Azure Striker Gunvolt / YMMV

This is the YMMV for the first mainline game.

Alternative Character Interpretation:
- What if the Sumeragi group is actually a Necessarily Evil, but QUILL were Evil All Along? We are seeing things through QUILL's view after all, and they would obviously paint themselves on a good light. The worst things we see from Sumeragi are its numerous shady experiments on Adepts, but they generally aren't full-blown hostile to them and even allow them to integrate into society as long as they don't pose a threat and (in the case of Adepts with stronger septimal powers) on the condition that they are to accept Glaives that suppress their Septima. On the other hand, Gunvolt taking down all of their strongest fighters quickly becomes an invitation to disaster. It really only proves that Nova was right multiple times across, and that the Adepts WILL go out of control if something doesn't exist to restrain them.
- While the what-if spinoff makes no ambiguity that Asimov's plans will result in disastrous consequences if he manages to enact it, how was he at the get-go? He's portrayed as a Big Good for Gunvolt and seems like a Well-Intentioned Extremist when his true color shows, but it's because we're playing as Gunvolt who viewed him as a paragon (well, until The Reveal). Was he a power-hungry psychopath from the beginning who merely used everyone to satiate his own ego? Did he genuinely wanted to stop the Adept persecutions but Jumped Off The Slippery Slope big time? Did he just had Gunvolt fight Sumeragi for the sake of revenge against what they did to him? And did he genuinely care for Gunvolt and his other comrades until he went off the deep end, or he merely treated them as pawns to further his own goals?
Breather Boss:
- Stratos. His attacks are slow and heavily telegraphed, so anyone who's seen them once can easily figure out what he's going to do, and his insect swarms are easily dispatched with the Flashfield. Nemesis Fang might be a One-Hit Kill, but it takes forever to charge up, and dealing enough damage to his "mouths" cancels the OHKO entirely. Better still, he's especially easy to defeat without damage. His initial attack where he comes towards you as a mouth seems to be especially vulnerable, a combination of Septimal Surge and Luxcalibur taking him out in one hit.
- Carrera. While his Quasar Collapse Limit Break is a pain to deal with, the rest of his attacks are fairly simplistic, predictable, and easy enough to avoid.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Let's face it; out of the numerous weapons you collect throughout the game, you'll only ever use Cerberus, Naga, and Vasuki. Cerberus is both your starting weapon and has very fast autofire, Naga can tag five enemies and has piercing properties, and Vasuki auto-tags up to four targets onscreen. Everything else has an extremely narrow niche to the point where their use is highly limited to all but a handful of sections in the game. The Mizuchi in particular is effectively useless except for revealing Easter Eggs!
Ensemble Dark Horse: Elise is the most popular of the Seven Swordsmen due to her Dark and Troubled Past and the fact you have no choice but to kill her. Plenty of fans had Sympathy for the Devil in spades, at least when they weren't raging during her boss battle. She was even voted 1st for the featured spot in the Gunvolt Halloween poster◊.
Goddamn Bats: Anything that attacks GV quickly, like the Sentry Units that rise out from the ground or the Wheel Drones that run at him from the side of the screen. These are really annoying to deal with by virtue of the player rarely being able to react to their appearance in time, much less kill them before taking a hit.
Harsher in Hindsight: A huge complaint about the first game used to be the cut dialogue in the 3DS version. Many players questioned the omission of most of the Joule Chats in particular. This in light of the ending of the second game, where Mytyl apparently loses all memories of the time she, as Joule, spent with GV. Talk about rubbing salt in the wound...
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In one of the conversations of Gunvolt and Joule, after discovering Joule was playing Gal*Gun she got from Zeno, she was enjoying the game, to Gunvolt's surprise, and was hoping it would get a sequel. Cue September 19, 2017...
- At the beginning of the first stage, Asimov—the Big Good—guides Gunvolt on how to use his lightning septima, despite not having the powers himself. This is foreshadowing that he does have lightning septima, and is in fact an Evil Counterpart of Gunvolt. A very similar plot point would later be done throughout the first season of The Flash (2014), in particular the climax of the episode Tricksters, where the supposed non-powered Big Good remotely guides Barry on how to use his powers despite the team leader supposedly not having any themselves , in effect revealing they're secretly an Evil Counterpart.
It's Easy, So It Sucks!:
- A common complaint is that the Prevasion mechanic and Joule's Anthem make it practically impossible to die. Of course, these complaints no longer apply when you're trying to get a high rank, as Prevasion reduces your Kudos to zero and the Anthem massively hurts your rank. Add to that the fact that your bonus score is only added in at checkpoints or when you use a special attack, which also resets the multiplier. Which means that you can't use either if you want to maximize your score. Simply completing a level is child's play, but getting top ranks will take absolutely everything you can muster. Even then, it's common for more hardcore players to turn off Prevasion in both games as a Self-Imposed Challenge. The Striker Pack uses the Kudos system from GV 2, which is designed for a much harder game, and makes it so it's terribly easy to never lose any Kudos.
