing.
Im brand new to this series, had the game for a while but never understood the gist as to how to play it or how deep the series will go
Now, i can finally play is, and its actually a load of fun. After i beat gunvolt 1, i plan on following the series ladder
i`ll give you a suscription for your dedication, not everyone dares to make a 2hr video of quality
I played gunvolt striker pack on 3ds before knowing what the series was and the final boss for 2 was so hype to me when I had to sing lumines song
Never did complete IX. That ending twist was very cool. Sad that I had to find out via a video, but who knows when I would get back to IX. I get easily distracted and am not always in the mood to play a game.
Also, where did you come by all that tasteful official art?
4:35 Twitch from Reploid REVO said it's because Rock/Mega Man is a good role model.
Well, i know Azure Striker Gunvolt come from a recommended video on UA-cam channel name as Gellot. After watching this another years again he uploaded ASG 2 and im hyped so much even attracted with some cultured thumbnail.
Also LAIX 1 are the best spinoff as Gunvolt Chronicles as how dark this story.
1:58:50 I understand the gripe but I do think you may have overlooked the fact that Luminous Avenger is suppose to be Acura/Copen's story. Copen is an idealist and an extremist and is willing to go to lengths that most humans wont to achieve his goals. Inti Creates likely wanted to emphasize the dystopian nature and extreme difference between the two timelines. Showcasing that in Acura's Luminous Avenger timeline; things are more extreme and the difference between Adepts and Humans is more vast. They don't like each other, never got close to each other and, ultimately, hate each other
Really enjoyed this video, would love to see your take on Inti's Dragon Marked For Death games as well.
DMfD depends on getting my friends down for it. It's cleaely designed for multiplayer and I don't think a video about it in single player would do it justice.
Great video, take my sub sir.
Some guy: "What was your first Copen game?"
Me: "Blaster Master Zero 2."
I'm not joking.
What does that even mean?
Another game developed by Inti Creates, a sequel to Blaster Master Zero, Copen was a DLC character for the game.
Great video, can't wait for second part.
I think it's pronounce "mainos" instead of "minos" u can check the ix trailers, tho ur not going to use that word much for ix2 lol
Oh, yeah I guess you're right. I went with calling it "Minos" since it made the most sense to me. But I guess that pronounciation would be closer to the words for "minor" or "minority".
1:44:09 : funny how I'm barely finding out about this Lola thing they planned AFTER I've already begun working on alt Lola outfits for every EX Weapon in the entire series
Hey if you wanna another action platformer with electric powers that's a spiritual successor to a blue platformer thats heavily skill based, might I suggest the Spark The Electric series all available on Steam?
I've always found it funny how well you can call Mega Man and Sonic close in concept, and not once had I put that together about GV and Spark. Let's get Ian to write that crossover comic.
Serious though, I have thought about Spark for a while. Spark 1 & 2 always looked alright to me, but Spark 3 seems amazing for such a small team. I might try it sometime next year, unless Frontier leaves me in a really big Sonic kick.
37:58 ah yes a massive cod piece how classical
IX is the roman numeral for 9, X for 10.
Not sure if there's any relation, just something that came to my mind during the ix portion of the video.
You just earned Like and Subscribe for mentioning Annihilation! One sitting watching video- yeah Great Work!
As someone who had Okonomiyaki when I was in Kyoto & Hiroshima, I can attest that it's good.
Excellent video! It’s always great to hear more people talk about Gunvolt. Although there’s some things that I think are important to talk about iX2 (and to some extent GV3) next time.
iX2 seemed to have a lot stacked against it over the course of its development as it was developed by a small B team (if you look in the credits, the people who did iX1/GV2 are not listed in iX2 and instead has mostly new names) on a new engine, there’s also a matter of the collab deals (particularly the Cogen collab which had both games release on the same day) which meant the games release date couldn’t budge at all. One last thing is that it seems Inti was sorta spreading themselves thin as there was also a gal*gun dp port for switch and GV3 (which was a all hands on deck project) being developed at the same time as iX2. The timing of iX2’s release + the collab deals/dlc present in and out of the game makes it seem like iX2 was thrown together to fund all the dlc and updates they wanted to do for GV3 (especially since all of the update expansions are free where similar content was paid dlc in GV2). Keep in mind this doesn’t excuse iX2’s problems but I feel it’s important to keep in mind when discussing that game.
Also I highly recommend checking out BKBrent’s UA-cam channel for iX2 tech and X rank vids, they’re very high quality.
Oh I totes agree. iX2/GV3's development is so much more zigzaggy than the previous games. I blocked off specific research time just to make sure I could capture a reasonable amount of it for the next video.
Also, Blaster Master Zero 3 released in mid-21, which would've cut into part of GV3/iX2's development. So they were SUPER thin.
@@NovaZoneTV oh yeah BMZ3 as well (tbh Inti having their hands full was probably the reason that game never got any DLC unlike the previous titles). If I can say something about iX2, it really feels like the team was just beginning to get a feel for what they wanted Copen’s new gameplay to be, but then one of the higher ups was like “the game ships in 4 months, wrap it up” and the team had to polish up what they had as quickly as possible. Bear in mind for all its faults I still think iX2 is a great game (my personal 2nd favorite in the series behind GV2) but it the whole thing really screams… unfinished.
Babe wake up new gunvolt just dropped
15:15 minutes in
and I am interested to know if he's gonna talk about the changes done to the Original Gunvolt release
( since it had some weird changes in the dialogue, that were fixed in an update on 3DS, and keep on recent releases )
:( once again I'm reminded that Mega is still stuck on the moon.
So, the story is basically X-Men but Japanese?
this game looks kinda awesome! I wonder why I never heard of it before🤔
You either forgot or overlooked that Gibril weapons heals Copen after hitting an enemy.
So while it's forward projectile fuction is already taken by other weapons I found myself using it a lot in a pinch when I couldn't use the main Healing ability.
No fucking idea how or when to use Ghauri's weapon outside of needing it to break certain blocks.
Overlooked. By the time I was experimenting with Gibril's weapon, I had already gotten deep into score attacking. So anytime I took major damage was a level reset. Which meant I didn't notice until someone else brought it up in comments.
@@NovaZoneTV That's fair. Plus once you get good at the game it becomes less useful anyways. XD
So there is not a lot of incentive to use it once you know what you are doing and getting them S ranks.
39:51 that’s a GAZILLIONAIRE Building Project
O_o
XD
1:21:14 oof I have PTSD of this moment in GV2. The Mike on my 3DS was messed up and I had to *LOUDLY* perform karaoke for 15 minutes to finally move forward in the fight. My family thought I had gone insane xD