- Some of the additional modes in the Steam version of the game were designed to make the game more difficult, and the vast majority of them either disable prevasion (Speedrun Mode) or give you a heavy penalty for using it (Hard Mode starts you out with no pendant, and if you do make one in the shop using prevasion has the same effect as if you were hit by a Power Nullifier attack, which also has a longer lasting effect in Hard Mode).
Magnificent Bastard:
- Merak, "The Slothful Conjurer", is one of Sumeragi's seven Swordsmen, representing the Deadly Sin of Sloth. Touted for his brilliant mind, he is put in charge of the subaquatic base, which is infiltrated by GV to put a stop to his alleged plans to build an armed submarine. Using his Wormhole Septima, he repeatedly disorients the hero, making traversing the stage trickier than it would be otherwise, and allows the base to flood, still with his men inside, so that GV would drown, surrounded in his biggest weakness. Later showing up after his death and eventual revival, he kidnaps Joule and makes a swift exit, being defeated twice by GV but putting up a good fight each time. A lazy and entertainingly droll genius with the brains to outwit even the likes of Teseo, it is no wonder that Merak is one of Nova's favorites.
- Asimov is the second Azure Striker and the leader of the SHEEPS team. Acting as a kindly, charismatic and somewhat quirky mentor and father figure to GV, having taught him how to use his Septima in the past, Asimov assists GV in his missions as he takes down Sumeragi's Swordsmen one by one. Once their leader, Nova, is defeated, Asimov reveals that he was manipulating GV all along, and that he really wishes to take over Sumeragi, kill off humanity, and create a world for Adepts, as one who has suffered greatly under the horrors of Project Gunvolt. He wishes for GV and Joule to rule as the king and queen of his Adept world, but defeated Copen and took his gun in preparation for GV opposing him. Almost killing him with ease when he does, Asimov is stopped by a revived and empowered GV, but not without giving his surrogate son the fight of his life. As he dies, Asimov genuinely commends GV's strength, before warning him that Adepts and humans will continue to fight, and he will be caught in the crossfire, a prediction that would soon come to pass.
Memetic Mutation:
- Whatever Merak said (at least in the 8-4 translation) gets memetic easily due to his snarky and apathetic attitude.
- Quite a few have joked about how the CG with Gunvolt cradling the dead Joule is a reference to another meme in Mega Man X4, specifically Zero's infamous "WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOR??" scene. Neither Zero nor Gunvolt get to keep the one they loved...
Moral Event Horizon:
- Asimov crosses it in the true ending, where he reveals his intention to raise an army of Adepts and wipe out the human race. He also kills Gunvolt and Joule when they refused to join him. Fortunately, they get better in the True Ending.
- Cut dialogue (and added in Steam release) reveals that Merak intentionally floods his base, along with his own mooks inside, so that he can wipe off Gunvolt. Because it's easier that way. In the Lazy Kingdom Drama CD, he's also known for capturing Elise and send her to be experimented upon by Sumeragi, not even bothering to report her to the top brass.
Most Wonderful Sound: Anytime you hear any vocal track fire up, it indicates something good has happened.
Narm:
- The infamous 3DS translation prominently featured a ton of "fake" swearing, which was essentially real swearing but with all the swear words censored with fictional equivalents that didn't even try to hide the words they were based on. It sounds really dumb and was a very inelegant way to keep the rating down. The Steam translation and later games cut out the fake swearing entirely, essentially retconning their use.
- The same translation also replaced Zonda's "xe" and "xem" and used "they" and "them" instead.
Nightmare Fuel:
- The Stratacombs.
  - The stage starts out tame (it takes place outside the warehouse guarded by a turret, a single mook, and two shutters) but the atmosphere goes to a dark turn once you go inside. It's a pitch black underground facility, and there's not a single soul in sight except for the mechs stationed there, and your only source of light is a Flashfield or a drone that provides light if zapped. But once you open the emergency lights, you'll immediately be greeted by a zombie who proceeds to jump on you.^note The kicker? These are scientists and guards who were killed by Elise in their attempts to control her, and contrary to Gunvolt's claims, they are not bred in a lab.
  - Note that the enemies in this stage, the zombies have a genuinely intimidating and scary design compared to the Screamers fought in the sequel, with glowing red eyes and lines (implied to be their blood), and very sharp fangs. There are also dangling variants where if you shoot down the strings they're attached to, their bodies will be torn apart by its impact and splatter a goo like substance that obscure the screen.
- This BGM Despair is a very unsettling theme that plays during particularly dire and grim situations, the scare chord accompanying during the scene doesn't help either.
Play the Game, Skip the Story: Players who look beyond the surface might find that there's actually a somewhat intricate plot and setting to the Gunvolt series. Everyone else? They're here to run, gun, and beat up people with cool powers.
Polished Port: The Nintendo Switch port of Azure Striker Gunvolt (and its sequel) included in its version of the Striker Pack is the definitive version of the game, as it backports several gameplay improvements from its sequel back into the first game, as well as all bundling the extras the Steam version has, including support for Christmas Mode. It also offers a full HD 60 FPS experience compared to their previous releases with high-resolution cutscenes, dialogue portraits, and special attack cut-ins. It was later ported the PlayStation 4 (with an extra song for Lumen) and later the Xbox One with similar enhancements from the Switch version.
Porting Disaster: Initially the Steam port of the game released in a state where the game appears to be an emulation of the 3DS version rather than a conversion made for single screen displays, right down to even using a dual screen layout◊ with lots of unused screen space and a clickable bottom screen. Many players also reported bugs and poor frame-pacing issues caused by the game's own V-sync implementation. Despite the Steam version eventually being updated to be somewhat comparable to the Switch version and its console ports, a major problem that has yet to be addressed is the game's poorly implemented Steam DRM, which prevents the game from being playable without a constant internet connection even when using Steam's Offline Mode. The September 17, 2020 patch also manages to render the game's Speedrun Mode unplayable due to a "Memory Shortage" error. Other issues include the game still using the Nintendo-like menu configuration despite being on PC and not having the option to properly reverse the Confirm and Cancel buttons like in some of their other PC ports, the game still uses the very low resolution art assets from the 3DS version rather than the HD ones from the console versions, keyboard users cannot rebind certain buttons such as the Skill Activation buttons which have been pre-defined to use the F1-F4 keys, and most other languages still outside of English (Japanese Voice Mode), Japanese, Korean, and Traditional Chinese uses the mediocre localization by 8-4 with the missing voice-overs rather than Inti Create's own in-house localization with the fully-voiced dialogue intact.
Scrappy Mechanic: The in-stage dialogue in the Japanese 3DS version. The overlay is incredibly obstructive during gameplay, with the faded text box on the bottom of the screen not being transparent enough and the lower-left corner being completely obscured by the character portrait, leaving many to wonder why the developers didn't take advantage of the second screen for text. That said however, it's also the subject of a Broken Base because all the extra dialogue goes a long way in fleshing out the story and characters over the condensed US version. The Steam release and later the 3DS patch give you the option to play the version with the in-stage dialogue (with a revised English translation, to boot) and the original US version without, and for those playing with the dialogue, there's an added toggle button that turns it on and off in case you need your view unobstructed for a particular section.
So Okay, It's Average: General consensus is that, even though the game is enjoyable for a playthrough, the bland level design and lack of weapon diversity makes it inferior to the Mega Man games it draws inspiration from.
That One Attack: Most of the bosses, regardless of difficulty, have one attack that is extremely annoying.
- Viper's attacks in general are hard to avoid, but his Volcanic Axe and Refulgence deserve special mention. The former can home in on you no matter where you run and the latter is basically a mini Bullet Hell that requires skill to leave unscathed. Taken up to eleven in Hard Mode, where every attack deals over half your health in damage; Refulgence will kill you in a heartbeat if you haven't learned how to dodge every bullet down to the last note.
- Carrera's Quasar Collapse deals enough damage to One-Hit Kill in most cases if you're caught in it. It also draws GV towards it, and if you think you can cheese it by tagging and zapping him while dashing away, tough luck: using your Flashfield causes you to be drawn towards it even quicker, so there's no other option but to simply run.
- Lazy Laser is like a good shmup; it takes practice to learn. Newcomers will most likely get backed into a corner and fried if they don't already know how to lure the beams. Merak's "megaton punch" attack will also easily catch you off-guard due to having almost no tell.
- Stratos's Heavy Burden and bug swarm combo requires timing to avoid.
- Elise knows Gorgon Gaze, which not only locks you down, but also makes the next attack deal triple damage. It's also rather tricky to avoid when you're focusing on the fight and not Elise's tells. Resurrection is also rather frustrating if you aren't dividing up your damage equally among both bosses.
- Copen's Power Grab and Gorgon Gaze attacks are, without question, the most annoying attacks in his arsenal. The former can ignore Prevasion and will induce the Chaff status ailment, preventing you from using or recharging your Flashfield. The latter can petrify you and multiply the damage of his next attack.
- Asimov's version of the Orochi shot is the most infuriating part of his battle, because it's downright unpredictable. Unlike his Limit Break, the boss starts alternating between spamming it and the Mizuchi shot. The latter can also be unpredictable, but at least it gives you a window of opportunity with each shot. Orochi, on the other hand, always has a difficult tell which direction it will start firing its volley (and it comes in two waves). And Asimov's shots cause instant overheat, so the player cannot counter the boss's Flashfield (which is the only opening the player has to actually damage him).
That One Boss:
- Viper, especially if you're going for high amounts of Kudos. While most bosses are slow, leave themselves open, or have glaring tells, Viper's attacks are very quick and have little to no warning as to what he's going to do, leading to Damn You, Muscle Memory! when you try jumping over what you think is a fire kick, but actually ends up being a jump attack. And then there's Refulgence, where he literally fills the screen with fireballs that require near-perfect movements to get out unscathed.
- Jota can also be the bane of Kudos hunters for one simple reason: His Phosporatorium attack is actually avoidable, but nothing in-game tells you how to pull it off (shoot him with auto-fire darts, preferably Cerberus darts, to slow him down until his overhead slash clears away, you can also simply jump right behind him as he's starting his attack, avoiding being damaged in general).
- Elise can be one thanks to her Resurrection attack which requires you to kill both of them at the same time or they will keep reviving each other. It doesn't help that one Elise takes damage faster than the other, so even if you've locked on to both of them, one might die and allow the other to revive her. Compounding the difficulty is her Gorgon's Gaze, which turns Gunvolt to stone and is hard to avoid, not to mention multiplying the damage he takes from the next attack. It only gets worse during the rematch, where her third personality is unleashed. Not only is the third one immune to damage, but will relentlessly attack with kunai knives, which is especially annoying when you've been frozen by Gorgon's Gaze and thus left open to all three of them bombarding you with knives. And to make matters worse, even when you destroy the other two, the third one will simply revive them, turning the boss fight into a fight to simply stay alive until Copen appears and kills her.
That One Level: Many a player has died to the Subaquatic Base's underwater section, usually due to drowning and becoming trapped by shutters that have too much health for you to shoot. Ironically, this is the one level in which the Dullahan would be extremely useful when you can't Flashfield.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While it doesn't seem like the 8-4 changed things so much as cut the majority of dialogue out, the localization receives this form of criticism a lot on GameFAQs as not only does this mean a LOT of the world building is missing, but there are several areas in levels that are empty or repetitive which was meant to allow you to focus on the dialogue. With that cut out, those portions just feel poorly paced.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Saving Viper for the last boss rematch as opposed to Carrera would propably be a better choice characterization-wise, as he surely would have some scathing words for Gunvolt after he let Joule die. Especially with her being present this time around. Though it does makes perfect sense from a gameplay perspective, as the battle demonstrates that even with Joule's Anthem power, GV is still vulnerable to the Chaff status, which serves to prepare the player for the ensuing battle with Asimov.
The Woobie: Joule. The poor girl was created by Sumeragi, hooked up to a weapon, and used to hurt other adepts against her will. By the time Gunvolt finds her, she'd rather die than keep on living like this. Of course, Gunvolt rescues her, but Sumeragi is still after her. By the end of the game, Merak kidnaps her, and Nova uses her as a weapon once more. Her second rescue is short lived, as Asimov shoots her and Gunvolt, leading to Joule merging with Lumen and losing her physical form. And mind you, this is in the good ending. In the bad one, she simply dies after Asimov's attack. Geez.
Woolseyism: Quite a few instances indicate that the translators were having fun with the English version's script.
- The use of "gack" and "jitt" as this game's curse words cross the line twice by being barely altered from what they mean but sounding funny enough for no one to care.
- A lot of Viper's dialogue was this, mentioning that he'll "hike his boot up [Gunvolt's] exit hatch" and throwing in "jockblocked" and "shockwad" for good measure.
- Merak must be an Internet person, mentioning "Realms of Robocraft" (or just "MMORPGs" in the revised translation) and "videos of cats".
- A more subtle one: While Cyan's Dub Name Change into "Joule" may be received as pointless by some, it makes a bit more sense when you consider what "Joule" means. Not only is it a unit of electrical energy,^note but the items used to make the Memento Macguffin, symbolizing Gunvolt's relationship with Joule? Jewels.
- Copen's Limit Break is called Lust Doppler in the Japanese version. The English translation changes it to Doppler Desire, which still alludes to the bosses' Seven Deadly Sins motif while also taking advantage of Added Alliterative Appeal.

YMMV / Azure Striker Gunvolt

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